The truth is always individual

Question 1:

Ashok Saraswati, there are many implications in your question.

First, the world is not moving rationally. It was moving rationally up to Albert Einstein; after Albert Einstein, the rational approach has become invalid. The irrational has exploded in every field of experimentation.

Now paintings are no longer rational. If you see the old paintings, you can understand reasonably well what they are; but the same is not true about Picasso.

I have heard that in one of the exhibitions of his paintings, a critic was almost obsessed with one painting. He would go around to other paintings, but would come again and again to the same painting. Picasso was watching. Finally he went to the man and asked, "Why are you so much interested in this painting?"

The man said, "I am a critic, and this is the only painting for the future."

Picasso looked at the painting and said, "My God! It is hanging upside down."

But even that does not make any difference; you cannot rationally understand the meaning of the paintings of Picasso. But you can be enchanted, thrilled. You can fall in love. You can see the beauty of the colors, you can see the harmony. It can leave a tremendously deep impact on you, but there is no meaning. If somebody asks you what this painting means, you will not be able to answer - because even Picasso is not able to answer it.

He has written to a friend, "I am very angry at people who ask the meaning of my paintings, because they make me feel embarrassed. Nobody asks the roses, 'What is your meaning?' Nobody asks the sunset, 'What is your meaning?' Nobody asks the sky full of stars, 'What is your meaning?' Why is everybody asking poor Picasso the meaning of his paintings? Existence has no meaning. As far as reason is concerned, there is no rationality in existence; it is irrational."

In my words, it is mystical.

Ashok Saraswati, the world is not progressing towards more rationality. Rationality is already out of date. The genius has already transcended it.

In poetry.... You cannot ask Ezra Pound, "What is the meaning?" Ezra Pound will say, "It is poetry, and what does poetry have to do with meaning?" Poetry is something that triggers joy in you, ecstasy, silence, peace - for no reason at all.

The words of the poetry are not the poetry - the poetry is somewhere between the words, between the lines. So those who only read words never come to know what poetry is; they remain hung up with prose. Prose is rational, poetry is irrational - that is the difference. Prose has a logic. Poetry has a mystery.

Looking at a dance, you don't ask the meaning. The dance certainly affects you, certainly reaches you - the greater the dancer the greater is his penetration within you - but there is no reason. His movements somehow create a situation in which your consciousness starts moving. There is a synchronicity, something within you starts dancing. But there is no meaning.

And it is true of all dimensions of creativity, even about science. Physics has crossed the limits of reason, has entered into the irrational. Mathematics has crossed the line of reason.

Mathematics used to be the most rational thing in the world, because it is a product of reason. Mathematics does not exist in existence, it is purely man-made. Naturally, man has made it absolutely rational. But even mathematics got into trouble in this century because physics, biochemistry, chemistry - everything was moving beyond reason, beyond meaning. And mathematics has been the base of it all.

One great mathematician, Godel, was writing a masterpiece on mathematics. It was going to be the ultimate book about mathematics, and he was capable of doing it. He devoted almost his whole life - thousands of pages, and he was just going to conclude it. At that time another mathematician and philosopher, Bertrand Russell, was also working on a great work on mathematics, PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA, to include everything.

Mathematics was thought to be the perfect science. But Bertrand Russell came across a small puzzle in a children's magazine, and he could not solve it - and he is one of the great mathematicians of this age. That puzzle has become known as 'Bertrand Russell's paradox.' Godel wrote him that he was just going to conclude his book, and Bertrand Russell said, "Before you conclude it, please think this puzzle over," and he sent this puzzle to Godel.

The puzzle was very simple. The puzzle is that every librarian of the country receives an order to make a catalogue of all the books that are in the library. And he has to make two catalogues: one will remain with him in the library, and one has to be sent to the central library of the country.

Many librarians felt the difficulty - what to do about the catalogue? One catalogue is going to remain in the library; now that is a book - has it to be included in the catalogue or not?

It was very difficult. You cannot include it; it never existed. It is simply a catalogue. But you have made it, it has come into existence, and now it will remain in the library. If there were three thousand books, now there will be three thousand and one books. What about that one book? Should it be catalogued?

But those local librarians simply wrote the problem to the chief librarian of the central library: "We have come across a difficult problem. We are sending the catalogue to you - whatever you decide, we have left a place. If you feel to include it, you can include the catalogue also, but that will mean that the catalogue includes itself. That is absurd."

The chief librarian was going mad. He made a big catalogue of all the books in his library and the books in all the libraries of the country, and finally the same question was again there: whether the catalogue had to be included in the catalogue or not. He had to keep one catalogue in the library, and one catalogue went to the king so that the king knew how many books were in the central library and how many books were in other libraries. If it is not included, it would be a lie; if it is included, it would be an absurdity.

Bertrand Russell sent that puzzle to Godel - "You are a great mathematician, old, world-famous, and you are going to conclude a book which is going to be the most important book ever written on mathematics. Please solve this puzzle also; it is a mathematical problem."

And Godel went so crazy... he burned his book on which he had worked for almost forty years. The puzzle still remains.

There comes a moment where reason fails; where the absurd, the irrational, the mystical, the miraculous raises its head.

The coming hundred years are going to be more and more irrational.

I do not ordinarily make prophecies, but about this I am absolutely prophetic: the coming hundred years are going to be more and more irrational, and more and more mystical.

The second thing: After a hundred years people will be perfectly able to understand why I was misunderstood - because I am the beginning of the mystical, the irrational.

I am a discontinuity with the past.

The past cannot understand me; only the future will understand.

The past can only condemn me. It cannot understand me, it cannot answer me, it cannot argue with me; it can only condemn me. Only the future... as man becomes more and more available to the mysterious, to the meaningless yet significant.

The rose is meaningless - but it is so significant, so beautiful.

The whole existence is significant, but not meaningful.

Meaning is of the mind, and significance is of the heart.

Love is significant but not meaningful. That's why for centuries parents have been choosing marriage partners for their sons and their daughters. Marriage is meaningful. The parents are experienced; they will choose the right family. They will choose a boy for their girl who has character, morality.

They will choose a boy who is a success in the world of ambition, who is somebody, or who has the potential and is going upwards and his tomorrow is going to be golden. They will see to it that the boy is going to inherit a large treasure - money, power, prestige. The same is the case for the girl.

It is a business transaction; hence, kings will only marry into other royal families - to create ties, so that wars can be avoided. If you look at Europe, almost every royal family is connected with the other royal families in some way or other.

I had one sannyasin, Vimalkirti - if empires had remained in fashion, he would have been the emperor of Germany. But empires went out of fashion; his father was just a postmaster, but Vimalkirti was the grandson of the last emperor of Germany. He was connected with almost all the royal families of Europe. The queen of England is his aunt because Philip, the husband of the queen, is Vimalkirti's mother's brother. Vimalkirti's mother has three sisters, of course married into three royalties - Denmark, Holland, Greece; so all those royalties are connected. This was a strategy, a business strategy - you cannot fight with your own relatives.

Secondly, it keeps the royal blood 'pure', as if there is something like royal blood.

Man has lived in such fictions. Blood is blood. There is no royal blood.

You must have seen in pictures that Queen Victoria and others used such clothes that you could not see their feet. Bertrand Russell himself belonged to a royal family and remembers about his childhood - because he lived long, almost one century. He made the century, and to live one century is really to live too much! He saw so many things happening, so many changes, so many fashions coming and going. He remembers that in his youth, just to see the feet of a woman was enough for a man to be sexually aroused - because any hidden thing creates curiosity. And nobody has seen any queen naked, ever. It was thought that queens' legs are joined together; that's why they walked so slowly. They walked slowly because that was the royal way, of grace. But the whole of Europe thought that their legs were joined, and there was no way to find out.

Marriage, whether it is a royal marriage or an ordinary marriage, is a business affair that the parents think about.

Love never thinks about how much money you have in the bank. Or do you ask before falling in love, "Before I fall in love, just tell me how much you have in your bank account. I'm just going to fall - before the fall happens, at least I should know about the bank account." You can fall in love with a beggar - because love is not business; love has no meaning in that sense.

You may have loved, but you cannot say what meaning it has.

It is one of the mysteries available to everybody.

And that's why I say love is the door to the divine.

The divine is not available to everybody. Love is available to everybody. Now it is up to you to transform your love into the divine; it is the door. But don't ask for meaning; neither is there any meaning in love, nor is there any meaning in the divine.

My grandfather was always arguing with me, "What is this enlightenment business? What are you going to gain out of it?"

I said, "That is where you miss the whole thing - the moment you ask what are you going to gain out of it."

But he said, "If you are not going to gain anything out of it, then why all this trouble? One should work for something MEANINGFUL."

I used to sit for hours silently, and he would always come... because my father and my uncles had retired him forcibly, he was not ready to retire. So in the house, only two persons were useless:

I was useless because I had never entered into business; he was useless because he had been thrown out of business. So we almost always had to meet - everybody else was busy. And I would be sitting silently and he would come and sit by my side.

And he would say, "Listen. They have retired me forcibly - and you are a fool! You are already retired, without ever entering into any business. What is the gain? What are you going to get by sitting silently?"

I said, "I don't want to get anything, I simply want to sit silently. It is so beautiful, it is so joyous."

He said, "This is all poetry. In life, real money is needed." And he was an experienced old man and he was right - in life, poetry will not help. He would say to me again and again, "Listen son, nobody is taking care of you - they are spoiling you. They are all busy in earning money, and they have left you alone for enlightenment. And never mention enlightenment to me." He used to say to me, "Even that word makes me so angry. From where did you get this idea? Just do something useful! But you are turning good-for-nothing."

I said, "Exactly that is the definition, the definition of enlightenment."

We used to go for walks in the morning, in the evening. By and by, I said to him, "Listen. Anyway, you are retired and I am not going to enter into business, so drop arguing for the business. What have you gained? You have simply been thrown out. I will remain out from the very beginning; nobody can throw me out, nobody can retire me. And you are retired, now relax. Just try for a few moments sitting by my side with closed eyes."

He said, "But unless I understand the meaning of it... I don't want to become a laughingstock. Sitting with closed eyes - if somebody sees me they will think, 'This old man has gone senile.'"

I said, "It is up to you, but one thing you should remember: that your whole life you rushed after meaning, usefulness, utility. And now you have come close to death. The day you die, silence can go with you, money cannot; peace can go with you, power cannot. And if you are full of inner light, your death can become the most ecstatic experience. You have lived the world, now try to prepare yourself for death - and in death, the coins of this world are useless."

But he was adamant, and old habits die hard. And to listen to a small child and follow him was against his ego.... But when he was dying, out of the whole family he remembered me. I was eighty miles away in the university; I rushed back home. He was just taking his last breaths, as if he were simply waiting for me. He had become a skeleton. He wanted to say something to me; I had to put my ear close to his mouth. And I said, "You can say whatever you want to say, and this time I will not argue - because you don't have any time. You simply say it."

He said, "I only want to say to you that you were right and I was wrong, but now it is too late." These were his last words.

Gertrude Stein, a famous poetess, was dying. She was world-famous, and I love her stories, her poetry, her parables - because they don't have any meaning, but they are beautiful flowers. You can feel the fragrance, the freshness, the aliveness; there is a message. All her lovers, friends, were surrounding her. She opened her eyes and said, "What is the answer?"

Now this was absurd, because she had not asked any question, so how can she ask what is the answer? For a moment there was silence. Then somebody said, "But you have not asked the question."

So she said, "Okay. There is not much time left, so what is the question?" - and she died.

There is no question, and there is no answer. Life is a mystery to be lived - not to be questioned and not to be asked, not to be questioned and not to be answered... lived, loved, laughed, danced.

After a hundred years people will be able to understand perfectly why I was condemned so unanimously from all over the world.

Even here, just today a threat has come that if I am not going to leave this place the house will be burned. Just as I was coming to you I told Neelam to tell Suraj Prakash, from me, that if there is any problem I can move to a hotel - because I would not like his family to be in trouble unnecessarily.

After a hundred years they will understand. Because the more man becomes aware of the mysterious side of life, the less he is political; the less he is a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian; the less is the possibility for his being a fanatic. A man in tune with the mysterious is humble, loving, caring, accepting the uniqueness of everybody. He is rejoicing in the freedom of each individual, because only with freedom can this garden of humanity be a rich place.

Each individual should have his own song.

But right now it is the crowd, the mob, that decides everything. And it is the mob that is condemning me because I am asserting the rights of the individual - and I am alone in asserting the rights of the individual.

And there are people, millions of people, but they are all divided into different kinds of mobs. In a Christian country it is the Christian mob which wants to burn me. In Greece it was the Christian orthodox church that wanted to dynamite the house in which I was living, and which threatened the government that if I was not thrown out of the boundaries of their country within an hour then that house in which I was a guest would be burned, with all the people who were in it. It was a big, beautiful old house and nearabout twenty-five sannyasins were living with me. I had not gone out of the house in fifteen days.

But the mob is afraid of individuals. The very assertion of individuality is a danger to the mobocracy; and it doesn't matter whether the mob is Christian or the mob is Hindu or the mob is Mohammedan.

The question is not of the adjective; the question is that the mob is always against the individual.

And the truth is always individual.

It is never in the hands of the mob.

The people who are to come after a hundred years will be perfectly able to understand what my crime was.

My crime is the assertion of individuality against any kind of mob and its violent pressures.

You have also asked how it feels to me to be persecuted. As far as I am concerned, it just feels great! I have nothing to lose. The mob is fighting a losing battle, its days are gone. I am fighting a battle which is going to be victorious - if not in my time then some other time. But I am on the right path. It is tremendously fulfilling that I am not amongst the persecutors, that I am the persecuted; that I am not amongst those who crucify, but I am amongst those who are crucified - because those who are crucified are the real salt of the earth. Only they have helped human consciousness to grow. The people who have been crucifying are sub-human.

So it is perfectly good; they can kill me, at the most. But killing me, they will be living in a very mistaken idea - because I have come to know a source within me which cannot be killed. Only the body can be destroyed. But the body is going to die anyway - it is far more beautiful that it dies for something beautiful, that it dies in a creative way to bring something into the world, that it is not an ordinary death. I have lived an extraordinary life, and I would love to die extraordinarily.

So as far as I am concerned, to be persecuted from one country to another country, from one land to another land, from one mob to another mob, is just a game. Knowing perfectly well, so absolutely certain, that the truth is with me, it does not matter. Even if the whole world is against me it makes no difference.

It is joyful and playful - from my side. I am enjoying the whole drama, and I will enjoy it to my last breath - because there is nothing to lose. Whatever life can give, it has given to me.

I want to taste death in the most beautiful way possible. And to be crucified for the sake of truth, for the sake of the future, for the sake of the evolution of human consciousness, is the only way one can conceive a beautiful death.

Question 2:

The hammer is here. Where is your skull?

Your skull is hiding behind so many masks, you have grown so many buffers around you.

You have to understand the word 'buffer'. Between two railway compartments there are buffers.

They are there so that if by chance there is any accident, the buffers will absorb the shock and will not allow it to reach the passengers inside the compartment. Or like springs in your car: those springs go on absorbing all the shocks of the road and they don't allow them to reach you.

Mind has created all kinds of buffers. So when you are hit by a hammer, the buffer absorbs the shock; it doesn't reach you. And unless you are alert about the buffers and you drop those buffers, there is no way for any hammer to destroy your conditionings, to destroy your resistances, to destroy your walls that you have created around yourself. You have created them as part of security, but they have grown too much, and instead of being a security, now it is a question of how to save you from your own security measures.

This is something to be understood. Scientists have found mammoth skeletons, animals four times to six times bigger than elephants which used to roam around the earth millions of years ago.

Then suddenly, they disappeared. Science has been at a loss to find out what happened, why they disappeared from all over the world. Only recently, science has come with a hypothesis which seems to me to be correct.

The hypothesis is that those big animals went on becoming bigger; that was a security measure.

They were collecting extra fat for emergency days because food was becoming scarce; those big animals needed immense amounts of food. So small animals were disappearing, and a time came when those big animals were not finding fresh food every day. They started accumulating their own fat inside. That's a security measure, so that when you are not getting food, your body has a system - everybody's body has a system....

That's what happens to you when you go on fast. When you are fasting you go on losing one pound, two pounds of weight every day. Where do those two pounds disappear to? Have you ever asked?

I was addressing a Jaina conference and I asked, "You preach fasting as a religious thing and you think fasting is non-violent. But can you answer me? - where do those two pounds disappear to every day? You have eaten your own meat! Fasting is not vegetarian."

The body has an emergency system. When it cannot get the usual supply of food, then it has a reservoir of its own fat. You will see, women can get fatter than men for the simple reason that they can become mothers - and when a woman becomes pregnant she cannot eat; it becomes more and more difficult for her to eat. The child is growing in her womb - and the child needs food, the mother needs food - and the mother cannot eat. Hence, nature provides the capacity to the female body to accumulate more fat than man. So for nine months she can supply a new child, a new life, with food - and also survive herself.

Those mammoth animals started getting so much extra fat that movement became impossible. The weight of their bodies was so much that they could not move; they died because they could not chase animals to eat.

This I saw in the commune in America - because thousands of deer had come to the commune.

Everywhere else they were shot; only in the commune they were not killed. And they had a certain love for a special grass, alfalfa; so I told my sannyasins, "Grow as much alfalfa all around the commune as possible, because these poor deer, they have come as guests."

But one day I was informed that it had become a danger, because four deer died for no reason at all.

The doctors investigated the case and found that we had provided too much alfalfa for them. They had become so fat - and their legs are thin; a deer needs thin legs to run - and they could not move.

Running was out of the question, they could not even go for a morning walk! I said, "Then some measure has to be taken; then somebody has to take care that they should not get too much alfalfa.

Otherwise, they have come here to save their lives but they will die just from eating too much!"

It is a security phenomenon which nature provides you with - to have some fat gathered around your bones in case you cannot get food. You can live for at least ninety days without food - you will become an absolute skeleton, but you can live for ninety days.

Mind has created buffers to protect itself, because continuously, without your knowing, you are bombarded with thought waves from all around you. Everybody sitting by your side is throwing thought waves towards you; everybody is a broadcasting station. You don't hear it, the person does not shout it, but those waves are carrying his thoughts towards you. So many times you have found yourself puzzling: suddenly this thought has come to you; there seems to be no reason why it should come at this moment. It may not be your thought at all, it may be just the thought of the person who is sitting by your side.

It is just like radio waves carrying messages. They are passing right now, but you don't hear them; but just a small receiving mechanism and you can hear.

It happened in Sweden in the last world war: a man got shot in the ear. His ear was healed, but a strange phenomenon happened: he started hearing strange things in the hospital ward - songs, news bulletins. He said to the nurses, to the doctors, "Something is going wrong. I am hearing the whole program of the radio station." At first they did not believe him, because it had never happened before. But finally they had to accept it, because in the other room they placed a radio and from the nearest local station he was catching everything.

"Now the news bulletin begins," he would say, "now this is going on, now this singer is going to sing." They were checking in the other room, and he was absolutely right. Something happened in his eardrums; they became receptive. It was unique. But the man was going mad, because for twenty-four hours... who wants it?

The doctor said, "You are great! - because it is unprecedented...."

He said, "That is all right, but unless you put in something so that I can turn the radio off, I don't want it! Even if I have to be deaf in one ear, I am ready; take it out. But twenty-four hours a day, even in sleep.... When in the middle of the night they finish the last statement, then I can go to sleep - that is up until six o'clock... six hours rest. Again at six o'clock and the radio begins. And I cannot listen to other people because the radio is so loud. I cannot talk - I am saying something, and I start saying something else - because that radio goes on mixing with my own thoughts. It is becoming difficult to distinguish what are my thoughts and what are the radio's."

His ear had to be removed - because we don't know any way to put a switch on it so he can turn it on and off. But it has shown a possibility, that some day you may not need big radios in your houses; college students may not need to be putting their transistors to their ears. Just behind your ear there is a knob - you put it on, you put it off, and nobody will know. You can enjoy, it will be absolutely private; special programs can be given to those people, private programs.

I used to know a man, a very rich man who would put earplugs into his ears when he would go into his office. You could say anything to him and he would smile and laugh, but he would never comment on anything. Because I was friendly to him, his manager said to me, "Something seems to be strange. Outside the office he talks and he is perfectly well. Inside the office he simply smiles, laughs - and at times it is not the point to laugh. Somebody is saying that his wife has died and he laughs! And it does not look good; it looks as if he is mad. What is the matter?"

I said, "Nothing is the matter. He is tired of listening to everybody's story, so he is completely deaf.

He is using earplugs, he is not hearing anything. He smiles just show to you that he has heard you."

Continuously, your mind is bombarded from all sides by all kinds of thoughts. To protect itself, each mind has created a subtle wall of buffers so those thoughts are turned back, they don't enter your mind. It is basically good, but then slowly those buffers have grown so much that now they don't allow anything in. Even if you want, they are no longer in your control. And the only way to break them is the same way as breaking your own thoughts. Just become a witness of your thoughts. And as your thoughts start disappearing, the need for the buffers to protect those thoughts will not be there; those buffers will start falling. These are all abstract phenomena, so you cannot see them - but their effects are there.

Only the man who knows how to meditate is the man who knows how to listen, or vice-versa. The man who knows how to listen knows how to meditate, because it is the same thing.

That's why it happens here. You are listening to me. You love me, you trust me; you are so eager to drink each word. You are so intensely ready to absorb that your own inner thought process stops.

The buffers drop. You feel a silence, you feel a new space. When you are gone, again the old game begins. You just have to understand the strategy. Then you can sit by the side of a tree, on your bed, anywhere - just try to listen the traffic noise, but intensely and totally, with no judgment that it is good or bad. And your thoughts will drop, and with that your buffers will drop - and suddenly a gap opens up which leads you into silence and peace.

For centuries this has been the only way for anyone to come close to the reality of his own being and the mystery of existence. And as you come closer, you start feeling cooler, you start feeling happier; you start feeling fulfilled, contented, blissful. A point comes where you are so full of bliss that you can share with the whole world, still your blissfulness will remain the same.

That's what one of THE UPANISHADS says: You can take the whole out of the whole, yet the whole remains behind. This is not something philosophical, theoretical. This is something existential, experiential.

You can give all your bliss, and still the whole bliss remains behind. You can go on giving, but there is no way to exhaust it. Here you can only learn the method; then you have to use that method whenever you can, wherever you can.

And you have so much time - standing in a bus, sitting in a train, lying down on the bed. I see people playing cards, smoking cigars, going to the cinema hall. And you ask them, "Why you are doing all this?"

They say, "... Killing time."

People have so much time that they are killing it. They don't know any other use for it.

Please, just those moments which you want to kill - save them for meditation. And I don't want any other change in your life. I am not asking much: simply don't kill time. And that time which you have been killing up to now, now let that time kill you!

Question 3:

There are relationships and relationships, but none is comparable to the relationship that exists between the master and the disciple.

All other relationships are conditional, even the best.

For example, a love relationship is still demanding. The only relationship which is unconditional, undemanding, is that which exists between the master and the disciple.

In fact, it is so rare, so unique, that it should not be categorized with other relationships. It is the poverty of language that makes us call something a relationship which is not a relationship. It is a merger, it is a meeting - for no reason at all.

The disciple is not asking anything, and the master is not promising anything; yet there is thirst in the disciple and there is promise in the master. It is a closeness in which nobody is higher and nobody is lower - yet the disciple is a woman, always a woman, because the disciple is nothing but an opening, a womb, a receptivity. And the master is always a man, because the master is nothing but a giving, a giving for no other reason than that he is so full. He has to give. He is a raincloud.

Just as the disciple is in search, the master is also in search. The disciple is in search of where he can open himself without any fear, without any resistance, without holding anything back - totally.

And the master is also in search of such a human being who can receive the mysterious, who is ready to be pregnant with the mysterious, who is ready to be reborn.

There are many teachers, and there are many students. The teachers have borrowed knowledge.

They may be very scholarly, very knowledgeable, but inside themselves there is darkness; their knowledge is hiding their ignorance. And there are students who are in search of knowledge.

The master and the disciple is a totally different thing.

The master does not give you knowledge, he shares his being.

And the disciple is not in search of knowledge, he is in search of being. He is, but he does not know who he is. He wants to be revealed to himself, he wants to stand naked before himself.

The master can only do a simple thing, and that is to create trust. Everything else happens. The moment the master is capable of creating trust, the disciple drops his defenses, drops his clothes, drops his knowledge. He becomes just a child again - innocent, alert, alive - a new beginning.

The ordinary father and mother have given birth to your body - that is one life, which will end in death. Your father and mother are responsible for your birth and for your death. The master also gives a new birth, but it is the birth of consciousness, which knows only a beginning - and there is no end to it.

All that is needed is an atmosphere of absolute trust - and in that trust, things start happening on their own; neither does the disciple do them nor does the master. The disciple receives them. The master is the vehicle of the universal forces - just like a hollow bamboo that can become a flute. But the song is not of the hollow bamboo; the hollow bamboo can have the credit only of not destroying the song, of allowing it.

The master is a medium of the universal consciousness.

If you are available, suddenly the universal consciousness stirs in you the sleeping, dormant consciousness. The master has not done anything. The disciple has not done anything. It is all a happening.

The ancient stories are significant, to be remembered. Seekers went through hundreds of teachers until they came to a man in whose presence suddenly the trust was there - they had arrived. Masters were moving....

There is a beautiful story.

Gautam Buddha comes into a town. The whole town has gathered to listen to him but he goes on waiting, looking backwards at the road - because a small girl, not more than thirteen years old, has met him on the road and told him, "Wait for me. I am going to give this food to my father at the farm, but I will be back in time. But don't forget, wait for me."

Finally, the elders of the town say to Gautam Buddha, "For whom are you waiting? Everybody important is present; you can start your discourse."

Buddha says, "But the person for whom I have come so far is not yet present and I have to wait."

Finally the girl arrives and she says, "I am a little late, but you kept your promise. I knew you would keep the promise, you had to keep the promise because I have been waiting for you since I became aware... maybe I was four years old when I heard your name. Just the name, and something started ringing a bell in my heart. And since then it has been so long - ten years maybe - that I have been waiting."

And Buddha says, "You have not been waiting uselessly. You are the person who has been attracting me to this village."

And he speaks, and that girl is the only one who comes to him: "Initiate me. I have waited enough, and now I want to be with you."

Buddha says, "You have to be with me because your town is so far off the way that I cannot come again and again. The road is long, and I am getting old."

In that whole town not a single person came up to be initiated into meditation - only that small girl.

In the night when they were going to sleep, Buddha's chief disciple Ananda asked, "Before you go to sleep I want to ask you one question: do you feel a certain pull towards a certain space - just like a magnetic pull?"

And Buddha said, "You are right. That's how I decide my journeys. When I feel that somebody is thirsty - so thirsty that without me, there is no way for the person - I have to move in that direction."

The master moves towards the disciple.

The disciple moves towards the master.

Sooner or later they are going to meet.

The meeting is not of the body, the meeting is not of the mind. The meeting is of the very soul - as if suddenly you bring two lamps close to each other; the lamps remain separate but their flames become one. Between two bodies when the soul is one, it is very difficult to say that it is a relationship. It is not, but there is no other word; language is really poor.

It is at-oneness.