Drop Becoming! Being is Enough

The first question:

Question 1:

Please.

The second question:

Question 2:

'Why?' is a wrong question to ask. Things simply are. There is no why to them. The question why, once accepted, will lead you farther and farther into philosophy, and philosophy is a wasteland. You will not find any oasis there, it is desert. Ask the question 'why?' and you have started moving in a wrong direction; you will never come home.

Existence is, there is no why to it. That's what we mean when we say it is a mystery, because there is no why to it. In fact it should not be there and it is. There seems to be no need for it to be there,, no reason for it to be there, and it is there. 'Why' is a mind question.

And now you can be in a very great puzzle, because the mind is asking a question about itself: "Why is the mind?" The question comes from the mind, the answers will come from the mind, and the mind is capable of turning each answer into a new question. You will be moving in a vicious circle. To ask the question 'why?' is to fall into the trap of the mind. You will have to see to it. The question 'why?' has to be dropped; that's the meaning of trust.

Mind is. We can try to see WHAT it is, how it is, but we cannot know the why. To know the why we will have to go to the very beginning of existence, and there has never been a beginning. To know the why we will have to go to the very bottom of it, and there is no bottom. To know the why we will have to move to the foundation, but there is no foundation. That's the difference between a philosophic inquiry and a religious search. Philosophy asks why and gets lost more and more in the mire of the question 'why?' Religion is not concerned with why, science is not concerned with why.

The approach of science and religion is pragmatic. It is practical, utterly practical. Ask the question "What is mind?" because then there is a possibility. Because the mind is there, you are there, you can look into it, you can observe it, you can watch it and you can know what it is. Awareness can reveal its secret. To know why you will have to move backwards, into the beginning of things. That is not possible. Ask "What is mind?" and soon you will be able to see the reality of it.

Mind is nothing but the process of thinking, the traffic of thought. There exists not some faculty called mind. It is like a mirror. A mirror can be in two states: one is when the mirror is reflecting something - people are passing and the mirror reflects, pictures arise and disappear. This is the state of the mind: consciousness is reflecting outside reality. Then the other state of the mirror is when nothing is reflected, nothing is passing by. The mirror is utterly silent, no picture arises. This is meditation.

Mind is a state of consciousness when the outer world is reflected in, and meditation is a state of the same consciousness when the outer world is not reflected in. Mind and meditation are two aspects of the same reality called consciousness. Mind is burdened with the outside. Meditation is a state of unburdened consciousness, nothing is reflected, consciousness is in its purity. There is no foreign matter moving inside it. Mind is nothing but consciousness reacting to reality, and meditation is nothing but consciousness simply there, not reflecting anything.

There is no need to fight with the mind; just understanding, awareness, observation, and mind starts dissolving.

You ask, "WHY IS THE MIND? IT SEEMS TO BE A VERY REAL PART OF OUR BEING."

"I WOULD DIG TO FUNCTION WITHOUT IT, BUT WHY, WHY IS IT THERE?"

It's being there cannot prevent you from knowing the other state. In fact both states are of the same energy, phases of the same energy. Mind makes it possible for you to have the other state. Without mind you would not be able to meditate, without mind you would not know anything of meditation.

That's why animals don't know anything of meditation. Buddhas are not born there. Why? - the mind is not born yet. If the mind is not born yet, how can you know the state of no-mind? The mind has to be there; only then sometimes can you put the mind aside and see into reality without any mind. Mind is a must!

And when we say you have to transcend mind it doesn't mean that we are against mind.We are simply giving you a message: Don't be finished with the mind. Mind is only the beginning of meditation. Make it a jumping board, use it. A man who has not attained to meditation remains with the seed, thinking that this is all. The seed has to be dropped into the soil so that it disappears.

The seed has to be transcended by the tree, then only is it fulfilled. This is very paradoxical: the seed is fulfilled only in its death. Mind is fulfilled only in meditation, and meditation is mind's death.

But that's its function - it simply clears the way for meditation.

So mind is not the enemy of meditation. You can make it the enemy; that depends on you. If you become very antagonistic to mind, then you are turning a friend into an enemy. Then you are turning a stepping-stone into an obstacle. Remember it always: nothing is unnecessary, everything has its own place in. the ultimate harmony of things. Mind is a must!

When Adam left the Garden of Eden what did he do? He started creating mind. Hence, the symbolic Tree of Knowledge. He had been prohibited from eating of the Tree of Knowledge. Why had he been prohibited? - because that was the only way to seduce him into eating it. It is not that Adam had disobeyed God. In disobeying God, Adam had fulfilled God's desire. God wanted him to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, hence the denial, hence the commandment: "Don't eat from it!"

The Garden of Eden was a big garden. The whole existence is the Garden of Eden - millions and millions of trees. If Adam had been left on his own he might not yet have found the Tree of Knowledge. It was almost impossible to find it, it was not probable to find that one tree amongst millions and millions of trees. But God made it clear, saying, "Don't eat from this tree." He created the desire in Adam.

It was not the serpent who had seduced Adam, it was God Himself.

Why this seduction? - because mind has to be created. Otherwise Adam would have lived like an animal, happy but unaware. And what is happiness if you are not aware? You may be the king of the whole world and if you are not aware what does it mean? Animals live in a kind of happiness, but unaware, not knowing that they are happy. Without knowing that you are happy, happiness means nothing. It is better to be miserable, but knowing is a must.

Socrates is reported to have said, "Even if I am going to be miserable, I would like to be a Socrates rather than a satisfied pig. An unsatisfied Socrates I would like to be, but not a satisfied pig."

What is he saying? He is saying awareness is more valuable than any happiness, because only in awareness does happiness become bliss. Adam HAS to disobey. God planned it beautifully, very psychologically - He made certain that Adam would go astray, that he would eat from the Tree of Knowledge and would create mind. Because without mind, Adam would have never known what meditation is. Without going astray, Adam would never have become Jesus and come back home.

To come back home one has to go astray. To become a saint one has to go into the dark realms of sin; there is no other way.

If a tree wants to grow high in the sky, it has to grow deep roots into the darker soil.

Nietzsche has said, "If a tree wants to touch heaven then it will have to send its roots to hell." Without sending your roots to hell, you will not be able to bloom in heaven. Adam has to go to hell, he has to disobey, because only through disobedience can you learn the beauty of obedience. He has to doubt, because only through doubt, one day, are the mysteries of trust revealed. He HAD to become a mind. Only after you have become a mind, crystallized as an ego, is there a possibility of surrender, is there a possibility of transcending mind.

So when I say to you that mind has to be transcended, never for a single moment think that I am against mind. I am not. How can I be against mind? Without mind, how will you transcend it, how will you go beyond it? Mind is a must, a friend on the Way, but going only so far. And one has to go beyond it too. And its function is to take you so far, so that you can go beyond.

"SOMETIMES IT SEEMS THAT THE MIND SCREENS OUT AWARENESS, BUT ALSO IT SEEMS THAT MIND CAN BE VERY PRACTICAL, CAN HELP TO DO THINGS."

That's true. Mind screens out awareness; that's its function. It makes you aware of the reality only to that extent with which you can cope. Otherwise you would go mad. Life is impinging on you from all sides, in millions of ways, every second. Mind screens out ninety-eight percent, it allows only two percent of reality to enter you - and that too in a very modified form, in such a form that you can digest it. You are not able yet to digest totality. Mind narrows down, it allows only a little bit of reality.

Only in bits does it allow reality.

It is like when a small child is born, he cannot eat food directly. The mother has to eat the food, transform the food into milk, and the child will drink the milk. Slowly, slowly he will become able to eat food directly. Mind is a necessary phenomenon; without it you would have died. If a child were born without the capacity of mind, the reality would be too much. It would drive him crazy - so many colors, so many sounds, so many people. The world is multi-dimensional. If all this simply starts jumping on the child's consciousness it is bound to destroy the delicate phenomenon that the child is. The reality is to be bracketed out. Just small bits have to be allowed. Slowly, slowly the child will be able to digest more.

The problem arises that you remain a child for your whole life. That is the problem; not that the mind creates any problem. You are like a child who becomes addicted to milk and cannot drink anything else, cannot eat anything else forever. Now that is foolish. Milk was the right food at a certain time. It was the only food, the only nourishment, but a moment comes when the child has to move, become independent. He cannot go on depending on the mother's breast, he has to be on his own.

Mind protects you from reality; that's a must in the beginning. But the protection can also become a prison - THERE arises the problem. The guard that protects you can also become the jailer. He may protect you so much, and you may become so dependent on the protection, that you cannot become independent. A moment comes in life when you start feeling that mind is giving you only little bits of reality and you feel discontented. A really intelligent person is bound to feel discontented with the mind. Only unintelligent people can remain in the mind. Intelligent persons are bound to feel, one day or other, that the mind is allowing only little bits: "I am not a child anymore! I am a grown-up. I can have bigger windows in my being, and bigger doors, and I can allow more reality."

That's what meditation is - the beginning of creating bigger windows than the mind allows. And when your windows have become so big that all the walls have disappeared,, that is SAMADHI.

Now you are REALLY grown-up. This is Buddhahood, this is being a christ. Now you don't need ANY protection.

It is like when you plant a small tree, you have to protect it. A day comes when the tree has become strong enough; you remove all protection. It can protect itself. With the mind the problem is that there is nobody to remove it. The society creates it, the parents create it, the society, the college, the university create it, and there is nobody to help to uncreate it. That's the function of a Master.

And the world has become VERY poor because Masters don't exist now as they used to exist.

It is difficult now to find a Master. Teachers, you can find many, they abound, but to find a Master is very difficult.

And what is the difference between a teacher and a Master? The teacher creates the mind, the Master uncreates the mind. The teacher teaches you, gives you knowledge. The teacher is the snake. The school is the snake: it helps you to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. It is a great help: it takes you out of the Garden of Eden, it teaches you how to doubt, it teaches you how to disobey so that you can be out of all kinds of bondages. But then, finally, the mind itself becomes the bondage, and there is nobody to teach, there is nobody to help you come out of it. The university makes you a perfect Adam, and there everything stops. And we think education is finished: it is only half of the education, half of the journey. The REAL half is still there.

Somebody is needed, some place is needed, some milieu is needed where you can go and dissolve all that you have learned, where you can unlearn - that is SATSANG. Being with a Master, you start unlearning, you start un-minding. You start loosening all that you have learned. You start dissolving Adam and you start becoming a Christ.

Mind has its utilities. It is practical, it is needed, and even when you have become a meditator mind will be needed. But then it will be a servant, not a Master.

I am using mind - talking to you the mind has to be used. But the mind is not using me. Then the mind is a beautiful mechanism; you can use it. It HAS to be used. IT keeps your memories, IT keeps your experiences, it goes on sorting things out - what is necessary, what is unnecessary. It is a must in life. Even a Buddha needs it.

But Buddha himself has gone beyond, he stands above it. Whenever the mind is needed, he uses it, just as you use your legs. When you want to run you use your legs, when you want to walk you use your legs, but when you are lying down on your bed, resting, you don't use them, there is no need. But ordinarily that is not the case; the mind is using you. There is no need for the mind - you are lying on the bed, resting, and the mind goes on running, chasing unnecessary things. You are fed-up, you want it to stop. You shout, "Stop!" but it doesn't stop, it doesn't listen to you. You are not the master. It does not care a bit about you. You want to go to sleep and the mind goes on and on and on.

I have heard about a man, a great philosopher, who suffered from insomnia. A great philosopher must suffer from insomnia, otherwise he is not a great philosopher. He had lost all sleep. He would brood and brood and brood and think and think, and that sleeplessness was creating almost a maddening situation for him. He tried all methods. Somebody said, "Do this", he did that. "Count from one to a hundred and then backwards", and he counted and counted, and the whole night he would count, and the morning would be there, and his counting would continue and there would be no sleep. Somebody would say, "Eat this, drink that. Do this exercise, do this mantra - TM." He tried all, nothing was helping.

Years went by and he was almost mad. One day he simply committed suicide, he shot himself in the head. The story goes that even after that he could not sleep. The mind continued, because the mind is not the body.

I love the story. Insomnia is such a thing: you can commit suicide and it will be with you. You may become a ghost but you will not be able to sleep, because mind is your master. The mastery of the mind is the problem, not the mind itself, remember. Always remember, mind in itself is not the problem, but you have made the mind your master. Dethrone it, put it in its place. Mind has be to a servant. Claim your masterhood. That is the meaning of 'swami' - that's why a sannyasin is called a swami - 'swami' means one who has declared his mastership over the mind, one who has become a lord, one who is not any longer a servant, a slave.

But still the mind's practical use will remain. And you will be able to use it more intelligently then because you will not be under its sway, under its rule. You will be able to choose, you will be able to watch, you will be able to improve upon the mind.

You say, "IT SEEMS THAT MIND CAN BE VERY PRACTICAL" - it is - "CAN HELP TO DO THINGS.

DOES THE MIND HAVE A PLACE OR IS IT SOMETHING TO BE TOTALLY TRANSCENDED?"

It has a place, and still it has to be totally transcended.

In fact when you have totally transcended it then you will be able to use it perfectly, skillfully.

The third question:

Question 3:

It is.

It looks crazy because it is different. It looks crazy because you are not accustomed to it, and if you remain only a visitor you will go with the idea that this place is crazy. If you really want to know what is happening, become an insider, get into things, participate.

The so-called sane humanity is not sane at all. The normal person is not normal at all. If the normal person is normal then Jesus is abnormal, then Buddha is abnormal, then Jalaluddin Rumi is abnormal. But would you like to be the normal grocer, the bank manager, the politician, the schoolmaster, the clerk, the inspector of weights and measures? Would you like to be that normal person? Don't you have a deep desire to become something like Christ, Buddha? But they are abnormal, they are not normal. Their response to life is unique. People have always thought them crazy.

In fact, if you are miserable people think you are normal, because everybody is miserable. If you are happy, bubbling with joy, people think you must be a little crazy. Because this life is such - how can you bubble with joy? How can you dance? - you must be crazy, something must have gone loose inside you, You need a little tightening of the nuts and bolts. How are you happy? Life looks so sad, and everybody is so sad, and suddenly you start laughing? Life is not fun, it is a serious affair, and you are dancing?

This place is crazy. But don't watch it from the outside. There are things in life which can be known only by participation, because you will need a different vision to appreciate what is happening here.

Your ordinary categories won't do. You will not be able to pigeonhole what is happening here, you will not be able to label it. That's what you want to do. You would like to label it: if it is something like a Catholic church you will not be offended. You say, "Okay, so it is a Catholic church, so it is like Catholics - " finished. You have labelled it, and now there is no need to bother about it.

This place is offensive. And small things create offenses in people - very small things - because they come full of prejudices. If you can see that this is a Hindu ashram and dead and dull and stupid people are sitting and doing yoga postures - no juice, no life, just dry, with closed eyes, sitting from morning to evening - you will say, "Okay, so this is a yoga place; so people are doing yoga."

Finished! You have labelled it.

I don't allow any labelling. You cannot label it, it is outlandish. You cannot call it Christian, you cannot call it Jewish, you cannot call it Hindu, you cannot call it Buddhist. It is all and it is none. It is the birth of a new vision, a new life, a new religion, a new tradition, a new future, a new man.

That's why all the religious people are against me. They think I am not religious. How can they think so? - because they cannot label, they cannot put me in a certain category. They are baffled.

They don't understand what I am saying, because I am talking about Sufis, and I am talking about Hassids, and I am talking Zen, and I am talking about Tantra. It is beyond their comprehension.

They live in certain caves: it is open sky. They live in life-negative moods: it is life-affirmation. They think that God can be attained only if you destroy your life, if you commit a subtle suicide, a psychic suicide. Here, loving life is the way to God, the only prayer. If you are in deep love with life you will find God; there is no other way to find Him.

There are people who want everything clean, clearcut, logical, so that their mind can figure out what it is. It is an illogical place, irrational, absurd.

You come with your certain ideas, and when those ideas are not fulfilled you feel baffled, you feel angry, offended. This whole place is being created in such a way that it offends many people, because that is my way to screen those people out. Somebody comes to the gate and, seeing the marble gate, he escapes... so good, so kind of him! Because he had come to see an Indian kind of ashram, not a marble gate, his ideas are shattered. He wanted to see people living in poverty, in a kind of spiritual dirtiness. He wanted to see people almost starved, fasting. The marble gate is there to put these people off. I don't want them inside.

Small things offend people, and they don't see how small things become barriers.

Arup's mother, Gita, has written a question that she wants her family to become more interested in me, but the only thing that seems to create trouble is my pictures with fantastic hats! That is creating the trouble - so good! Now bring more hats for me, because these are the people I would not like to be here. I would not like for them to be here because such stupid minds have to be kept out. These minds cannot grow.

In the new commune I am going to make it such that only those who are really daredevils will be able to enter into it. A thousand and one things will prevent them, because those are the people who, even if they come in, they will go out. So why waste time on them? It is better to keep them out, bracket them out.

If you are just a visitor here you will miss the whole point of what is happening. You will have to become part of the dance. Enter into things, meditate. And remember, if you go back without participating, WHATSOEVER you will say about this place will be wrong.

A circus was touring Ireland and one of the acrobats, being a Catholic, went to confession at this little village church.

As the confession finished the priest said, "I don't know you, do I? You will be a stranger here?"

"Yes, father," he said. "I'm an acrobat with the circus."

"Ah, is that a fact now?" said the priest. "I have always been interested in acrobatics. Of course, being a man of the cloth I am not able to go to the circus, but I would be much obliged if you would give me a little show."

"What - here and now?" asked the acrobat.

"Yes, go on," said the priest, "there's no one about."

And so the acrobat began doing his cartwheels and flip-flaps and standing somersaults, right there in the side-aisle of the church.

They had not seen a little old biddy at the back. She watched the goings on for a minute, then rushed out and said to her friend, "Ah, Bridie, you'd better get home and put some clean drawers on! You should see what kind of penance the old fool is dishing out now!"

Whatsoever you say, unless you have participated and seen things from the inside, will be wrong.

Don't remain a spectator here. This is a place to be experienced. This is not a physical phenomenon that is happening here. You cannot simply look at it and take a few pictures and go home and put those pictures in the album. You will miss the soul of it. It has to be recorded in the innermost core of your being.

Become a participant. Don't remain an outsider.

Then too, you will say, "This is crazy", but then the meaning of the word 'crazy' will have utterly changed.

A jazz musician who'd never entered a church in his life found himself passing a little country church just as a service was about to begin. Out of curiosity he decided to go in and see what it was all about.

After the service, he approached the rector and said, "Say Rev, you just about knocked me out with the good words. Like I really dug it the most, man. Jeez, baby, it really blew my mind. It was wild, ya dig?"

The rector was flattered but said, "Well, thank you. Most gratifying, I'm sure. However, I wish you wouldn't use those common expressions at the portals of a holy edifice."

But the musician went on, "And I'll tell you somethin' else, Rev - when the cat came round with the breadplate I was so high with the whole scene that I came across with a fiver!"

"Crazy, baby, crazy!" said the rector.

If you participate, you will see it is crazy - but with a totally different meaning to it.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Parodha. God is not to be found in any particular direction. God is all over the place. To seek Him in a particular direction is a sure way to miss Him. GOD IS NOT THERE, God is here. God surrounds you, He is your surround. You breathe Him, you eat Him, you drink Him, you make love to Him, and you have not recognized that it is all God. You are asking for a direction? God cannot be in any direction; all directions are in God. God is the totality. How can the totality be in a direction? - north, east, west, south, up, down? God cannot be in any direction. Just replace the word 'god' with 'totality', and then you will be able to understand what I mean.

And the whole purpose here is to help you drop all directions, all dimensions, so one day you suddenly find yourself utterly directionless. In that moment everything stops. You are not going anywhere because there is nowhere to go. You are simply being herenow. You are a MOJUD - you are present to the present. You forget all about God in that moment. If you remember God in that moment, you will miss God. The word 'god' is not God, and the images of God are not God, and the definitions of God are all man-made, all manufactured by the human mind. In that moment, when the world stops, when all directions have disappeared and you are suddenly standing herenow with no direction to go in, with nothing to do, with nothing to be - no past, no future, just utterly herenow - in that very moment God has happened to you. You will know God; not the God of the philosophers and the theologians, but the God of the mystics - Eckhart, Boehme, of Rumi, of Hillaj, of Bodhidharma.

You will know the God of the mystics.

God cannot be pointed at because whatsoever you point at will be only a part, and God is the whole.

You cannot look at God because whatsoever you look at will be a part, remember it.

I can understand your problem. When you start searching for God you are searching for a direction, you are searching for a goal. Before you were searching for money, now you are searching for God.

Money was a goal, or power; now God is the goal. You have not changed: money was in the future, God is in the future. Money was in a certain direction, God is in a certain direction. You have not changed much, nothing has changed. You have only changed the object of your desire.

Direction means desiring. Desire creates the direction. First you were going towards the marketplace, you were going to Wall Street; now you are going to the Himalayas - but still going, going somewhere. Wall Street has been replaced by the Himalayas. First you were going to New Delhi - you wanted to become the prime minister or the president - now you are going to a Himalayan cave - you want to become enlightened, but becoming is there. And becoming is the problem, not what you want to become. You WANT to become! You are not contented with being, you are not contented with what you are. You have a goal, you want to improve, you want to progress, you want to do this and that - only then will you be satisfied.

The goal is the game of the ego. When you understand this.... And this is what I would like you to understand here. Being with me, if only this can happen to you, the revolution has happened.

Drop becoming! Being is enough. You are not to become anybody other than who you are. You are perfect as you are. In all your imperfections, you are perfect. In all your limitations, you are unlimited. God is perfectly happy with you, only you are not happy with yourself; that is the problem.

If God were not happy with you, He would have withdrawn you. It is a perfect sign, that He continues to breathe in you - He is perfectly happy with you. He does not want you to change, to become anybody else. He needs you as you are. You are accepted, welcome.

But you are not happy with yourself. You have greater ideas than God Himself. You are more perfectionist than God is. And God cannot be perfectionist, otherwise He would have turned neurotic.

Perfectionists always turn neurotic. A perfectionist cannot remain healthy, whole. He cannot have a psychological well-being, he's always tense. The goal is there, and the goal is far away and distant, and he becomes more and more unhappy. And as days pass by and death comes close by and the goal seems Even far more distant, and seems impossible to attain, the more and more depressed he becomes.

Here I am to take all goals away from you. If you can renounce your goals you have renounced the world. See the point! I'm not saying renounce the world, I'm not saying renounce your wife, I'm not saying renounce your shop, I'm not saying renounce anything. I am saying renounce goals. In renouncing goals you become a sannyasin. This is my vision of a sannyasin.

A sannyasin is one who does not bother about the future, who lives this moment and lives as totally as possible, enjoys this moment - with no guilt, with no feeling that something is missing. Nothing is missing. Drop the goals; then there is no need for any direction. You must have come in search of a certain goal called God, MOKSHA, NIRVANA, enlightenment.

Drop those ideas. See the futility of them. They are driving you mad, they are keeping you insane.

They feed your insanity, they are the root cause of all your neurosis. Seeing it, one forgets all about directions. When there is no goal there is no direction. And when there is no goal there is no path either. When goals disappear, directions disappear: when directions disappear. Paths disappear. Then you are utterly herenow, then there is nothing else that is. This is enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not a goal. This is being in God.

Don't rush, don't go on rushing. Sit silently, watch that which is. Don't hanker for that which should be. Just watch that which is. God is hidden in that which is, God is not a direction.

You ask me, "SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE THIS HERE, WITH THE DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES BLOWING ME IN SO MANY DIRECTIONS..."

They are methods, devices to destroy your goals. You can go only in one direction. I give you so many directions that you will become paralyzed. That is the whole device. I give you so many meditations, I give you so many processes, that sooner or later you will lose all sense of direction. You will be simply confused - great is that confusion. You will be muddled - great is that muddledness.

Lao Tzu has said, "Everybody seems to be clever except me. I am confused." And he is the man to be. He says, "Everybody seems to be so clever, only I am a fool." And he's the person to be. He knows. By being a fool he has come to know. By being confused, not knowing where to go, not knowing what to achieve, not knowing what is the right thing, he has stopped. In that stopping is realization.

This place that you are living in, this space that I am making available to you, is to destroy, to take away all that which is driving you crazy - the very root cause of it. Once the ground underneath your feet has disappeared.... In the beginning you will find yourself very forsaken and frightened, but soon you will start enjoying that fall into the abyss, the bottomless abyss. And once you have started to live without directions, without goals, without props, life will happen in abundance. You need not go in search of God, God will come to you. God is coming to you, He is coming from every direction possible. He's flowing towards you, but you are never at home. You are never MOJUD, you are never present.

There is an ancient Tibetan parable that says a man goes on praying to God, "Come to me," and cries and cries, and God comes. But by the time God reaches there the man is not there; he has moved. And sometimes even if he is there and God comes, only his body is there. Now the body cannot recognize God. He's on spiritual trips, he's never where he is. So it goes on and on, and then he dies. And then he has a real grudge against God. And when he comes to face God, he shouts, screams and he says, "I have been crying and crying and weeping and you never came!What about your promises? In the scriptures you have promised, 'Whenever somebody calls me I will come'!"

And God said, "What are you talking about? I am fed-up with you, because I have been coming to you every day. Millions of times I came, but you were never there! You were somewhere else,, some place else. How to find you?! You never allowed me to find you."

That's my message too: allow God to find you, you need not go in search of Him. Where will you search? You don't know His address, you don't know His name. He has none. You don't know His form, how will you recognize? Even if you come across Him, even if you bump into Him in the street.... If you are a gentleman you will say, "Sorry" and you will move on. Or, if you are not such a gentleman, you may be angry and abuse and shout and fight with Him, but how will you recognize Him? You have never seen Him before.

The Egyptian mystics say. "When the disciple is ready, the Master comes. When the devotee is ready God appears." This is a very significant saying, of profound significance. The disciple cannot find the Master. Even if he finds, how will he recognize? It is always the Master who finds the disciple. Whenever the disciple is ready the Master appears, never before it. All directions have to be dropped.

Those directions are the cause of why you have not been Able to disappear into God. Your search is the cause of why you have not been able to find. Stop searching and find! In fact the moment you stop searching God finds you.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

I will simply tell you two stories.

There was no doubt about it - Gloria was pregnant.

"Please feel free to use my telephone if you'd like to tell your husband," said the doctor.

"But doctor, I'm not married."

"Well then, you'd better tell your lover."

"But I've never had a lover!"

"All right. Then I must ask you to go home and tell your mother to get ready for the second coming of Christ."

And the second:

An innocent young woman told her doctor she was not feeling at all well lately. After examination the doctor told her she was pregnant.

"But that is impossible, I have never been with a man!"

The doctor patiently explained the facts of life to her in some detail.

"Well!" she said, "and that lousy First Aid Instructor told me it was artificial respiration."

Miracles don't happen. Miracles can't happen. Miracles are just the stupid desire in man's mind to have something special. They show only that stupid desire - the desire for the sensational. These are ancient detective stories, nothing else. Christ is born to a Virgin Mary - just ancient novels, fictions. Do you know that J. Krishnamurti only reads detective stories, nothing else?

One of his followers once came to me, and he said, "I am puzzled. Since I have come to know that Krishnamurti reads only detective novels and stories, I am very worried. And he goes on condemning the scriptures. And he says, 'I am fortunate that I have not read any scriptures of the world."'

I said to him, "You need not be worried, because I have been reading both - the scriptures and the detective stories - and I have not found any difference between them. They are the same. The detectives are modern, and the mythologies are ancient; they are just old styles of writing detective stories."

Just see, in the story of Christ you have all that a modern film needs - a great sensation that he is born to a virgin woman, then he disappears for thirty years; where he is, nobody knows, it creates much curiosity; then suddenly he appears with twelve disciples. There are people who suspect he was gay. All men? Why does he go on carrying this boys' club with him? Now great suspicion.... And you know Jews - they are the gayest people in the world, so who knows? Then suddenly one day a prostitute comes and he allows her very much intimacy - now more suspicion. Magdalene suddenly appears, and the respectable people are against him: "This is not good - a prophet moving with a prostitute. Two polarities, the prophet and the prostitute - how are they together? That doesn't fit."

But that creates more sensation. Then his own disciple, Judas, betrays him and sells him for only thirty rupees! And then he is crucified. Then Judas commits suicide. And then... things don't end.

The latest, the last fiction, is that he is resurrected, he is seen by people. Now what more can you have in a sensational story? All is there.

These are created by the followers. Jesus is a simple man, very simple and very ordinary - and that is his beauty - absolutely non-pretentious, utterly at ease with life, a relaxed person. His only crime was that he was doing his own thing. His only crime was that he was not following some ancient rubbish, he was trying to do things in his own way. His only crime was that he was original, nothing else. But that is the real miracle! - that he is original. All else is just meaningless, to satisfy the curiosities of the mediocre. Just withdraw these things from Jesus' life and you will not find any Christian in the world. Just withdraw.... He's crucified - withdraw it; he is not crucified. He lives as a grocer for one hundred years and dies in his bed: ninety-nine percent of Christians will say, "Then, finished! What is the point in following this man? He died in bed. A prophet has to die on the cross."

So if you want to be a prophet, remember, never die in the bed. In the bed, ordinary people die, very ordinary people. Extraordinary people have to find some new ways to die.

Just make things simple: Jesus falls in love with a woman, has children, twelve children. In those days twelve was not a big number. There was no birth control or anything, so he has twelve children, and his children's children, a big family, and he lives like a grandfather to be a hundred years old. All Christians will say, "Finished! This is not our man.

Or you come to find that Mary had a lover... maybe. Jesus is not born from Joseph; that is possible.

She had a lover, and now to hide the whole story of having a lover.... Because prophets should not be born out of love. They should be born out of the deadlocks called wedlock. They should be born out of marriage, they should be traditional, respectable. Now the whole thing seems to be simple.

Jesus seems to have a father who cannot be declared. Now the story is created, now it becomes a miracle. If you come to find some ancient scripture describing the lover of Mary, how many people would be ready to stand with Christ? He would become immediately rejected.

And that would have been far more beautiful, to be born out of a love-affair, not out of marriage - because when a child is born out of love, the child has a deeper being. Marriage creates only superficial beings, because in marriage two bodies meet, two souls never meet. To me it seems to be perfectly right that Jesus is born out of some love-affair, in great passion, in great joy, in great devotion, in great love. A man like Christ should come out of love. But that would not look right to the Pope, to the Vatican, to the theologians and the priests. They stand with convention. Now this fabrication has to be done.

Miracles are there, but those are not the miracles about which the scriptures talk. The real miracle is that Jesus died on the cross with a prayer on his lips, saying to God, "Forgive these people because they don't know what they are doing to me." This is a miracle! - not that he is resurrected; that is nothing. The real miracle is his being crucified, killed, destroyed, abused, people throwing tomatoes and banana peels on him, abusing in every way, spitting on him, and he says, "Father, forgive these people because they don't know what they are doing. They are unconscious, they are unaware, they are not awake. All that they are doing is in a kind of dream. Forgive them." THIS is miracle.

Jesus driving the money-changers from the temple is a miracle. A man of compassion, a man of love, is so enraged that he takes a whip in his hand and chases the money-changers out of the temple. This is miracle. Compassion can become such that even if it has to be anger, it is ready to go to that length - this is miracle.

Walking on the water is not a miracle. Turning stones into bread is not a miracle. These are stories to satisfy the stupid, the mediocre.

But Christ dared to herald a new insight in human beings. He declared "God is love" - that is miracle.

The miracle is that he says, "You have been told before that if somebody takes one of your eyes out, take both of his. You have been told that. But I say unto you if somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other too." THIS is miracle.

Miracles are very silent phenomena. They don't look very miraculous, they don't even look like news.

They are whisperings in the eternal silence. But those are real miracles. If you really want to know whether miracles happen or not....

Miracles happen, but you don't know what those miracles are. What you think of as miracles are just fabrications, but the stupid mind hankers for these things.

Spirituality has become too mixed with these things. It has to be cleaned of all this nonsense. But it attracts crowds. It can only attract the crowd-mind, and you all have something of the crowd-mind in you. That crowd-mind has to be dropped, only then will you be with me totally.

Just the other day I was talking and I was saying that this is all a kind of circus - that people produce holy ash and wristwatches. And I looked at Ashoka: he became worried that I might mention Satya Sai Baba. He has been very interested in Satya Sai Baba and his miracles. When I was talking about this he simply bent his head down, he became very much afraid. I felt for him, and I didn't mention Satya Sai Baba. I said, "Forget it. This Ashoka will feel too bad, and he is a very new sannyasin to me, and I cannot be that hard, YET."

You all have that crowd-mind in you; that has to be dropped. With that crowd-mind you will remain mediocre.

Be original, be yourself, and look at life with intelligent eyes.

The sixth question:

Question 6:

Sangitam, one is dying every moment, but that is only half the story. The other half is: one is being born also, every moment. Otherwise how can you go on dying? One moment you died, then there is nothing left. Who will die again? You are being born every moment also; that's why you can die again and be born again. Life is a process of life-death: one side is birth, the other side is death.

And EACH moment it is happening. You are only seeing the half, and that is making you very afraid, tired, exhausted. Look at the whole thing.

One thing dies, immediately it is born in another form: one wave disappears, another wave has appeared; one flower falls down into the earth, another bud has opened. Life is continuous and eternal, birth and death are episodes in it. It does not begin with birth and it does not end with death. It uses birth and death as you use your two legs. Life uses birth and death as two wings. Life is neither - it is neither birth nor death. It is between the two. And each moment you are dying and each moment you are born. And you are asking, "Can I find a moment where everything stops?"

That moment comes every moment between these two processes. One process is death, another process is birth. Between these there is a pause, and that pause is the present. Being in that pause you will become MOJUD. Khidr will appear to you, your inner Master will start speaking to you.

It will be good, Sangitam, for you to do something like breath-watching. You breathe in - watch it.

Don't change the breath. I'm not saying to do some PRANAYAMA; YOU are not to take deep breaths or long or short or anything. You are not to do ANYTHING with the breath, you simply let it come in.

It is coming on its own, naturally; you watch it, you simply go with it, watching, watching, watching.

It comes in, comes in, and there comes a moment when for a single second everything stops. The breath is no more coming in and not going out yet, and then it starts going out.Watch it, go out with it. Again a moment comes when the breath has gone out - a stop, a very subtle stop, a pause. The breath is not moving at all - neither is it going out anymore nor is it coming in yet. Go on watching and you will find these two moments. When the breath is out, the stop comes. I'm not saying you have to stop, otherwise you will miss the whole point. It comes on its own. Between two breaths, ingoing, outgoing, there are two pauses.When the in turns into out there is a pause, when the out turns in there is a pause. You watch it.

You ask me, "IS THERE NO PLACE WHERE I CAN STOP?"

There is a place. Buddha used that method very, very profoundly, and thousands of people arrived to that pause. It is one of the most ancient and the most deep-going processes of meditation. And then you can watch in many other things, because that moment comes in many ways. One thought moves, another has not come in yet, and there is a pause between two thoughts, just a small gap.

That gap... move into that gap, be in that gap, and the whole world stops. And you will find it in many ways. For example, making love to a woman you come to a peak, the energy goes on building up, building up, building up. There comes a moment from which you cannot return, the point of no return. That is the moment when you have been taken possession of by the whole. You are no more there, the ego disappears. That is the beauty of making love. There is a point from where you can come back, you can stop the whole process, but there is a point just beyond that from where you cannot come back. You have gone too far, there is no way to return, you have to go through the whole process. Between these two moments, the gap. You can turn back, if you want you can stop love-making; and the next moment you cannot turn back, there is no possibility of turning back. You have to go through the whole process of orgasm. Between these two there is a gap. Find that gap, and the whole world stops there.

Then again when you have reached to the climax and the ejaculation happens and the orgasm happens, before you start returning from the peak - you have reached the peak and then the return - between these two, again the gap. Find that gap, and you will have found the very secret of meditation. Tantra has used these gaps as meditation, and they are the greatest. The gap that you will find in breathing is not such an intense gap, because breathing is such an ordinary phenomenon, taken for granted. If you look between two thoughts in the mind you will find the gap. But the gap that you will find in your sexual orgasm will be most intense, because that is the most intense experience of your life - where you again go wild, where you again explode into thousands of pieces. You fall altogether in parts, you fall apart. The ego simply becomes fragments, all disappears for a moment.

You are no more there and yet something is. That 'something' is your reality, your essential reality.

You ask, "I AM TIRED, I FEEL I AM DYING ALL THE TIME. BUT WHAT CHANGES? NOTHING.

EVEN IF I DIE, LIFE AND DEATH ARE PERFECT, PERFECTLY ROUND AND I GO ON RUNNING AFTER MY OWN TAIL."

That you have to stop. Running after your own tail is a very, very vicious circle. You cannot catch hold of it. Have you not watched sometimes, in winter a dog just sunning itself outside and enjoying?

And then suddenly he becomes aware of the tail, and jumps to catch it. But when he jumps the tail also jumps; then he goes crazy, then he goes round and round. That's what is happening.

Don't chase your own tail. Listen to this story. There is a danger....

A dog ran across the path of an oncoming train, but he misjudged the distance. The train, racing along at a fearful clip, cut off the dog's tail.

After he licked his wounds the dog came back onto the tracks to look for his tail. Immediately another train sped by and decapitated him.

The moral of the story is: Don't lose your head while looking for a piece of tail.

Tail you will never find, but if you go on looking for the tail, you will lose your head too.

And the gaps are always there. You just have to be a little more observant, a little more alert and aware.

And the last question:

Question 7:

Every place is special, because every place is overflowing with God. No place is ordinary.

Enlightenment can happen even in your toilet! Enlightenment is not afraid of your toilet! It can happen anywhere. You need not go to sacred places; there are none. All existence is sacred! You need not go to Varanasi or Jerusalem or Kaaba - all nonsense. All places are full of God. Every point is special.

And what special time are you asking about? Is there a season, a certain climate for enlightenment?

Enlightenment is not really a happening. If it were a happening, then maybe, in a certain soil, in a certain climate, in a certain place, on certain days it would be more possible. But enlightenment is not a happening. Enlightenment is simply a recognition - a recognition that you have always been enlightened, that never, for a single moment, have you lost it; you had just fallen asleep. That's why you come across strange SATORI experiences of Zen Masters.

Somebody's passing by the market and hears somebody reciting the Diamond Sutra.Just hearing one line, he becomes enlightened. How is it possible? - just hearing one line from the Diamond Sutra, hearing that you are already enlightened from the very beginning? Yes, it can happen, because enlightenment is your nature, your very nature. It is not something outside. The flower is already flowering, you just don't look at it. You go on looking somewhere else, you don't look within.

It can happen.... It happens sometimes that the Master hits the disciple and suddenly - the Master's staff on his head and something triggers - thinking stops. Suddenly he recognizes, comes to awareness.

Anything.... It is said, a disciple was sitting silently meditating, meditating for months, for years. Then the Master came, came with a brick, and started rubbing the brick just in front of the disciple who was sitting like a Buddha. And the disciple had become very skillful in sitting for hours together, like a statue, unmoving. Now this Master was rubbing the brick on the stone, and of course, the disciple must have felt great disturbance. He must have felt his teeth on edge - somebody rubbing a brick just in front of him, and nobody else but his own Master! He tried to control and control, and then it was too much and he said, "Stop it! What are you doing?" And the Master said, "I am trying to make a mirror out of this brick - rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it - one day it will become a mirror." And the disciple laughed, "You must have gone mad." And the Master said, "And what about you? You are rubbing and rubbing the brick of your mind for years and years, and do you think anything is going to happen?" Suddenly the clouds disappeared: "Yes!" The disciple recognized, fell at the feet of the Master.

But the Master has to watch for the moments when the layer of unawareness is very thin.

There is a question from Anup. He asks, "Why don't you hit me, Osho?"

You are very thick, Anup. Hitting won't do. I'm waiting. You have great shock-absorbers around you, buffers upon buffers. I'm waiting. And you are gathering more buffers rather than dropping them.

Your being here is not total. Your being here is just so-so, lukewarm. You come and go, and you think, "Maybe something can happen . If something can happen, then it's okay. If nothing happens, then it's okay." You are not yet involved in the commune. You are a sannyasin but you remain outside.

You are not yet a part of the family. You want to be related to me, but you are afraid to relate to the family. And remember, there is no way to relate to me if you can't relate to the family. The family is my device to destroy your buffers.

It is very easy to love me, it is difficult to love Laxmi. And unless you love Laxmi nothing is going to happen. These people I have gathered around me are here for a certain purpose. It is very easy to love me, there is no problem. It is all sweet. Love Deeksha! - then you will know what bitter means. But Deeksha is my gate; you have to enter through Deeksha. The day you have started loving Deeksha, then you will be able to come close to me, not without it.

There are a few people who are clever - Anup is one of them - calculating, clever. They think they can have a direct relationship with me. That is not possible. You cannot avoid the situation that I am creating. You have to accept it. It is hard to accept it. That's why it is a situation, that's why it is a device! It is hard to swallow it - that's what the first question was, from Sudesh. He cannot accept the organization here. If he cannot accept the organization here, howsoever he thinks that he loves me, this love is not enough. If you love me enough you will say yes to things that I am making around here. There must be something in them.

You can't see right now, you don't have eyes.

Sudesh says, "Things around you are not right. They are topsy-turvy." They are managed that way by me. Passing through them, accepting them, is coming closer to me. That will help you to grow in trust. If you cannot grow then it is better to leave. Give your place to somebody else.

Anup asks me again and again why I don't hit him. You have to be worthy of it. The hit is not cheap, it is costly. I don't go on hitting everybody and anybody. I hit only when I see that now the layer is so thin, just a small hit and the clouds will disappear.

Enlightenment can happen any place, can happen any moment. You just have to allow it to happen.

It is not a question of place and time, it is a question of your allowing it.

A parable, a modern Zen parable. You will not find it in Zen books.

Enlightenment of a Seeker.

A serious young man found the conflicts of mid-twentieth century America confusing. He went to many people seeking a way of resolving the discords that troubled him, but he remained troubled.

One night in a coffee house. a self-ordained Zen minister said to him, "Go to the dilapidated mansion you will find at the address which I have written down for you. Do not speak to those who live there:

you must remain silent until the moon rises tomorrow night. Go to the large room on the right of the main hallway, sit in the lotus position on top of the rubble in the northeast corner, face the corner and meditate."

He did as the Zen minister instructed. His meditation was frequently interrupted by worries. He worried whether or not the rest of the plumbing fixtures would fall from the second floor to join the pipes and other trash he was sitting on. He worried about how he would know when the moon rose on the next night. He worried about what the people who walked through the room said about him.

His worrying and meditation were disturbed when, as if in a test of his faith, effluvium fell from the second floor onto him. At that time two people walked into the room. The first asked the second who the man sitting there was. The second replied, "Some say he is a holy man. Others say he is a shithead."

Hearing this, the man was enlightened.

It is only a question of being present to ANY situation. Now hearing this - not a Diamond Sutra - but he must have heard it, he must have been absolutely attentive in that moment. Naturally when somebody is talking about you and one says, "Some say he is a holy man. Others say he is a shithead" - all thinking must have stopped: "Hearing this, the man was enlightened."

Whenever, in whatever place, it can happen to you. Enlightenment is available. It does not come from the outside. When the thoughts disappear, it comes from your inside. When the thoughts are no longer clamoring for your attention, and suddenly you are silent, simply attentive, simply alert, it comes from the deepest core of your being,. It arises like a fragrance. And once you have seen it happen, it is yours forever.