We Shall Meet Again

The first question:

Question 1:

Ann, Jesus' statement is tremendously significant but has been totally missed by his followers. Let me repeat it: Jesus says, "Love thy neighbor as THYSELF." The fundamental question is whether you love yourself or not. You can love the neighbor only if you love yourself.

Christianity has been teaching you to love the neighbor, and the fundamental has been completely forgotten - not only forgotten, but just the opposite has been done. People are taught to condemn themselves: how can they love themselves? They are taught that they are sinners: how can you love yourself if you feel you are a sinner?

Christianity creates guilt in people, tremendous guilt. And if you are guilty you cannot love yourself; you will hate yourself, you would like to destroy yourself. That's what the so-called Christian saints have been doing down the ages - destroying themselves. Out of guilt, only destruction can arise; out of guilt, only suicide. And they go on teaching, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." You have never loved yourself: it is impossible to love thy neighbor.

Hence I don't say love thy neighbor as thyself. My teaching is simple: Love thyself. And my experience is this, that if you become capable of loving yourself, love for the neighbor will come of its own accord; it does not have to be brought, it does not have to be practised. All practised love creates hypocrisy.

So I completely drop the second part of the statement. Forget about the neighbor, simply love thyself. And you will be surprised: they day you bloom, you flower, the fragrance is BOUND to reach the neighbor. Where else will it go? When you are full of love for yourself, love starts overflowing. It reaches the neighbor, it reaches the farthest star.

And that happens of its own accord. You need not think about it, you need not create it, it is none of your concern. Just love yourself, be friendly to yourself, and you will be surprised: the man who loves himself cannot hate anybody.

It is reported of a great woman mystic, Rabiya al-Adabiya, that when she was reading the Koran she came across a statement that said, "Hate Satan." She immediately crossed it out.

Another Sufi mystic, Hassan, was present, he saw it being done. He could not believe his eyes: is Rabiya correcting the Koran? Dropping a statement from the Koran? This is sacrilegious! He said, "What are you doing, Rabiya? Have you really gone mad? This cannot be done; the Koran cannot be corrected."

Rabiya said, "But what can I do? Love has happened to me: now, even if Satan stands before me, I can do nothing but love. No hate is left in me, there is no darkness in any corner of my being. Even if I WANT to hate I cannot; I am utterly helpless. I have to cut this line, this statement. It is no longer relevant to me; it cannot exist, at least in MY copy of the Koran."

When you are in love with yourself you bloom. Love nourishes you, you respect yourself. You feel the grace of God, you feel grateful that you have been created, you feel uniquely benefitted, you feel blessed. And then the overflowing: then the fragrance starts spreading to the winds.

I don't teach you to love your neighbor, because for two thousand years Christians have been teaching that, and nothing has happened. On the contrary, Christians have killed their neighbors more than anybody else. And the basic thing that has been missed is love for thyself.

Jesus is perfectly right. He takes it for granted that you love yourself. He has not taken note of the priests who are going to follow him, who will interpret what he says; he had no idea of the Vatican and the pope. He has taken it for granted that you love yourself - and that is not so. It would have been so if there had not been any pollution, the pollution that the priest has created, down the ages.

Man loves himself no more.

You can watch yourself. Do you have any respect for yourself? How can you respect yourself if you are a sinner? If you are condemned, how can you respect yourself? You feel unworthy.

The whole strategy of the so-called religions consists of making you feel unworthy. Once you are unworthy, shaken, you lose confidence, you lose power in yourself, you become weak. And when you are weak you surrender, you submit to the priest, the priesthood. And all kinds of exploiters are around you.

In fear you start clinging to the churches, to the mosques, to the temples; in fear you start praying.

But a prayer that comes out of fear is false. Prayer is true only when it is a fragrance of love.

Ann, JESUS TAUGHT HIS FOLLOWERS TO LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF.

But the first thing cannot be taken for granted. The first thing is missing: the seed is missing. So you can go on waiting for the flowers to come, but they will never come. No tree is going to be born.

First the seed is needed, and then what else? You put the seed in the soil, you water it, and it grows - you need not pull it up. One day the spring has come and the tree has blossomed: just like that it happens. But the seed has to be a love for yourself.

I teach you self-love. And because I teach you self-love, you have to be very alert: self-love does not mean selfishness. Self-love is possible only if you drop the idea of the self - that is the paradox - if you unself yourself.

The person who loves himself cannot carry the ugly burden of the ego. How can he carry such mountains, such ugly mountains? He drops the ego, he becomes pure space. He loves himself so much that he cannot carry this poison inside him. He becomes full of light, empty space. And in that empty space blooms the lotus of love.

Self-love is not selfishness, self-love is unselfishness. In self-love the self disappears, only love remains. And then you have created the context. Now many many miracles are going to happen to you; now nothing is impossible for you, because love is the magic.

You ask: COULD YOU GIVE US YOUR VIEWS ON CARING, COMPASSION AND SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY?

I have no views about caring, compassion and service to the community. My whole effort is to transform the individual: I am utterly focussed on the individual. And if the individual becomes luminous, then these things come naturally - compassion, caring, service.

If you are taught service, compassion and caring, you will learn it and you will do it, but it is going to remain superficial. And it will not only be superficial, it will be harmful to you and to others too.

When a person forces himself to serve others he becomes egoistic. He thinks in terms of being holier-than-thou, he becomes a very pious egoist, and he feels that he is obliging you, and he is obliging the whole world.

You can see it written all over your so-called public servants. Public servants have proved the most mischievious people in the world. They are the sources of mischief, but they make mischief behind such beautiful curtains that you cannot catch them. They serve you, they oblige you, and then they become your masters. They have served you so much that if they start exploiting you, you have to accept it gratefully. They have served you so much, they have invested so much in you, that now their exploitation has to be tolerated.

I don't teach service - enough of it! I only teach meditation. And out of meditation, when you have arrived, there will be service. But that will be just a natural outcome, a by-product. Service is not the goal, but a consequence; so is compassion.

Buddha has said that when a man has reached the climax of meditation, compassion showers from him. Just as when you light a candle light starts spreading all around and darkness disappears, when the light of meditation is inside you compassion radiates.

And then compassion has a beauty, because it is unselfconscious. You are not obliging anybody; in fact if somebody accepts your service YOU are obliged. He might have rejected: he has not rejected, he has obliged you. You serve him and you feel obliged. You serve him but you don't start asking for anything in return. It is unconditional. In fact you are happy that somebody has accepted your service.

My focus is on the individual, not on the community. The real revolution has to happen in the individual, not in the society. All social revolutions have failed, utterly failed. They were bound to fail, they were destined to fail. Only the individual can be transformed, because only the individual has the soul, consciousness, awareness.

The community, the society, has no soul. It does not really exist anywhere - have you ever come across society? Whenever you come across it, you come across individuals. You will meet A, you will meet B, you may meet C, but you never come across society.

You come across human beings, but you never come across humanity. The word;humanity; is empty, so is the word 'society', but these words have become so powerful because down the ages we have been hypnotized by words.'Society, community, country, motherland, fatherland, humanity' - all bogus words. The reality is only one: the individual.

Only if the individual becomes luminous will the world be benefitted. It is time that we forgot about social revolution and social service; it is time enough. We should become a little more mature and think of reality as it is. The individual exists, hence individuals can be transformed.

I am not a social revolutionary, and I am not a social servant either. And my sannyasins are not to become social revolutionaries and social servants - no, not at all. The only thing that you have to do is: create great love for yourself, and enjoy, rejoice and celebrate. And out of that celebration, something miraculous starts happening: people are served, compassion radiates, caring is born.

The second question:

Question 2:

That's why. It is so simple, so obvious. You have remained obsessed with it - otherwise why control it? Why repress it? What is control except repression?

You became too attached to it; it was an attachment. And as time has passed, the attachment has deepened. Of course your attachment is negative, hence the question. Because you have been against it, you thin, "Why am I still interested?"

In fact if you are negatively attached to something, your attachment will go on deepening as time passes; it will never end. If you are positively attached, there is a possibility of its ending, because experience liberates. I you had known sex, by now you would have been finished with it, because it is childish; it does not have the power that negative attachment creates.

Sex in itself is not that powerful. It appears very powerful, because we have been taught to be against it: our antagonism gives it power. And the more you ar against it, the less experienced you are about it, the more the desire arises to experience it.

In fact, monks remain interested in sex to the very end: they die thinking of sex and nothing else - it is a simple psychological truth. But the question arises because we only think of positive attachment as attachment.

Attachment has two forms, positive and negative. And the negative is far deeper than the positive, because there is no way to end the negative attachment. The positive attachment will wear, wither.

You have known sex and its experience: slowly slowly, you start understanding that there is nothing in it, that it is a biological urge, that it gives you nothing much. Slowly slowly, it dawns upon your consciousness that it is a futile repetition.

And I am not saying to think that it is a futile repetition. If you think without understanding, that thinking will be repression; that will be negative attachment. I am not saying to judge it; the judgment arises on its own.

But when you are negatively attached to something, you go on escaping from it. When will you experience it? And the more you escape, the more the urge remains fresh, young. And the more you repress it, the deeper it goes into your unconscious and grips you at the roots. From the leaves it moves to the roots. From the leaves there was a possibility of evaporating, because the leaf was exposed to the sun, to experience, to life. Once it has reached your roots underground, now there is no way for it to evaporate.

Attachment is the sine wave of 'submission - resistance'. When you submit to something or resist something, or hate something, or identify with something, you are attached to it. Remember, saying yes is an attachment: submission. Saying no is an attachment: resistance. And the second attachment is far deeper.

That's why friendships are not as great as enmities. Friendships are so-so, lukewarm. Enmities are very passionate, very hot. Enmities live long, for years; there seems to be no way to end an enmity.

Friendship withers.

You are asking, "Why am I still interested?" You will remain interested to the very end.

Drop your resistance, drop the negative attachment, go into the experience of sex. Don't be afraid, there is nothing to be afraid of. It is not so important that you need to be afraid of it; by becoming afraid, you are making it something big. It is not such a big deal, it is a small biological phenomenon.

Priests have magnified it very much. The whole responsibility goes to the priests: they have made the whole of humanity sexual, utterly sexual. Without the priest there would be no pornography in the world, without the priest there would be no prostitutes in the world, without priests there would be no obscenity in the world. They are the root causes.

But it is very difficult to see he point, because they are against all these things - if you listen to their words, they are against them. Naturally you think if people are against something, how can they be the source of it? But they are the source. By being against, they are creating great interest, great attraction.

Just let priests disappear and you will be surprised: sexuality will disappear. Sex will be there, but sex is a small thing; sexuality is a magnified obsession.

The late Dr. Kinsey was questioning a group of men about the number of times they had sex relations with members of the opposite sex.

In response to his question, a group of men raised their hands to indicate that they had sex every night. Then some said they had relations ten times a month. A small group said they only did it about four times a month.

Finally, every man in the room had been accounted for except one man who was sitting in the corner.

Dr. Kinsey moved closer to him. "All right. How many of you have sex relations only once a year?"

"Me! Me!" the man piped up, waving his hand wildly and wearing an ear-to-ear smile.

"Fine," said Dr. Kinsey. "But why are you so happy about it?"

"Because tonight's the night!" the man explained with glee. "Tonight's the night!"

Now, if you repress for one year, this is natural. How many years have you been controlling your sex? Even an ear-to-ear smile won't do - your smile will spread from your toes to your head.

Please don't control, because all control means control by the ego. I teach you uncontrol: remain natural. Control makes you unnatural, artificial, arbitrary. Remain natural. Control makes you unnatural, artificial, arbitrary. Remain natural, relax. Whatsoever God has given to you - sex, love, whatsoever - accept it as a gift. And go into it, go into it meditatively, go into it very consciously, so that you can see what it is, so that you can learn something from it.

And one day sex disappears. And that day is of great importance, because that day you are biologically free. That freedom is not attained through control; that freedom is attained through understanding, awareness, witnessing.

The third question:

Question 3:

Then who has been speaking on Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu, Bahaudin, Rabiya, Sanai, Bodhidharma, Rinzai, Bokuju, Milarepa, Marpa, Tilopa, Saraha, Kabir, Nanak, Meera, Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Mahavira? Who has been speaking about all these gurus, if I am against all gurus?

There has never before been a man who has spoken about so many masters, and I don't think there is going to be another again.

But certainly I am against a few gurus - not because hey are gurus, but because they are NOT gurus: they are pretenders. And I have not only spoken about ancient masters, I have spoken on Ramakrishna, Raman, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti - I have spoken on contemporary masters too.

I am certainly against those who are just pretending, those who don't know a thing. But in that sense Jesus was also against many rabbis, and Buddha was against many brahmins, and so was Kabir.

In that sense very master has always been against the false, the pseudo; this is not anything new.

But maybe you had some attachment to people like Satya Sai Baba and Baba Muktananda, and you may have felt hurt. That is YOUR understanding. Satya Sai Baba and Baba Muktananda are not gurus in my vision. In fact I am very much surprised: when I see that even a man like Muktananda can get disciples, I cannot believe how far humanity has fallen. This is an indication of great stupidity.

If Muktananda can get disciples, then anybody can get disciples in this world. That simply shows that people have completely forgotten what it means to be a disciple and what it means to be a master. People seem to be in such desperate need that whatsoever they can get, whosoever hey can get, they are ready to follow. People are in such a neurotic state that idiots can pretend and become masters.

To be a master means a flowering of intelligence. Have you ever seen any intelligence in people like Muktananda? But this is happening - and the reason is not that Muktananda has some power, the reason is that people are in desperate need. They don't know where to go, so whatsoever comes close by, they fall a victim to it.

I am not against gurus, but it may have appeared so to you. Language is a very inadequate means of expressing things, but there is no other means. One has to use language, and one has to accept all possibilities of being misunderstood.

A lorry carrying penguins gets stuck on the highway. The driver stops a private car and says, "I'll give you fifty dollars to take these penguins to the zoo."

When he finally arrives in town he sees the other guy with the penguins in front of a cinema. He stops and asks, "What the hell are you doing here?"

The other replies, "I took them to the zoo and had money left, so now I'm taking them to a film."

Or:

The Frenchman and the Italian were in the woods hunting together when suddenly a voluptuous blonde girl raced across their path, totally nude.

"Would I love to eat that! Oui, oui!" the Frenchman said, smacking his lips.

So the Italian shot her.

Or:

This Chinese laundryman complained to the doctor that he was very constipated. The doctor gave him a prescription for a good physic. "Come to my office in a few days," said the doctor, "and let me know how it works."

A few days later, the Chinaman visited the doctor.

"Have you moved yet?" asked the doctor.

"No sir, me no moovee, me no moovee."

The doctor scratched his head and then gave the man a prescription for twice as much. Three days later, when the man reported to the doctor again, he said that he still hadn't moved. The doctor gave him a triple dose, and he said, "Come back to see me in two days and let me know just what is happening."

Two days later, the man came back.

"Well," said the doctor, "have you moved yet?"

"No sir, me no moovee yet. Me moovee tomorrow, though. House full of shit."

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Divakar, all contradictions are apparent. If you meditate a little bit, you will see that there is no contradiction. I say, "Accept yourself as you are." And I also say, "Unless you are reborn you cannot enter the kingdom of God."

Now, you are creating the contradiction by not meditating on it.

The way to be reborn is to accept yourself as you are: this is how one is reborn. You live in a kind of rejection, you don't accept yourself as you are. It is very rare to find a person who accepts himself - because the moment he accepts himself, he is reborn, he is enlightened.

You don't accept yourself, you go on rejecting yourself. You are constantly in search of ways of improving your image. You want to become more beautiful, healthier, stronger, famous, creative, this and that. You are not contented the way you are.

It seems so impossible to be contented the way we are, because the mind can always imagine better things. You can have a little longer nose, or a little shorter. You can have a little more intelligence, a little more physical beauty, a little more charisma, a little more psychological integrity, a little more powerful personality. You can always imagine, and your imagination makes you discontented with yourself as you are.

If roses were to think, they would be discontented too, because they would see: "Look in the pond, the lotus flower is so big, and we are so small." They would feel very very inferior, they would start suffering from an inferiority complex, and they would start searching for some psychoanalyst. Then small bushes would feel very much depressed, because "Big trees, cedars of Lebanon, are reaching to the stars, and we are so small. Why has God been so unjust to us?" Then the whole existence would be in a tremendous discontent.

But only man is in discontent. Bushes are happy being bushes, and roses are happy being roses, and grass flowers are happy being grass flowers. Birds are happy being birds - nobody wants to be anybody else.

This contentment is all around if you just look. If you open your eyes you will see contentment showering from every tree, from every star, from every rock. Just remove man from the world, and discontentment is removed.

Why is man discontented? Because he compares. And all comparison s false, because you are absolutely alone. Like you there is nobody else, so all comparison is false. You can compare one Fiat car with another Fiat car, but you cannot compare a Fiat car with a dog - or can you? Each human being is so unique, it is impossible to compare him. But you go on comparing.

You have been taught to compare, Your whole education depends on comparison, and it depends on comparison because it wants to create a competitive fever in you. The society has not yet known any other way to make you do something, the only way it knows is to create a competitive fever:

create a neurosis, create a longing, an ill longing, to be the first. The society has not yet discovered any better way to make you creative. "Compete, compare, defeat - reach first place." It teaches you conflict, violence.

And to be in that conflict, naturally it teaches you discontentment with yourself - otherwise how will you improve? It gives you great ideals: "You have to be like this." And then suddenly you look so short, so small, so tiny, so trivial. The ideal is so big, so great, and you are so small. You shrink:

a great rejection arises in you, you start hating yourself. This is the whole misery that people are passing through.

I teach you acceptance. There is no need to compete, there is no need to compare, there is no need to be ambitious. Then you become afraid: "if there is no ambition and no competition and no comparison, then how am I going to grow?"

Growth has nothing to do with these things. Growth has something to do with energy; growth is an energy phenomenon. When you don't compare, when you don't compete, when you are not ambitious, when you don't want to be anybody other than who you are, you accumulate much energy - because all that energy that was being wasted in competition and conflict, is no longer wasted.

You become a reservoir.

Out of that energy comes creativity. Creativity has nothing to do with competition, it has something to do with overflowing energy. William Blake is right, he says, "Energy is delight."

When you are overflowing with energy, aglow with energy, aflame with energy, it itself becomes creativity. You start growing, but now the growth has a totally different connotation. It has no goal - it has a source but no goal. Now you are not thinking what to be; you are not following a particular goal, a particular plan. You are such a big river that through your rushing energy you will reach the ocean. No river is searching for the ocean, but rivers reach the ocean; and no river is competing with any other river, but all rivers reach the ocean. The river reaches the ocean through overflowing water. That very energy is enough to take it to the ocean.

You can become an ocean of creativity if you are contented. Then creativity arises in you, grows in you - not for any ideal, but just because you have too much: you have to share it. You have to sing a song, because the heart is so full and overflowing. You have to pour it into songs. You cannot contain the energy, hence the overflow happens. And that overflow is creativity.

When a tree is overflowing with energy it blossoms in thousands of flowers. Those flowers are just a simple statement from the tree: "Now I cannot contain any more. The colors are too many in me, and the fragrances are so much that I have to burst forth." The tree is not fulfilling any ideal; it has no goal.

To have a goal is to be miserable, not to have a goal is to be blissful. The person who accepts himself in totality - with not even a slight grudge against himself, not even a slight rejection, not even a shadow of rejection - that man becomes enlightened immediately. Enlightenment has not to be achieved somewhere in the future. If you accept yourself, if you relax into your being, it can happen just this very moment, now, here.

So I say: Accept yourself as you are, because this is the way to be reborn. And I also say: Unless you are reborn, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Please remember, the second statement is not for you to create a goal: "I have to be reborn, I have to enter into the kingdom of God." If it becomes a goal, you have misunderstood me. It is not a goal, it is a consequence. A consequence of what? a consequence of total acceptance: TATHATA, suchness. "I am this, and I am utterly happy with this." In that utter happiness and contentment is the miracle, the transformation. You are reborn.

And remember again, I am not saying to use "accept yourself" as a method so that you can be reborn, I am not saying that either, otherwise you have created a goal again. You say, "Okay, if this is the way to become enlightened, if this is the way to enter into the kingdom of God, then I am ready to accept myself." this is not acceptance. You are still thinking of the kingdom of God, you are still thinking of becoming enlightened. You are still competing with the Buddhas. You are still thinking, "How did this man Gautam Buddha become enlightened, and I have not yet? How dare this man Jesus become Christ, and I am here and I have not yet become Christ?"

Friedrich Nietzsche has said exactly that. He has said, "I cannot accept God, because if there is a God then what am I doing here? And how can anybody else become a God before me? Hence I reject the idea: there is no God." Because if there has to be a God, then Friedrich Nietzsche has to be first. It is better to reject the whole idea: "There is no kingdom of God, there is no enlightenment."

Otherwise it creates a feeling of great inferiority: "Others have reached, and I have not reached yet.

Am I lagging so far behind?"

So please don't make it a goal. My statement about being reborn is just a consequence. The source is acceptance, and the consequence is entry into the kingdom of God.

But the mind is very cunning - beware of it. The mind can say deep down in you, "So okay, if this is the key then I will use it, but I have to enter into the kingdom of God." And you have missed in that very cunningness.

Things are very simple. What I am saying is so simple, it has no complexity in it. But you can create complexity. Your mind can create such a confusion, such a chaos! And the basic trick, the basic strategy of the mind is to make consequences goals.

Never make any goal, there is none. We are already at the source, we need not be anywhere else.

In deep acceptance you fall back into the source. That very falling back into the source is a rebirth, a resurrection. You disappear as a separate entity and you appear as the mystic union: UNIO MYSTICA.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

It is a significant question, because if you are aware of your cancer, the cancer will not be cured by just being aware of it - that is true. But as far as psychological transformations are concerned, the moment you are aware of them they disappear - because they do not exist as realities, they exist only as illusions.

You have seen a ghost standing in the dark: now you bring light, and you say there is nobody. Just the shape of the tree was giving you the false impression that somebody was standing there. The ghost has disappeared, because in the first place the ghost was not there.

Awareness helps, brings transformation, because the illusions that you are suffering from are not realities. If you become aware of a rock, the rock is not going to disappear. But if you become aware of the ego, the ego is going to disappear, because the ego is not a reality.

If you become aware, fear is going to disappear, because fear is not a reality. If you become aware, death is going to disappear, because death is a lie, it is not a reality.

Awareness functions in two ways. One: if something is real and you become aware of it, it becomes tremendously beautiful, it becomes psychedelic, it becomes very colorful. If it is unreal, it disappears.

If it is real, it becomes MORE real; if it is unreal, it becomes absolutely unreal.

Awareness is a light. If you bring light into the dark room, darkness will disappear, but the paintings on the wall will appear. When the room was dark, the paintings were not there; although they were there, you could not have seen them - for you they were not there and darkness was there. When you bring light, darkness is there no more and the paintings have appeared.

Something disappears when you become aware, and something appears. Death disappears, deathlessness appears. The ego disappears, egolessness appears. You disappear as a separate entity: God appears. God means, "I am no longer separate."

"Was you ever in love, Dusty?" asked Walker Long of old Dusty Rhodes one day as they were picking up and putting them down on a railroad right-of-way.

"Yeah, once when I was a young squirt, I was in love," answered old Dusty.

"Well, you never did get married, did you?" pursued Walker Long.

"Nope, I never did marry," vouchsafed old Dusty.

"How did that happen?"

"Well, it was like this. The gal I was in love with wouldn't marry me when I was drunk, and I wouldn't marry her when I was sober."

Awareness has its own ways. If you are aware, you will not be able to do many things you have been doing up till now, and you will be able to do many things you have never thought of doing before. If you are aware, you cannot be angry, because anger can exist only in a state of unawareness: that is a prerequisite for anger to exist.

If you are aware, anger is impossible and compassion becomes a natural outcome: the same energy that was becoming anger becomes compassion. If you are aware, sex disappears and love arises:

the same energy that was becoming sexuality through unawareness takes on a new manifestation of love through awareness.

As far as psychological transformation is concerned, awareness is enough, analysis is not needed.

That is the difference between Eastern and Western psychology: Western psychology is too concerned with analysis. In the East, for five thousand years psychology has existed; it is the most ancient science in the East. But its concern is totally different; it is not at all interested in analyzing, the whole thing seems to be unnecessary.

And now Western psychology is also becoming aware of the fact that analysis leads nowhere. Have you ever come across a person who is totally analyzed? Even Sigmund Freud was not. Nobody can be totally analyzed. You can analyze one dream, but another day another dream arises. You can go on analyzing - people go to the analyst for years, but dreams don't disappear, they go on coming; analysis does not make them disappear.

But in the East we know the art of making the disappear. So who bothers? It is as if you see a ghost in the dark - there is no ghost, just the form of the tree - and you start analyzing. You never come close to the tree, you never bring light; you start analyzing the form from far away. You can go on analyzing: nothing is going to happen out of that analysis.

Eastern psychology says: Light a candle, bring the candle to the place, and first see whether the ghost exists at all. If the ghost does not exist, then why bother? Why long long years of analysis?

The analyzed goes on pouring out rubbish, and the analyst goes on dissecting, analyzing, labeling and categorizing the rubbish. Much work goes on, and all futile, much ado about nothing.

Western psychology is based on analysis, Eastern psychology is based on awareness.

Just watch. There is no need to analyze. Become more and more intensely alert. And if you are aware of a problem, half the problem is already solved just by becoming aware of it. Just a slight awareness of the problem, and half the problem is already solved, because you have taken some energy out of it: that energy has become awareness. Become more aware, and the problem becomes dissolved.

Chunk by chunk, the problem disappears as you become aware, because you are pulling back energy which you had been pouring into the problem - that was CREATING the problem. You are taking your energy back, you are not cooperating any more. You were the creator of the problem:

you have taken your energy back.

When all energy has been taken back, a moment comes when the problem flops. First become aware of a problem and then become more and more alert. Nothing else is needed; you need not go to any psychoanalyst.

It is one thing to have a problem, but it is another not even to be aware that you have a problem. That is like the eighty-year-old I heard about in Miami. He was vacationing with another octogenarian in Florida. During their stay they both made the acquaintance of some ladies younger than themselves.

They both fell in love and decided to get married in Florida in a double ceremony. Following the wedding night, they are both in their rocking chairs after breakfast.

The one says, "You know, I better see a doctor."

The other says, "Why?"

"Well," the first said, "I couldn't consummate the marriage."

"Oh," said the second. "I better see a psychiatrist."

"Why?" said the first.

"I didn't even give it a thought."

First become aware of your problem, and then go on becoming more and more aware of it. Don't judge; judgment is an obstacle in becoming aware. Don't call it any names, don't evaluate. Don't say it is good, don't say it is bad, don't label, don't categorize. Just be alert: whatsoever it is, simply mirror it.

If you take a stand and you say, "This is bad," then you have already blocked your awareness. You have concluded - now you are no longer impartial, you have already made a decision. And the moment you say something is bad, you cannot look at it eye to eye. When you say some man is bad, you can't face him, you can't encounter him; you avoid him. When you say something is good, you become positively attached; when you say something is bad, you become negatively attached.

Observation means no attachment at all, this way or that, neither negative nor positive. You are simply an impartial mirrorlike reflection, you simply reflect whatsoever is. In that awareness, problems melt. In that awareness, lies, falsities and fallacies disappear. And in that awareness, when falsities and appearances have disappeared, reality comes with radiant colors.

You need not take LSD or marijuana or psylocybin. Take a dose of awareness - and life is so beautiful, it is so utterly glorious, it is such an incredible splendor, that no LSD, no marijuana, can add anything to it. All that you need is awareness, and life becomes such a beautiful experience that you cannot imagine that there could be anything better. Ordinary life becomes so luminous.

The ordinary tree that you have passed your whole life - coming home, going to the office, you have always been passing the tree - for the first time you see the greenery of it. For the first time you see the luminous presence of the tree, the utter beauty of it.

Life is such a gift, and we go on missing it. And the reason is, between us and life there are so many lies crowding. Your awareness will destroy those lies: they will disappear, and reality will be nakedly encountered.

And to know reality in its utter nakedness is to know God.

The sixth question:

Question 6:

There is a limit to everything - there is a limit to patience too. And one should not go on submitting to unnecessary tortures. One should not go on bowing down to slaveries, one should not go on compromising. If you feel that you have suffered enough, revolt.

Why have you waited so long? There was no need to wait. One should be in a constant rebellion.

Why should one exist even for a single moment in compromise? Because to compromise means you are not respectful to yourself, you don't love yourself. And if you compromise more - because once people see that you can be exploited, they will go on exploiting you more.

Don't help exploiters, whatsoever kind they may be.

But it seems you would still like to continue, hence the question. Otherwise there is no need to ask.

If you have suffered enough, then enough is enough!

Charlie was visiting an old friend and his wife for dinner. When the time came to leave, his car wouldn't start, and it was too late to call the local service station.

The husband urged Charlie to stay over. There was no spare bed in the house; there wasn't even a sofa. So Charlie would have to sleep with the husband and wife.

No sooner had the husband fallen asleep when the wife tapped Charlie on the shoulder and motioned for him to come over to her.

"I couldn't do that," he whispered. "Your husband is my best friend!"

"Listen, sugar," she whispered back, "there ain't nothing in the whole wide world could wake him up now."

"I can't believe that," Charlie said. "Certainly if I make love to you, he will wake up, won't he?"

"Sugar, he certainly won't. If you don't believe me, pluck a hair out of his beard and see if that wakes him."

Charlie did just that. He was amazed when the husband remained asleep. So he climbed over to the wife's side of the bed and made love to her. When he finished he climbed back to his own side.

It wasn't long before she tapped him on the shoulder and beckoned him over again. Again he pulled a hair to determine if his old friend was asleep. This went on eight times during the night. Each time Charlie made love to the woman, he first pulled out one of the husband's beard hairs.

The ninth time he pulled a hair, the husband awoke and muttered, "Listen, Charlie, old pal, I don't mind what you are doing to my wife, but for Pete's sake stop using my beard for a scoreboard!"

Enough is enough! There is a limit to everything. Enough hairs have been ken out of your beard - now assert yourself. Don't go on bowing down, don't go on suffering.

But my feeling is, people want to suffer. My observation is this: that they go on complaining about suffering, but they want to suffer. They go on clinging to their suffering. Even suffering is better than nothing: at least there is something to complain about, something to cling to, something to brag about.

Just listen to people. Everybody talks about his suffering. Why don't you revolt against it? If you are really fed up, then do something. Get out of it! Who can prevent you? But people are not doing anything. Suffering has become their life-style. If suffering disappears, what will they do? They feel that nothing will be left; there will be nothing to complain about.

Meditate over your suffering, and see that somewhere deep down you must be helping it - unconsciously maybe, but your support is needed. Otherwise suffering cannot exist without your support. Just withdraw your support, and suffering disappears. You are a willing partner to it. You may find so many rationalizations; rationalizations can be found, but they are all rationalizations. If you want to deceive yourself they are very good; but if you want to wake up, drop all rationalizations.

Simply see the fact that you are suffering, and that life is not MEANT to be suffering, it is meant to be a celebration. And at any moment things can be changed.

But something drastic will be needed. You have suffered so long, you have become so accustomed to it, that unless you do something drastic, a quantum leap, you will not be able to get out of it.

Become a sannyasin: that will be something drastic. Take a jump into something new, try something new that you have never done before.

And remember, the ego is always attached to suffering. why is the ego always attached to suffering?

Because the ego feeds on suffering; you feel like a great martyr. The ego disappears when you are happy, really happy. Enjoy, and the ego is not found.

That's why if you have chosen an egoistic life-style you will never be able to get out of suffering. You may change your sufferings, but you will create new sufferings again. You may divorce one woman, and you will get married very soon to the same type of woman again. You may drop your husband, but it will not be long before you will get another person of exactly the same type, because your ego will start feeling starved.

The ego exists as the center of suffering. When you are in a joyous state, have you ever looked in?

there is no ego found. In fact joy and egolessness are the same phenomenon, they are not different.

So if you really want to get out of suffering, you will have to be ready to sacrifice the ego and all the gratification that it gives to you.

Unself yourself - listen to Sanai - and in that unselfing, you will be able to get out of all suffering.

And don't go on blaming others; there is no point in blaming others. Take the whole responsibility - that is manly, that is courage. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders. This is an old trick, to go on throwing the responsibility on somebody else: "What can I do? The family is such, the people are such, the society is such, what can I do? I have to suffer."

You WANT to suffer, that's why you throw the responsibility on others. Otherwise, any moment that you decide to get out of it, nobody can prevent you, nothing can ever obstruct you.

Take the responsibility totally as your own. If you WANT to suffer, then suffer. But then don't complain - then enjoy it! This is your choice. Then get deeper and deeper into your own mud, but don't talk about suffering any more - this is your choice. If you call it suffering, then watch the whole mechanism of suffering. If you want to protect yourself as an ego, then you have to suffer. If you want to throw the responsibility on others, then you have to suffer.

The only revolution possible is through taking the whole responsibility on yourself. "I am the cause of my suffering. Hence I can be the cause of my bliss."

This declaration is what sannyas is all about, or Sufism is all about, or Zen is all about. The essential religion is taking the whole responsibility for whatsoever you are. And immediately an insight arises:

"If I am responsible for my suffering, then it is simple, I can drop it. It is my choice. I will not choose it any more."

A Sufi mystic who had always remained happy was asked... For seventy years people had watched him, he had never been found sad. One day they asked him, "What is the secret of your happiness?"

He said, "There is no secret. Every morning when I wake up, I meditate for five minutes and I say to myself, "Listen, now there are two possibilities: you can be miserable, or you can be blissful.

Choose." And I always choose to be blissful."

All alternatives are open. Choose to be blissful. And then there are people who can be blissful even when they are imprisoned, and there are people who remain miserable even when they are living in marble palaces. It all depends on you.

When Alexander came to India, on the way, he met Diogenes. Alexander was interested in Diogenes - opposites are always interested in each other. He stopped his armies and said, "For one day, have a rest. I would like to go and see Diogenes. I have always wanted to see him, we are so close, just a few miles away, and I would like to have a visit."

He went. It was early morning, must have been a morning like this - winter, cold - and Diogenes was lying naked on the bank of the river, taking a sunbath; a naked fakir, he had nothing with him.

And Alexander the Great, who had everything with him, was standing by his side. For the first time, Alexander felt very poor. Diogenes was so rich in his nakedness. His face was so graceful, so beautiful; his whole body was radiating joy.

Alexander said to Diogenes, "I am very happy to see you. I would like to give you a present."

Diogenes said, "What can you give to me? Because I don't see that you have anything! You look so poor that in fact I would like to give something to you. I would like to give God to you, because that is all that I have. You are a great emperor, that is true, but all that you can give to me is not my need, is not my desire; it will be an unnecessary burden to me. But if you are really interested in giving me something, then please just move yourself from that side to the other side of me, because you are preventing the sun - and I will be thankful my whole life."

It was a shock to Alexander the Great that Diogenes needed nothing, he was so fulfilled, so contented. Departing, he said to Diogenes, "When I have conquered the world I would also like to live like you."

Diogenes said, "But why make this condition of conquering the world first? Look: I have not conquered the world, and yet I am so happy. You can also be happy. And this place is big enough, you can also be here. The bank is so big: throw off your clothes and have a good rest, and see the beauty of the sun and the morning. Rest NOW!"

Alexander said, "Yes, I would like to rest, but not now. When I have conquered the world."

Diogenes said, "Nobody has ever been able to rest THEN, rest is possible only NOW. Tomorrow never comes. And who has ever been able to conquer the world? By the time you are a conqueror, life has gone by. You will die halfway; you will never be able to rest."

And that's how it happened. Alexander never go back home. Going back from India after his great conquest, he died on the way.

And then there is another story. By coincidence, Alexander and Diogenes died on the same day and they met on the way towards the other world, while crossing the river that separates this world from that. Alexander was ahead, because he had died a few minutes earlier, and Diogenes was just following him. When they were crossing the river, Alexander became aware that somebody was coming behind him. He looked back - it was Diogenes. He was shocked very much, because now this man would say, "Look: I told you that your journey would remain incomplete."

Just to save face, he started laughing. Diogenes asked, "Why are you laughing? Your laughter is shallow, but still, why are you laughing?"

Alexander said, "I am laughing to see that we have met again. Strange is this meeting - the meeting of an emperor and a beggar." Diogenes was a beggar.

But Diogenes laughed even louder than Alexander. I don't think anybody else would have laughed like Diogenes did, crossing the river that separates this world from that. Alexander said, "Why are YOU laughing?"

He said, "I am laughing because you are right, the meeting is strange - the meeting of an emperor with a beggar. But you don't understand who is the emperor and who is the beggar. I am the emperor and you are the beggar: that is the really strange thing. That's why I am laughing."

And it is said, Alexander bowed down his head in sadness. It was such an absolute truth, how could he deny it? Empty-handed he had entered into the world, empty-handed he was coming back. He had never known a moment of joy. And this man, Diogenes, he lived in joy, he lived a blissful life, he lived the life of being.

Let me remind you again, there are three possibilities: being, doing, having. Having is the lowest possibility, people who live through having: have this, have that. A little better is the world of doing, but just a little better: do this, do that.

The highest is the world of being. There is no desire to do, no desire to have anything: one simply is. And it is not that one is inactive; great creativity flows but it is no longer a doing. One is not a doer: God is the doer. One is in the state that Sufis call FANA: one is no more, one is just a hollow bamboo, and God starts singing his song and the hollow bamboo becomes a flute.

When you are just a being, you become a flute. And then life is a song and a dance and a bliss and a benediction.

The last question:

Question 7:

Pradeepa, you may not know - how can you know it? But I have told you before too that you are basically a Sufi. Hence you feel at home with Hakim Sanai. In your past lives you have been with Sufis. And all Sufis are alike: if you have seen one Sufi you have seen all, the taste is the same.

There is a dervish song, a Sufi song. Meditate over it.

It may be said: "They came in vain."

Let it not be that they came in vain.

We leave this, the bequest, to you; We finished what we could, we left the rest to you.

Remember, this is work entrusted - Remember, beloved, we shall meet again.

Life is an eternal pilgrimage: we go on meeting again and again.

Pradeepa, that's why it feels to you: THERE IS A MYSTERIOUSLY FAMILIAR AIR TO HAKIM SANAI, NOT THAT I REMEMBER EVER HAVING HEARD THIS - BUT IT FEELS LIKE HOME.

You have lived with Sufis before, you are again living with a Sufi.

It may be said: "They came in vain."

Let it not be that they came in vain.

We leave this, the bequest, to you; We finished what we could, we left the rest to you.

Remember, this is work entrusted -