Any Moment!

The first question:

Question 1:

A TOLSTOY COULD NEVER BECOME A BUDDHA, BUT THEN COULD A BUDDHA WRITE War and Peace?

PRAMADA, YOU HAVE NOT UNDERSTOOD ME, but that's natural. It is impossible to understand me, because to understand me you will have to drop your memory. Your memory interferes. You only listen to my words, and then you go on interpreting those words according to your memory, according to your past. You cannot understand me if you are not herenow... only then the meeting.

Only in that moment you ARE with me; otherwise, you are physically present here, psychologically absent.

I have not been telling you to drop your factual memory. That will be stupid! Your factual memory is a must. You must know your name, who your father is and who your mother is and who your wife is and who your child is and your address; you will have to go back to the hotel, you will have to find your room again. Factual memory is not meant - -psychological memory is meant. Factual memory is not a problem, it is pure remembrance. When you become psychologically affected by it, then the problem arises. Try to understand the difference.

Yesterday somebody insulted you. Again he comes across you today. The factual memory is that "this man insulted me yesterday." The psychological memory is that seeing that man you become angry; seeing that man, you start boiling up. And the man may be coming just to ask for your apology; the man may be coming to be excused, to be forgiven. He may have realized his mistake; he may have realized his unconscious behaviour. He may be coming to befriend you again, but you become boiled up. You are angry, you start shouting. You don't see his face herenow; you go on being affected by the face which was yesterday. But yesterday is yesterday! How much water has flowed down the Ganges? This man is not the same man. Twenty-four hours have brought many changes.

And YOU are not the same man either.

The factual memory says, "This man insulted me yesterday," but that 'me' has changed. This man has changed. So it is as if that incident had happened between two persons with whom you have nothing to do any more - then you are psychologically free. You don't say, "I still feel angry." There is no lingering anger. memory is there, but there is no psychological affectation. You meet the man again as he is now, and you meet him as you are now.

A man came and spat on Buddha's face. He was very angry. He was a Brahmin and Buddha was saying things which the priests were very angry about. Buddha wiped it off and asked the man, "Have you anything more to say?"

His disciple, Ananda, became very angry . He was so angry that he asked Buddha, "Just give me permission to put this man right. This is too much! I cannot tolerate it."

Buddha said, "But he has not spat on your face. This is my face. Secondly just look at the man! In what great trouble he is - just look at the man! Feel compassion for him. He wants to say something to me, but words are inadequate - that is my problem, my whole life's long problem. And I see the man in the same situation. I want to relate things to you that I have come to know, but I cannot relate them because words are inadequate. And this man is in the same boat: he is so angry that no word can express his anger. Just as I am in so much love that no word, no act, can express it. I see this man's difficulty - hence he has spat. Just see!"

Buddha is seeing, Ananda is also seeing. Buddha is simply collecting a factual memory; Ananda is creating a psychological memory.

The man could not believe his ears, what Buddha was saying. He was very much shocked. He would not have been shocked if Buddha had hit him back, or Ananda had jumped upon him. There would have been no shock; that would have been expected, that would have been natural. That's how human beings react. But Buddha FEELING for the man, seeing his difficulty.... The man went, could not sleep the whole night, pondered over it, meditated over it. Started feeling a great hurt, started feeling what he had done. A wound opened in his heart.

Early in the morning, he rushed to Buddha's feet, fell down on Buddha's feet, kissed his feet. And Buddha said to Ananda, "Look, again the same problem! Now he is feeling so much for me, he cannot speak in words. He is touching my feet.

"Man is so helpless. Anything that is too much cannot be expressed, cannot be conveyed, cannot be communicated. Some gesture has to be found to symbolize it. Look!"

And the man started crying and he said, "Excuse me, sir. I am immensely sorry. It was absolute stupidity on my part to spit on you, a man like you."

Buddha said, "Forget about it! The man you spat upon is no more, and the man who spat is no more.

You are new, I am new! Look - this sun that is rising is new. Everything is new. The yester-day is no more. Be finished with it! And how can I forgive? because you never spat on me. You spat on somebody who has departed."

Consciousness is a continuous river.

When I say drop your memory, I mean psycho-logical memory; I don't mean factual memory. Buddha remembers perfectly that yesterday this man had spat on him, but he also remembers that neither this man is the same nor is he the same. That chapter is closed; it is not worth carrying it your whole life. But you go on carrying. Somebody had said something to you ten years before and you are still carrying it. Your mother was angry when you were a child and you are still carrying it. Your father had slapped you when you were just small and you are still carrying it, and you may be seventy years old.

These psychological memories go on burdening you They destroy your freedom, they destroy your aliveness, they encage you. Factual memory is perfectly okay.

And one thing more to be understood: when there is no psychological memory, the factual memory is very accurate - because the psychological memory is a disturbance. When you are very much psychologically disturbed, how can you remember accurately? It is impossible! You are trembling, you are shaking, you are in a kind of earthquake - how can you remember exactly? You will exaggerate; you will add something, you will delete something, you will make something new out of it. You cannot be relied upon.

A man who has no psychological memory can be relied upon. That's why computers are more reliable than men, because they have no psychological memory. Just the facts - bare facts, naked facts. When you talk about a fact, then too it is not fact: much fiction has entered into it. You have moulded it, you have changed it, you have painted it, you have given it colours of your own it is no more a fact! Only a Buddha, a Tathagata, an enlightened person, knows what a fact is; you never come across a fact, because you carry so many fictions in your mind. Whenever you find a fact, you immediately impose your fictions on it. You NEVER see that which is. You go on distorting reality.

Buddha says a Tathagata is always true, because he speaks in accordance with reality. A Tathagata speaks truth, never otherwise. A Tathagata is synonymous with suchness. Whatsoever it is, a Tatha-gata simply reflects it; it is a mirror.

That's what I mean: Drop psychological memories and you will become a mirror.

You have asked: YOU IMPLORE US CONSTANTLY TO GIVE UP MEMORY, TO LIVE INT HE HERE AND NOW.

That does not mean that your past cannot be remembered, because past is part of the present.

Whatsoever you have been in the past, whatsoever you have done in the past, is PART of your present, it IS HERE. Your child is in you, your young man is in you... all that you have been doing is in you. The food that you have eaten, it is past, but it has become your blood; it is circulating herenow; it has become your bone, it has become your marrow. The love that you went through may be past, but it has transformed you. It has given you a new vision of life; it has opened your eyes.

Yesterday you were with me - it is past, but is it really totally past? How can it be totally past? You were changed by it; you were given a new spur, a new fire - that has become part of you.

Your present moment contains your whole past. And if you can understand me, your present moment also contains our whole future - -because the past as it has happened has been changing you, it has been preparing you, and the future that is going to happen will happen the way you live in the present. The way you live herenow will have a great impact upon you future.

In the present moment all past is contained, and in the present moment all future is potential. But you need not be psychologically worried about it. It is already there! You need not carry it psychologically, you need not be burdened by it. If you understand me, that it is contained already... the tree is not thinking about the water that it soaked up yesterday, but it is there! thinking or not thinking. And the sunrays that feel on it yesterday, it is not thinking about them. Trees are not so foolish, not as stupid as men.

Why bother about the rays of yesterday? They have been absorbed, digested, they have become part the green, the red and the gold. The tree is enjoying THIS morning's sun, with no psychological memory of yesterday. Although the yesterday is contained in the leaves, in the flowers, in the branches, in the roots, in the sap. It is contained! And the future is also coming: the new buds which will become flowers tomorrow are there. And the small new leaves which will become foliage tomorrow are there, on the way.

The present moment contains all. Now is eternity .

So I am not saying to forget the factual past; I am simply saying don't be disturbed by it any more.

It should not be a psychological investment: it is a physical fact. Let it be so. And I am not saying become incapable of remembering it - it may be needed! When it is needed, the need is present, remember, and you have to respond to the need. Somebody asks you your phone number. The need is present because somebody is asking now, and you say, "How can I say my phone number?

because I have dropped my past." Then you will get into unnecessary troubles; your life, rather than becoming free, rather than becoming a great joy and celebration, will be hampered at every step; you will find a thousand and one problems unnecessarily being created by you. There is no need.

Try to understand me.

And you say: BUT IN GIVING UP MEMORY I MUST ALSO GIVE UP MY CREATIVE IMAGINATION...

WHAT DOES MEMORY HAVE TO DO WITH CREATIVE IMAGINATION? In fact, the more memory you have, the less creative you will be - because you will go on repeating the memory! And creativity means allowing the new to happen. Allowing the new to happen means: put aside the memory so the past does not interfere. Let the new penetrate you. Let the new come and thrill your heart.

The past will be needed, but not now; the past will be needed when you start expressing this new experience. Then the past will be needed, because the language will be needed - language comes from the past. You cannot invent language right now, or if you do invent it, it will be gibberish; it will not mean anything. And it will not be a communication; it will be talking in tongues, it will be baby talk. Not much creativity will come out of it. You will be talking nonsense.

To talk sense language is needed; language comes from the past. But language should come only when the experience has happened! Then use it as a technique. It should not hinder you.

When you see the rose opening in the early morn-ing sun, SEE it, let it have an impact, ALLOW it to go deepest in you! Let its rosiness overpower you, overwhelm you. Don't say anything! Wait. Be patient. Be open. Absorb. Let the rose reach you, and you reach to the rose. Let there be a meeting, a communion of two beings - the rose and you. Let there be a penetration, an interpenetration.

And remember: the deeper the rose goes in you, the deeper you can go into the rose; it is always in the same proportion. A moment comes when you don't know who is the rose and who is the spectator. A moment comes when you become the rose and the rose becomes you, when the observer is the observed, when all duality disappears. In THAT moment you will know the reality, the suchness of the rose. Then, catch hold of your language, catch hold of your art. If you are a painter, then take your brush and colour and your canvas, and paint it. If you are a poet, then rush into your factual memory for right words so that you can express this experience.

But WHILE the experience is happening, don't go on talking inside yourself. The inner talk will be an interference. You will never know the rose in its in-tensity and depth. You will know only the super-ficial, the shallow. And if you know the shallow, the shallow is going to be your expression; your art will not be of much value.

You ask me: BUT IN GIVING UP MEMORY I MUST ALSO GIVE UP MY CREATIVE IMAGINATION...

You don't understand the meaning of 'creative'. Creative means the new, the novel, the original; creative means the fresh, the unknown. You have to be open for it, vulnerable for it.

Put aside the memory. Its use is later on. Right now it will be an interference.

Right now, for instance, you are listening to me put your memory aside. When you are listening to me, are you repeating inside yourself all the mathematics that you know? Are you counting figures inside? Are you repeating geography that you know? Are you repeating history that you know? You have put them aside. Do the same with language too, as you do with history and mathematics and geography. Do the same with language - do the same with your memory! Put it aside! It will be needed, but when it is needed, only then use it. Put the WHOLE mind aside!

You are not destroying the mind: you are simply giving it a rest. It is not needed. You can give it a holiday. You can say to the mind, "Rest for one hour and let me listen. And when I have listened,

when I have absorbed, when I have eaten and drunk, then I will recall you, then your help will be needed - your language, your knowledge, your information will be needed. Then I am going to paint a picture or write a poem, or write a book, but RIGHT now, you can rest." And the mind will be more fresh after a rest. You don't allow the mind rest, that's why your mind remains mediocre.

Just think of a man who wants to participate in an Olympic race, and he continuously goes on running twenty-four hours a day preparing for an Olympic race. By the time the race happens he will not even be able to move, he will be so dead tired. Before the race, you will have to rest, you will have to get AS deep a rest as possible so the body is rejuvenated.

Exactly the same has to be done with the mind. Creative imagination has nothing to do with memory only then is it creative. If you understand me, and you drop psychological memory, you will become creative. Otherwise, what you call creation is not really creation - it is just a composition. There is a great difference between creation and composition. You go on arranging your old known things in different ways, but they are old; nothing is new there. You simply manage to change the structure.

It is like arranging your drawing-room: the furniture is the same, the pictures on the wall are the same, the curtains are the same, but you can arrange again. You can put this chair there and that table here, and you can change this picture from this wall to the other. It may look new, but it is not new. It is a composition; you have not created anything.

That's what ninety-nine percent of authors, poets, painters, go on doing. They are mediocre; they are not creative.

The creative person is one who brings something from the unknown into the world of the known, who brings something from God into the world, who helps God to utter something; who becomes a hollow bamboo and allows God to flow through him. How can you become a hollow bamboo? If you are too full of the mind, you cannot become a hollow bamboo. And creativity is from the creator.

Creativity is not of you or from you. You disappear, then the creativity is - when the creator takes possession of you.

The real creators know it perfectly well, that they are not the creators - they were just instrumental, they were mediums. Something happened through them, true, but they are not the doers of it.

Remember the difference between a technician and a creative person. A technician just knows how to do a thing. Maybe he knows perfectly how to do a thing, but he has no insight. A creative person is one who has insight, who can see things which nobody has ever seen before - who can see things which no eye has ever been able to see - who hears things which nobody has heard before.

Then there is creativity.

Just see.... Jesus' statements are creative - nobody has spoken like that before. He is not an educated person. He knows nothing of the skill; he knows nothing about eloquence - but he is eloquent as rarely very few people ever have been. What is his secret? He has insight. He has looked into God. He has looked into the unknown. He has encountered the unknown and the unknowable. He has been into that space; from that space he brings a few fragments. Only fragments can be brought, but when you bring some fragments from the unknowable you transform the whole quality of human consciousness on the earth.

He IS creative. I will call him the artist. Or a Buddha, or a Krishna, or a Lao Tzu - these are real artists! They make the impossible happen. The impossible is the meeting of the known with the unknown, the meeting of the mind with the no-mind - that is the impossible. They make it happen.

You say: BUT IN GIVING UP MEMORY I MUST ALSO GIVE UP MY CREATIVE IMAGINATION...

No. That has nothing to do with creative imagination. In fact, if you put your memory aside, you will have creative imagination. You cannot have creative imagination if you are too much burdened by the memory.

You say:... FOR I AM A WRITER AND ALL THAT I WRITE ABOUT HAS ITS ROOTS IN WHAT I REMEMBER.

Then you are not much of a writer. Then you go on writing about the past. Then you go on writing memoirs. You don't bring the future in. You go on writing records. You are a file-keeper! You CAN become a writer, but then you will have to make contact with the unknown - not that which you remember. The remembered is already dead. You will have to make contact with that which is, not that which you remember. You will have to make contact with the suchness that surrounds you. You will have to go deep into the present so that something of the past also can be caught in your net.

The real creativity is not out of remembrance but out of consciousness. You will have to become MORE conscious. The more conscious you are, the bigger the net you have, and of course the more fish will be caught.

You say: I WONDER - WHAT WOULD THE WORLD BE LIKE WITHOUT ART AND THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION THAT MAKES ART POSSIBLE?

NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF ART IS JUST NOT ART AT ALL. It is rubbish. Rarely is there a work of art, very rarely. Others are just imitators, technicians, skillful people, clever people, but not artists.

And that ninety-nine percent of art disappearing from the earth will be a blessing - because it is more like a vomit rather than anything Greative.

NOW there is something very meaningful around: art therapy. It is meaningful! It has got the point.

When people are ill, mentally ill, art can be of help. A mentally ill person can be given canvasses and colours and brush and told to paint whatsoever he wants to paint. Of course, whatsoever he paints will be mad, maddening. But after painting a few mad things, you will be surprised that he is coming back to sanity. That painting has been like a catharsis; it was a vomit. His system has thrown it out.

NOW, the so-called modern art is nothing but that. Picasso's paintings may have saved Picasso from becoming mad, but that's all there is to it. And they are dangerous for you to meditate upon because if you meditate upon somebody's vomit, you will go mad. Avoid! Never keep a Picasso painting in your bedroom, otherwise you will have nightmares.

Just think: keep the Picasso painting for fifteen minutes in front of you and go on looking at it... and you will start feeling restlessness, discomfort, giddy, nauseous. What is happening? It is somebody's vomit! It has helped him, it was good for him, but it is not good for others.

Look at a Michelangelo and you can meditate for hours. And the more you meditate, the more silent and peaceful you will become. It is not a vomit. He has brought something from the unknown. It is not his madness that he has thrown out of his system through the painting or through the sculpture or through the poetry or through music. It is NOT that he was ill and that he wanted to get rid of his illness. No. It was just the opposite: he was pregnant, not ill. He was pregnant - pregnant with God.

Something had taken root into his being and he wanted to share it. It is a fruitfulness, a fulfillment.

He has LIVED in a creative way. He has LOVED life in a creative way. He has allowed life to enter into his deepest shrine, and there he has become pregnant with life - or pregnant with God. And when you are pregnant you have to give birth.

Picasso is vomiting. Michelangelo is giving birth. Nietzsche is vomiting. Buddha is giving birth.

There is AS much difference between these two as there can be. To give birth to a child is one thing and to vomit is another. Beethoven is giving birth.

Something immensely valuable is descending through him. Listening to his music you will be transformed, you will be transported into another world. He will give you a few glimpses of the other shore.

Ninety-nine percent of modern art is pathological. If it disappears from the world, it will be very very healthy, it will be helpful. It will not harm. The modern mind is an angry mind - angry because you cannot contact your being, angry because you have lost all meaning, angry because you don't know what significance is.

One of the famous books of Jean Paul Sartre is NAUSEA. That is the state of the modern mind; the modern mind is nauseous, in a great torture. And the torture is its own creation.

Friedrich Nietzsche declared God is dead. The day he declared God is dead, he started becoming insane - because by your declaration that God is dead... God cannot be dead just by your declaration. Your declaration does not make any difference. But the moment Nietzsche started believing this, that God is dead, HE started dying, he started losing sanity. A world without a God is bound to be an insane world - because a world without God will not have any context in which to become significant.

Just watch.... You read a poem; those words in the poem have meaning only in the context of the poem. If you take a word out of the context, it has no meaning. It was so beautiful IN the context!

You cut out a piece of a painting - and it has no meaning, because it has lost its roots in the context.

In the painting it was so beautiful; it was fulfilling some purpose, it had some meaning. Now it has no meaning.

Just... you can take one of my eyes out of its socket, and it will be a dead eye, and there will be no meaning in it. Right now if you look into my eyes, there is great meaning - because they exist in my total context; they are part of a poetry, they are part of a bigger painting. Meaning is always in reference to something bigger than you.

The day Nietzsche declared there is no God and God is dead, man fell out of context HE fell, at least, out of context. Without God man cannot have any significance, because man is a small word in the great epic of God, man is a small note in the great orchestra of God. That small single note will be monotonous; it will be jarring to the ears, it will be maddening.

That's what happened to Nietzsche. He authentically believed in his own statement. He was a believer - a believer who believes in himself. He believed that God is dead AND man is free. But he simply became mad, not free. And this century has followed Friedrich Nietzsche in a thousand and one ways, and the whole century has gone mad. There has never been any other century in world history which was so mad as this century. Future historians will write of it as the age of madness. It is mad - mad because it has lost context.

Why are you alive? For what? You shrug your shoulders. That does not help much. You look accidental. If you were not, there would have been no difference. If you are, there is no difference.

You don't make any difference! You are unneeded. You are not fulfilling anything here. Your being or your not being is all the same. How can you feel happy? And how can you remain sane? Accidental?

just accidental? Then anything is right, then murder is right! because if everything is accidental, then what does it matter what you do? No action carries any value - then suicide is okay, then murder is okay, then everything is okay!

But everything is not okay, because there are a few things which give you joy and a few things which make you miserable, a few things which create ecstasy and a few things which create only agony, a few things which create only hell and a few things which take you to a world of paradise. No, all things are not the same. But once God is thought to be dead, once you lose contact with the totality - and God is nothing but the totality.... What is a wave when it has forgotten about the ocean? Then it is nothing. It was a great tidal wave when it was part of the ocean.

Remember: the real art arises out of real religion, because religion is finding a communion with reality. Once you are in communion with reality, then real art arises.

You say: I WONDER - WHAT WOULD THE WORLD BE LIKE WITHOUT ART AND THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION THAT MAKES ART POSSIBLE?

If the ninety percent so-called art disappears, the world will be far richer - because then there will be real art. If these mad pretenders go... and I am not saying that they should not paint - they should paint, but as therapy. It IS therapeutic. Picasso needs therapy; he should paint, but those paintings should not be on exhibition - or if they are, then only in madhouses. They may help a few mad people to have a release; they are cathartic.

Real art means something that helps you to be meditative. Gurdjieff used to call real art objective art - that helps you to meditate. The Taj Mahal is real art. Have you gone to the Taj Mahal? It is worth going to. On a full-moon night, just sitting there and looking at that beautiful masterpiece you will be filled with the unknown. You will start feeling something from the beyond.

I would like to tell you the story of how the Taj Mahal came into existence.

A man came from Shiraz, Iran. He was called Shirazi because he had come from Shiraz. He was a GREAT artist, the most famous from Shiraz. And he was a miracle man; a thousand and one stories had come before he came to India. Shah Jehan was the emperor; he heard about those stories. He invited the sculptor to come to the court. And Shirazi was a mystic, a Sufi mystic.

Shah Jehan asked him, "I have heard that you can sculpt the whole body of a man or a woman just by touching his or her hand and not seeing his or her face at all. Is it true?"

Shirazi said, "Give me a chance - but with one condition. Put twenty-five beautiful women from your palace behind a screen, behind a curtain. Let their hands simply be available to me outside the curtain. I will touch their hands and I will choose the person - but with one condition. Whomsoever choose I will make an image of: if the image comes absolutely true and you are satisfied, your whole court is satisfied, then that woman will be my woman want to get married to her, I want a woman from your palace."

Shah Jehan was ready. He said, "That's perfectly okay."

Twenty-five slave girls, beautiful slave girls, were put behind a curtain. He went from the first to the second to the twenty-fifth, rejecting all. Just out of playfulness, Shah Jehan's daughter, just to play a joke, was also standing behind the screen - when twenty-five were rejected, she put out her hand.

He touched her hand, closed his eyes, felt something, and said, "This is my hand." And he put a ring on the daughter's hand to signify that "If I succeed, then she is going to be my wife."

The emperor reached behind the screen and he was terrified: "What has this girl done?" But he was not worried because it was almost impossible to make a statue of the whole woman just by touching her hand.

For three months, Shirazi disappeared into a room; day and night he worked. And after three months he asked the emperor and the whole court to come - and the emperor could not believe his eyes.

It was exactly the same! He WAS capable. He could not find a single fault; he WANTED to find a fault, because he was not willing that his daughter should be married to a poor man. But now there was no way. He had given his word.

He was so disturbed, and his wife was so much disturbed that his wife fell ill. She was pregnant, and while giving birth to the child, she died - out of agony. Her name was Mumtaj Mahal.

And the king became so desperate: how to save his daughter? He asked the sculptor to come and he told him the whole thing, "It has been a mistake. And the girl is at fault, but look at my situation:

my wife has died and the reason is that she could not agree to the idea of her daughter going with a poor man. And I cannot agree either - although I have given you my promise."

The sculptor, the artist, said, "There is no need to be so much worried. You should have told me. I will go back. No need to be worried. I will not ask; I will go back to Shiraz. Forget about it!"

But the king said, "That is not possible; I cannot forget. I have given you a promise, my word. You wait. Let me think."

The prime minister suggested, "You do one thing: your wife has died and this is a great artist and he has proved himself - tell him to make a model in the memory of your wife. You should create a beautiful tomb, the most beautiful in the world. And make it a condition that if you approve of his model, then you will have to give your daughter to him in marriage. If you don't approve, it is finished."

The matter was talked over with the artist and he was willing; he said, "Perfectly okay."

"Now," the king thought, "I will never approve."

And Shirazi made many models, and they were so beautiful, but still the king persisted and he said, "No, no, no."

The prime minister became desperate, because those models were rare. EACH model was rare, and to say no to it was unjust. HE rumoured around, particularly to the sculptor, "The girl that you have chosen, the daughter of the king, is very ill." For one week she was very ill, then the next week she became very very ill, and the third week she died - in the rumours.

When the rumour reached the sculptor that the girl had died, he made his last model. The girl was dead. His heart was broken. And this was going to be the last model. He brought it to the king and he approved of it. The trick was that the girl was dead so there was no question of marrying.

That model became the Taj Mahal. That model was created by a Sufi mystic. How could he create the whole image of the woman just by touching her hand once? He must have been in a different kind of space. He must have been in that moment without mind. That moment must have been a moment of great meditation. In that moment he touched the energy, and just by feeling the energy he created the whole shape.

Now this can be understood far more logically because of Kirlian photography, because each energy has its own pattern. Your face is not accidental; your face is there because you have a particular energy pattern. Your eyes, your hair, your colour, all are there because you have a particular energy pattern.

Meditators have been working on energy patterns down the ages. Once you know the energy pattern, you know the whole personality. You know in and out, all - because it is the energy pattern that creates everything. You know past, you know present, you know future. Once the energy pattern has been understood, there is the key, the nucleus, of all that has happened to you and all that is going to happen.

This is objective art. This man created the Taj Mahal.

On a full-moon night, meditating on the Taj Mahal, your heart will throb with new love. The Taj Mahal carries that energy of love still. Mumtaj Mahal died because of her love for the daughter; Shah Jehan suffered because of the love; and this Shirazi created this model because he suffered deeply, he was wounded deeply, because his future was dark. The woman he had chosen was no more. Out of great love and meditativeness the Taj Mahal came into existence. It still carries the vibe. It is not an ordinary monument; it is special. So are the pyramids in Egypt, and there are many many things in the world created as objective art - created by those who knew what they were doing, created by great meditators. So are the Upanishads, so are the sutras of Buddha, so are Jesus' statements.

Remember, to me, creativity means meditativeness, creativity means a state of no-mind - then God descends in you, then love flows out of you. Then something happens out of your well-being, overflowing well-being. It is a blessing. Otherwise it is a vomit.

You can paint, you can write, as a therapy, but burn your paintings and burn your poetry. You need not go on exhibiting your vomit to people.

And the people who become interested in your vomit must be ill themselves; they also need therapy - because if you become interested in something, you show who you are, where you are.

I am all for objective art, I am ALL for a meditative art, I am all for something from God to descend.

You become the vehicle.

And you ask: A TOLSTOY COULD NEVER BECOME A BUDDHA WHO HAS TOLD YOU THIS? A Tolstoy CAN become a Buddha, WILL become a Buddha sooner or later.

And you say:... BUT THEN COULD A BUDDHA WRITE War and Peace?

And what has Buddha been doing? What am I doing here? Have you read Krishna's Gita? - it is WAR AND PEACE! Tolstoy could write WAR AND PEACE, ANNA KARENINA and many other beautiful things, not because he was Tolstoy but in spite of being a Tolstoy.

Dostoyevsky has written THE IDIOT, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, and, one of the most beautiful things, BROTHERS KARAMAZOV - not because he was Dostoyevsky but in spite of it. Something of him was that of a Buddha; something of him was immensely religious. Dostoyevsky was a religious man - not totally, but a part, a fragment of him, was immensely religious. That's why THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV has such a beautiful quality in it. It is not just out of an ordinary man; something has come from the divine. Dostoyevsky has been taken possession of by the God, he has become a vehicle. Of course, he is not a perfect vehicle, so many things go on from HIS mind. Still, BROTHERS KARAMAZOV IS beautiful. If there had been no Dostoyevsky, no memory, no ego, no pathology, then BROTHERS KARAMAZOV would have been another New Testament; it would have been the same as Jesus' statements or a Diamond Sutra or an Upanishad. He has the quality!

The second question:

Question 2:

VANDANA, IT IS RIDICULOUS, BUT STILL IT HAPPENS, It is unbelievable, but it is true. Truth is always unbelievable because truth is a mystery. That which you can believe, cannot be true. Just because YOU can believe, it can't be true. All that you can believe must be a lie. You ARE a lie; you can believe only in lie. Truth is too much - it looks ridiculous, it looks absurd, because it is paradoxical and illogical. Yes, it is so.

You say: IT KEEPS OCCURRING TO ME THAT IT IS INCREDIBLY EASY FOR ALL MY RUBBISH TO JUST FALL AWAY AND DISAPPEAR...

Yes, it is so, Vandana. It is absolutely easy. In fact, you need not drop it even. Just don't go on holding it, that's all. It is like a fist - I can go keeping my fist closed, I am putting effort in closing it.

But if I drop that effort, if I don't close it, the fist opens of its own accord. Not that I open it - I close it, but I don't open it. Once I stop closing it, it own accord.

Truth is your nature, God is your nature. It can happen right now - you are just not to prevent it. You cannot manage to make it happen, but you can go on preventing it for lives together. That's what you have been doing.

It is unbelievable, it is incredible, it doesn't seem that it is possible. You cannot believe it that you yourself are preventing your bliss, that you yourself are destroying your paradise, that you yourself are the problem. That hurts, that idea hurts. You say, "No, it can't be so. There must be some cause which is beyond me." Then you feel good because then the responsibility is no more on you. You have to find some scapegoat to keep your ego intact. It is be-cause of your past karmas that you are suffering - then it is perfectly okay; you have found a rational explanation. Or it is because you are punished for Adam and Eve's sin - then you have found a rationalization. Or maybe there is no God and you are just accidental, so one has to suffer - you have found an explanation.

Your so-called philosophies and religions are nothing but explanations which keep you miserable.

They are tricks just to save your face. I would like you to be reminded again and again that it if you and you alone and nobody else. The moment you recognize it, the moment you allow this insight to penetrate your whole being the fist will open of its own accord.

You say, Vandana, IT KEEPS OCCURRING TO ME THAT IT IS INCREDIBLY EASY...

Yes, it is incredibly easy. Even to say 'easy' is not right, because 'easy' also means a little bit difficult, something of the difficult still remains in it. Because easy is not very difficult, not so difficult, but something of the difficulty hangs around it. It is NOT even easy, because it is not difficult at all.

It is NOT even close, because it is NOT far at all. It is within you, it is you, it has already happened.

IT KEEPS OCCURRING TO ME THAT IT IS INCREDIBLY EASY FOR ALL MY RUBBISH TO JUST FALL AWAY AND DISAPPEAR - THAT I COULD JUST CHOOSE TO BE DELIGHTED ALL THE TIME RIGHT NOW.

Yes, it is your choice.

AM I KIDDING MYSELF?

No, not at all.

IS IT REALLY THAT EASY?

Yes. A story for you, Vandana.

A man went to a prostitute and asked if she could do something special for him. She agreed for an extra fifty pounds. "Right," he said. "Put on this raincoat and these rubber boots and put up this umbrella."

"Strange," thought the prostitute, but she did as he asked.

"Now," he said, "get up on the table and bang this drum like thunder, at the same time switching the light on and off like lightning."

Again she did as he asked. Then he got a bucket of water and started pouring it over both their heads.

This continued for four hours until, soaking wet and tired, the prostitute said, "Enough! Enough! I know fifty quid is fifty quid, but don't you ever want to make love to me?"

"What?" exclaimed the man. "In weather like this? You must be crazy!"

The weather is created by you. You can stop it ANY moment.

And the last question:

Question 3:

BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT CONSCIOUS. It is natural in an unconscious state. Rather than trying to understand me, start becoming more conscious.

And you cannot simply understand me and remain unconscious the remaining time; it can't happen that way. You will have to bring the quality of consciousness to your twenty-four-hour life. You cannot just be conscious listening in the morning - and then you fall asleep. That is not possible.

Consciousness is a continuum - if you are asleep twenty-three hours, you will be asleep here too.

You can be asleep with open eyes.

You will have to bring more and more Consciousness - not only while you are listening to me.

Walking, be more conscious. Talking, be more conscious. Even listening to your wife, be more conscious! Who listens to his own wife? She goes on saying things and you know what she is saying, you have heard them so many times. Who listens to her own husband? Who listens?

People go on talking - who bothers?

Listen even when the dog is barking. Listen attentively. Only then will you be able to listen to me too. Listen attentively when there is traffic noise. Don't close yourself to it - you tend to. And the only way to close yourself is to become unconscious. There is no other way. You can put off your consciousness - then the traffic goes on roaring and you need not be disturbed. You become insensitive to it. The train passes by and you are insensitive. The plane is passing and you are insensitive. That's how you have become.

Scientists say we are only two percent alert; ninety-eight percent we are insensitive. We are afraid.

There are so many things happening - if all those things become available we will go mad.

Become more sensitive. You will not go mad. Closing yourself to life you have become mad. Open up, listen to everything. Noise also has to be listened to as you listen to music. And if you listen attentively you will be surprised - noise is music. And if you don't listen attentively, music is noise.

If you listen attentively, the barking dog is a Buddha-sermon. If you don't listen attentively, when Buddha is speaking only a dog is barking.

You try to understand me; you make all the effort, I know, but that is not going to help. You will have to bring awareness from as many doors as possible. Eating, smell the food. Let your nose become alive again - it has been dead. Man has completely lost his nose, his smelling capacity.

While eating food, taste with great awareness. Food is God. It is nourishment, something of God is in it - otherwise how will it nourish you? Something of life is in it. Packaged life, packaged sun, is in it. That's what the trees are doing continuously - you cannot absorb sun directly, they do the job for you. They absorb the sun and then you eat the apple - the apple is packaged sun, ready for you.

In the future there is a possibility... and I would like it to happen - because only then can poverty disappear from the world, and starvation and hunger. If trees can do it, why cannot man do it directly? Everybody just has to wear a cap, a special cap made to absorb the sun directly. And it can be automatic too - whenever you are hungry it will absorb, and whenever you are not hungry it will not absorb. If trees can do it - that they can transform sun into food - why not you? Man has not looked into these possibilities, because man's whole mind is concerned with war. Man has created the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb - why can't man make small things like these which can change the whole earth? And once you have a special arrangement for absorbing food direct from the sun, all the problems will disappear - because ninety percent of illnesses come from the stomach.

And this continuous inequality in the world - that a few people have more than they need and a few people don't have what they need - it can be dropped. Sooner or later it is going to happen. It has to happen, otherwise the earth cannot be saved.

When you are eating an apple, remember, be grateful to the tree. It has done something for you that you cannot do on your own. Be grateful to the sun - you are eating the sun, you are eating energy.

Taste it, smell it, touch it, be sensitive to it, be open to it, and you will find windows opening in you.

Taking a bath, be open to it. Eighty percent of your body is water - be thankful, enjoy this shower, this water falling on you. Let your inside water be thrilled.

Become more and more aware and conscious of whatsoever you are doing, and then you will be able to understand me more and more. Right now you are in a drunken state.

A small story to meditate...

It happened in Africa. A political rebel had been condemned to death. However, the sultan was in an indulgent frame of mind. When the prisoner was brought before him, his majesty declared: "I'm going to give you a chance for your life. Before us there stand three tents. In each tent there is an almost superhuman task to perform. If you succeed in all three tents, I will pardon you.

"In the first tent is a gallon of wine: you must drink it all down within fifteen minutes. In the second tent is a ferocious tiger suffering from a horrible toothache: you must extract the tooth in fifteen minutes. In the third tent there is a powerfully built Amazonian virgin who has resisted the advances of the strongest men in my realm. You cannot overpower her, but you have fifteen minutes to seduce her."

The prisoner thanked the sultan for being given a chance to live, and then proceeded to the first tent.

In ten minutes he emerged staggeringly drunk, holding upside-down an empty wine jug in one hand.

On unsteady feet he plunged into the second tent. Seconds later, everyone's blood curdled because of the terrible screams and roars which came forth from that tent. About eight minutes later, the prisoner emerged from the second tent, a horrible bloody mess, covered with long scratches, deep bites and fearful gouges from the tiger's claws. To look at him was sickening.

Reeling up to one of the royal attendants, the prisoner demanded: "Now where is the girl with the toothache?"