Where did we come from and how did we

Question 1

THERE is no "how" to it. When you are alert no "how" is needed. When you are awakened you act spontaneously, not with a plan in the mind, because now there exists no mind at all. A Buddha responds -- moment to moment.

Whatsoever the situation demands, with no plan, no idea how to act, with no technique he simply responds. His response is like an echo: you go to the hills, you make noise, and the hills echo it. Have you ever asked how the hills echo?

They respond. When you play on a sitar has the sitar any "how"? You may be having technique and things in the mind -- what to play, what to sing -- but the sitar? It simply responds to your fingers.

A Buddha is a nothingness. You come around him; he responds. Remember the word "responds": it is not a reaction; it is a response. When you react you have an idea in the mind -- how. what. When you react you react from a position. If you come to a Buddha he does not react from any position; he has none. He has no prejudice, no opinion, no ideology. He responds. He responds to the situation.

One day a man came and asked, "Does God exist?" Buddha looked at him and said, "No." And the same day. in the afternoon. another man came. He asked.

"Does God exist?" Buddha looked into him and said, "Yes." And the same day, in the evening, a third man came. He asked, "Does God exist?" and Buddha remained quiet; he didn't answer.

If he had a position in the mind then the answer would he consistent, because it is not a response to the situation: it is always born out of an idea in the mind; it will be consistent. If he was an atheist, not believing in God, then whosoever the questioner it makes no difference. In fact a man of ideology never looks at you, never looks at the situation. He has a fixed idea. an obsession really. Buddha would have said, "No!" if he was an atheist, to all the three persons. If he was a theist he would have said, "Yes," to all the three persons. In fact the person, the alive situation becomes irrelevant when you have an ideology, a position, a prejudice, a pattern, a mind; then you don't look at the situation.

Otherwise, the responses will be totally different. There will be a deep running consistency -- consistency of being, not of answers. Buddha is the same when he said no. Buddha is the same when he said yes. Buddha is the same when he didn't say anything and remained silent, but the situations were different.

Buddha's disciple Anand was present in all the three situations. He became confused. Those three persons didn't know anything about the two other answers that Buddha had given, but Anand was present in all the three situations. When Buddha was going to lie down on the bed in the night Anand said, "One question. Why did you answer the same question in three ways, inconsistent, contradictory?"

Buddha said, "I have not given any answer to you -- you need not worry. You can ask your question and I will answer you. Those answers were not given to you. Who are you to come in?" An answer is given to a situation. When the situation changes, the answer changes. It is a response.

Buddha said, "The first man who asked was an atheist. In fact he was not an inquirer. When I looked in him he had a position -- he has already achieved, arrived. He has concluded: he has concluded that there is no God. He had come only for a confirmation from me so that he can go and say to people, 'Buddha also believes the same way I believe: that there is no God.' I had to say no to him.

"The man who came in the afternoon was also with a conclusion. He was a theist, a staunch, orthodox theist -- he believed that God exists. He had also come with the same mind, to be confirmed.

"The third man who had come was without any position, with no mind. He was an inquirer. He didn't believe in anything: he has not arrived. He was on the way; he was pure. I had to remain silent with him. Now, if you have the same question, you can ask."

A response will always be different, and yet deep down will be a running current of being. Always Buddha looks into the man, into the situation. The situation decides -- not Buddha's mind; he has none.

So you ask, "Wow does a Buddha participate totally in day-to-day life?" If you try to participate totally it will not be total: no effort can ever be total. No technique can ever be total, because you will be manipulating. You will be separate from it; you will be trying to be total. How can you try to be total? You can relax; only then totality comes into being. You are in a let-go; then you are total.

Totality is not a discipline. All disciplines are partial. That's why a man who is much too disciplined will never reach to the truth, because he will always be carrying the burden -- doing something continuously: gross or subtle, on the surface or in the depth, but always a doer. No, Buddha is not a doer. In fact when you relax there is no other way to be -- the only way left is to participate totally.

It has no "how" to it, but the question arises in your mind because you don't know what awareness is. It is just as a blind man asks, "How do people who have eyes move without a stick in their hands to grope their way?" If you say to him that they don't need any stick, that they don't need groping, he will not be able to believe. He will laugh. He will say, "You are joking. How is it possible?

Do you mean to say that men with eyes simply move without groping?" A blind man cannot understand it. He has no experience of it. He has always been

groping and groping and, even then, stumbling again and again and falling. He has been somehow managing. A Buddha does not manage: he is in a let-go and everything fits together on its own accord.

Question 2

The dynamic technique is really a very rare phenomenon. It does not belong to any type; it can help all. To the person of tamas -- lethargy, inertia -- it will bring him out of his tamas. It will create so much energy in him that the tamas will be broken; if not all, then a part of it. If a man of tamas is ready to do it, it can work wonders because a man of tamas is really not lacking energy. Energy is there but not in an active position, not in an active state. Energy is there fast asleep. The Dynamic Meditation can work as an alarm: it can change inertia into activity; it can make the energy move; it can bring the man of tamas out of tamas.

The second type of man, the rajas type, who is very active -- in fact much too active, so active that he cannot find fields where to release his energy, he is in many ways a pent-up energy -- the dynamic technique will help him to release, to be unburdened. After doing dynamic techniques he will feel weightless. And in life his hectic, continuous obsession for activity will slow down. A part of his obsessive occupation will dissolve.

Of course. he will be benefited more than the man of tamas because the man of tamas first has to be made active. He exists at the lowest rung of the ladder; but once he becomes active. then everything becomes possible. Once he becomes active he will become the second type; he will be rajas now.

And for a person of sattva the Dynamic Meditation helps tremendously. He is not in inertia; there is no need to bring his energy up. He is not obsessively active; there is no need of any catharsis for him. He is balanced, purer than the other two, happier than the other two, lighter than the other two. Then how will Dynamic Meditation help him? It will become a celebration for him. It will become just a singing, a dancing, a participation with the whole. He will be benefited the most.

This is the paradox of life. Jesus says, "Those who have will be given more, and those who don't have, even that which they have will be taken away from them."

The man of inertia needs more, but he cannot be given more because he is not capable of receiving it. The Dynamic Meditation, at the most, will bring him out of his inertia to the second rung of the ladder; and that too with the condition that he participates. Even that is difficult for him -- to decide to participate, to make so much activity.

People of that type come to me -- from their faces you can see they are fast asleep, in a deep slumber -- and they say, "We don't need these active methods.

Give us something silent." They are talking about silence -- they want some method which they can do lying down on the bed; or at the most they can sit with hard effort. That too it is not certain that they will do, but the active meditation seems to be much too active for them. If they participate at all they will be helped; of course not as much as the second type because the second type already exists on the second rung. He already has something in it; he can be helped more. He will be relaxed by the method, unburdened, weightless. Slowly, he will start moving towards the first rung, the highest.

The man of sattva, purity, innocence, will be helped most. He has much; he can be helped. The law of nature is almost like the banks': if you don't have money they will not give you. If you need money they will create a thousand and one conditions; if you don't need money they will seek you. If you have enough of your own they are always ready to give you as much as you want. The law of nature is exactly like that: it gives you more when you don't need, it gives you less when you need; it takes away if you don't have anything, and it gives you in a thousand and one ways if you have something.

On the surface it looks as if it is paradoxical -- the poor man should be given more. By "poor" I mean the man of tamas. The rich man, the man of sattva, should not be given at all. But no, when you have a certain richness you become a magnetic force to attract more richness towards you. The poor man repels; he does not allow richness to come to him. Deep down, the poor man is poor because he does not attract. He has no magnetism to attract riches towards him; hence he is poor. Nobody has made him poor. He is poor because he does not attract; he does not have the magnetism to attract.

These are simple economic laws that if you have a few rupees in your pocket, those rUpees will attract other rupees to fall in your pocket. If your pocket is empty then even the pocket will disappear, because some other pocket which has much will attract your pocket. You will lose the pocket itself. The richer you are, the richer you become: so the basic necessity is to have something within you.

The man of tamas has nothing. He is just a lump of earth; he vegetates. The man of rajas is not a lump of earth; he is a fast-moving energy. Much is possible with fast-moving energy. In fact without energy moving nothing is possible, but then his energy becomes madness -- it goes to the extreme. Because of too much activity he loses much. Because of too much activity he does not know what to do and what not to do. He goes on doing; he goes on doing contradictory things: with one hand he will do something, with another hand he will undo it. He is almost mad.

You must remember that the first type, the tamas, never goes mad. That's why in the East madness is not so prevalent. You don't need so many psychoanalysts, you don't need so many mad asylums, no. In the East people live like lumps of earth. How can you go mad? In tamas madness is not possible; you don't do anything to go mad. In the West madness has become almost normal; now there is only a degree of difference between normal and abnormal people. People who

are inside the asylum and people who are outside, they are all in the same world -- just a difference of degree. And everybody is a boundary case: just a little push, and you are inside. Anything can go wrong -- and there are a thousand and one things in your life. Anything can go wrong and you will be inside. The West is rajas -- too much activity. Speed is the symbol: go on moving, go on doing. And there exists no society which is of sattva people; up to now it has not been possible.

India claims, the East claims, that they are sattva people. They are not; they are simply tamas. Rarely sometimes a Buddha happens or a Krishna happens -- that is not the point. They are exceptions; they simply prove the rule. East is tamas -- very, very slow-moving, not moving at all.

I used to go to my village. After years I will go and everything is almost the same. I will meet the same porter on the station, because only one porter is there.

He is getting old, but the same man. I will meet the same tangawala because only a few tangas are there; and one always claims me, that I am his passenger. And he is a stronger man, so nobody can fight; so he grabs me and forces me in his tanga. And then the same things are revealed, as if I am going in a memory, not in a real world. I will meet the same man on the road. Sometimes somebody has died and that's. big news. Otherwise, the world moves in a circle: the same man who comes to give vegetables, the same man who comes to give the milk -- everything. Almost static.

In the West nothing is static, and everything is news. You go back, everything has changed: your mother may have divorced: your father; your father may have escaped with some other woman; back home there is no home -- the family doesn't exist at all. I was reading some data about the American style of life.

Almost every person changes his job in three years, his town also in three years.

Everything is changing. And people are in a hurry. And people are running faster and faster and nobody worries, "Where are you going?"

And a sattva society does not exist. Only a few individuals sometimes happen to be so balanced that tamas and rajas are just in the same proportion. They have enough energy to move, and they have enough sense to rest. They make a rhythm of their life: in the day they move, they do things; in the night they rest.

In the East, in the day also they are resting. In the West, in the night also they are working in their heads, in dreams. All Western dreams have become nightmares.

In the East you can come across tribes which don't know what a dream is. Really, it happens. I have come across a few aboriginal tribes in India: If you talk about their dreams they say, "What do you mean?" Rarely it happens. and when it happens it is a great news in the town that somebody has had a dream. Because people are resting. In the West sleep has become impossible because dreams are so many and so violently speedy, everything trembling. Nothing seems to be in an equilibrium. In the East, everything dead.

Sattva is possible when rajas and tamas both are in equilibrium. When you know when to work and when you know when to rest, when you know how to keep

the office in the office and not allow it in the home, when you know how to come home and leave the office mind in the office and not bring your files with you -- then sattva happens. Sattva is balance; sattva is equilibrium.

For the man who has sattva the dynamic techniques will be tremendously helpful because they will bring into his life not only silence, but bliss. Silent he is already, because balance gives stillness, silence. But silence is a negative phenomenon -- unless it becomes a dancing, a singing, a rejoicing, it is not much.

Good as far as it goes, good to be silent, but don't be content with it, because still much is waiting for you.

To be silent is just like a man who has been diagnosed by medical doctors and nothing wrong has been found in him. But that is not health. You may not be ill, but that is not necessarily to be healthy. Health has a different aroma, a vitality.

No-disease -- the certificate for no-disease is not health. Health is a positive phenomenon. You bubble with it; you radiate with it. It is nothing like a certificate that you have no diseases. Health in itself is not only the absence of disease, it is itself a presence.

A man of silence, a sattva man, is already silent; he lives a very quiet life. Quiet, but no laughter in it. Quiet, but no overflowing energy in it. Quiet, but doesn't radiate. Silence, but dark; the light has not penetrated in it. A sattva man can become absolutely silent, but in the silence the nad, the anahat, the divine song has not penetrated. The Dynamic Meditation will help him to dance, to bring dance to his heart, to bring singing to his every cell of being.

Of course, the sattva man will be helped much, benefited most, but nothing can be done; that is the nature of law. If you have, more will be given to you; if you don't have, even that which you have will be taken away.

Question 3

No. Individuality does not remain after enlightenment, but enlightenment is individual. You will have to understand it. A river falls into the ocean. When it has fallen the river has disappeared -- there is no individuality of that river left, but only an individual river falls into the ocean. You fall into the ocean of enlightenment as an individual: you cannot take your wife with you or your friend with you -- there is no way. You go alone. Nobody can take anybody.

How can you take anybody? When you meditate you meditate alone. The moment you close the eyes and you become silent, everybody has disappeared -- the wife, the friend, the children. The nearest are also no longer near; the closest are farthest now. In your deep silence, inner collectedness, you alone exist. This aloneness will fall into the ocean.

So, enlightenment is individual. Of course after enlightenment individuality disappears; there is no individuality. So remember this: you cannot go en masse;

you cannot go as an organization; you cannot go as a sect. You cannot say, "Come on all Christians," or "Come on all Hindus. I am going to enlightenment and I will take all the Hindus with me." Nobody can take anybody else. It is absolutely alone. And that's the beauty of it, the purity of it. In your absolute aloneness you fall into the oceanic nirvana. Just a moment before, you were a river; just a moment before, you were an individual -- the very peak of individuality, a Buddha -- and just a moment afterwards nothing exists. You are no longer a river; you have become the ocean. Now you cannot even say, "I am."

The ocean is; the river has disappeared.

You can say it in two ways: that the river has disappeared -- one way, the Buddhist way; or you can say the river has become the ocean -- another way, the Vedanta way. But both are the same.' The river has become the ocean," or, "The river has disappeared; only the ocean is," are only ways of saying the same thing.

Question 4

From nowhere. And this word "nowhere" can be broken into two words; then it becomes "now here." These are the two possible answers. Both are true because both mean the same. You come from "nowhere" or you come from "now here."

When you ask, "From where?" you would like to know about the beginning.

There is none. You have always been; you will always be. Existence is beginningless, endless. It is not that somewhere it begins. It is not possible, because if existence begins somewhere on some date, day -- as Christians say that it begins before Jesus, four thousand four years before -- that means time existed before existence. That will be foolish because time is part of existence. That means space existed before existence -- otherwise where will you put this newly created thing? -- and space is part of existence.

Scientists say, in fact, space-time is the who]e of existence. So time cannot begin because then another time will be needed. Then you will ask, "When did time begin?" Four thousand four years before? Monday, six o'clock in the morning?

Then there was time before: otherwise how did you come to know it is Monday, and how did you come to know that Sunday has passed, and how did you come to know that it is six o'clock and the morning? No, time cannot begin because then another time is needed. And if you say, "Okay. We say okay to another time," then that other time cannot begin. Then further ahead another time will be needed. You fall in an infinite regression. You fall in an absurdity which leads nowhere.

Beginning is not there. And if the beginning is not there, there cannot be any end, because a thing that never begins cannot end. How will it end?

So you come from nowhere. That is one answer: that you don't come; you have been here. From this arises the second and more relevant point: break "nowhere" into "now here."

I have heard a story. There was an atheist, and he was a lawyer, and a very logical man. And to declare his faith he had written on his wall in big letters so whosoever would come would know -- he had written in big letters: GOD IS NOWHERE. Then he became a father; a child was born to him. And the child began learning words, and it was difficult for him to pronounce the big word "nowhere." So the child was reading -- he could read GOD IS, but he couldn't read NOWHERE; it was too big a word. So he broke it in two. He read, GOD IS NOW HERE. And I have heard that the father heard it and he was transformed.

Suddenly, something melted in him: the child has brought a message.

So break the word in two; become a child. When I say "nowhere" try to hear "now here." Either you come from nowhere or you are born every moment now here. Moment to moment is birth. Moment to moment you die and disappear, and moment to moment you are born again. You are a process, not a thing: a thing is born -- finished, then it dies. No, you are not a thing. You are not static.

You are a process, riverlike, flowing. Every moment you are being renewed; every moment you are being resurrected. Every moment you die, and every moment you are reborn.

If you become aware of the present moment you will become aware of this phenomenon also: that every moment you move into the black hole, you disappear, and again come anew out of it. Every moment this is happening, but you are not alert. That's why you miss. To see that interval, very intense alertness is needed.

And then you will not ask the second part of the question: "... and how did we become?" You are always becoming. Becoming is your being. You are always growing, always and always, and there is no end to it. Don't think that there will come a time when you will become perfect and there will be no growth -- because that will be death. There comes at no time such a moment. One goes on transcending -- from one perfection to another perfection.

Go to the Himalayas. You see a peak and nothing else. Then you go to the peak and suddenly other peaks come into your vision. Then go to other peaks, and again many more peaks come into your vision. The more you grow, the more you see the possibility to grow. The more you become, the more doors open for your becoming -- new vistas, new avenues, new dimensions.

Life is an ongoing phenomenon, a continuum. You never come to a point where you can say, "Now I have become.'' And if you ask for such a moment, you are asking for suicide. Don't ask that. Remain with the process. If you can remain with the process it is so beautiful: to be born again and again, to be rejuvenated again and again. If you ask that you would like to be perfect -- like a dead rock -- then no becoming is needed. You are asking for death: you are not a love of life; you have not lived and known life.

Live life, accept life, be alert to the passing moment, and all the mysteries will be revealed to you by your own presence of awareness. There is no other way.

You are coming from nowhere and you are going to nowhere. You are always in the middle; you are always on the path. In fact. I would like to say you are always the path, because the path doesn't exist separate from you. When I say you are growing, don't misunderstand me -- you may think you are separate and you are growing. No: you are the growth; you are the becoming. Nothing else exists.

Then suddenly, in the whole becoming process, in the whole whirlpool of becoming, you find void, emptiness -- sunyata -- within you. And that space is wonderful. That space is what we call the benediction.

Question 5

This comes from Swabhav. You must have also come across his madness. Now, he himself has become aware of it -- this is a beautiful moment.

If you can be confused, that shows that you are intelligent. Only a fool cannot be confused; only a stupid man cannot be confused. If you have some intelligence you can be confused. An intelligent person can only be confused, so don't look at the confusion. You must have some intelligence, that's why. Now the intelligence is coming on its own. coming of age. The confusion was always there, but you were not alert, so you could not see it. Now you are alert and you can see. It is just like this: you live in a dark room. Cobwebs are there, rats run here and there, in the corners dirt goes on multiplying. and suddenly I come in your room with a lamp. You tell me, "Put off your lamp because you are making my room dirty. It was never so; everything was so beautiful in darkness."

How can I make you confused? I am here to dissolve all your confusions. But in the very process of dissolving, the first step is going to be that you will have to become aware of your confusion. If your room has to be cleaned, then the first step is to see the room as it is; otherwise how will you clean it? If you believe it is already clean -- and in the darkness you have never known the piles of dirt that have come into it and what miracles the spiders have been doing in your room and how many scorpions and snakes have made their habitat there -- if you remain fast asleep in darkness, then there is no problem. A problem exists only for a man whose intelligence is growing.

So whenever you come to me, the first thing, the first impact if you understand me will be confusion. That's a good sign. You are on the right path, go on. Don't be worried. If confusion is there, then no-confusion is possible. If you can't see the confusion, then there is no possibility for clarity. Just watch it: who is saying that you are confused. A confused mind cannot even say, "I am confused." You must have become a little watcher by the side -- you see the confusion around you like smoke. But who is this who has become aware that there is confusion?

All hope lies in this phenomenon: that a part of you -- a very small part of course, but that too is too much in the beginning -- you should feel fortunate that a part of you can watch and look at the whole confusion. Now let this part grow more.

Don't be afraid of the confusion: otherwise you will try to force this part to go to sleep again so you can feel safe again.

I know Swabhav from his very beginning. He was not confused, that is true -- because he was perfectly stupid. He was adamant, stubborn. He almost knew everything, without knowing. Now, for the first time a part of his being is becoming intelligent, alert, aware, and that part is locking around: there is sheer confusion.

This is beautiful. Now two possibilities are there: either you listen to this part which is saying this is confusion, and you increase it -- it becomes a pillar of light and in that light all confusion will dissolve: or you become afraid and scared -- you start escaping from this part which has become aware, you start drowning it back into darkness again. Then you will be a knower again: stubborn, knowledgeable, everything clean-cut -- no confusion. Only a person who does not know much, only a person who is not aware, can remain without confusion.

A really aware person will feel, hesitate -- every step he will take and he will hesitate -- because all certainties are lost. Says Lao Tzu, "The wise man walks so cautiously, as if he is afraid of death on every step." A wise man becomes aware of confusion; that is the first step.

And then there is the second step: when the wise man has become so wise that all the energy has become light. So now the same energy that was creating confusion and moving in confusion is there no more; it has been absorbed. All confusion disappears; there is morning suddenly. And when darkness is too much -- remember that the morning is close. But you can escape.

"You made me altogether confused...." Perfectly true, that-s what I have been doing. You should be thankful for it to me.

"... and lethargic." Yes, that too is true... because, I know Swabhav. He is the rajas type -- too much activity. When he would come for the first times to see me he was full of energy, too much activity -- a rajas type. Now, meditation, understanding, is bringing his activity to a lower pitch, to a balancing state. A man of rajas will always feel, when he is becoming balanced, that he is becoming lethargic. This is his attitude. He will always feel that "where has his energy gone"; he has become lethargic. What is happening to him? He had come here to become a great warrior and to go and win the whole world, and all that I have been doing to him is bringing him back from too much activity, too much nonsense.

In the West you have a saying that the empty mind is the devi]'s workshop. That has been created by rajas people. It is not true, because the empty mind is God's workshop. The devil cannot function there, because in an empty mind the devil cannot enter at a]l. The devil can enter only in an active mind. So remember this:

the rajas mind is the devil's workshop. Too much activity, then on your activity the devil can write.

You have seen two world wars. They have come from rajas people. In Europe, Germany belongs to the rajas type -- too much activity. In the East, Japan belongs to rajas people -- too much activity. And these two became the source of all the nonsense of the Second World War. Too much activity. Just think, Germany belonging to the tamas people, lethargic -- what can Adolf Hitler do? You tell them to turn to the right, and they are standing. You tell them to turn about; they are standing. In fact they will sit down I y that time and they will have gone to sleep. Adolf Hitler will look foolish amongst tamas people. He will look absolutely foolish in a sattvic society -- mad. People will get hold of him and treat him in a sattvic society. In a tamas society he will look just stupid, a nuisance. Hmm?... people are resting and you are unnecessarily moving with flags and slogans, and nobody follows you -- alone. But in Germany he became the leader. the Fuehrer, the greatest leader Germany had ever known, because the people were rajas.

Swabhav was a rajas type, a kshatriya type, ready to fight, always on edge to be angry; now he has slowed down, We was running one hundred m.p.h., and I have brought him down to ten m.p.h. of course he feels lethargic. This is not lethargy; this is just bringing your obsession with activity to a normal state because only from there the sattva will become possible; otherwise it will not become possible. You have to gain a balance between tamas and rajas, between lethargy and movement. You have to know how to rest and you have to know how to act.

It is always easy to rest completely; it is also easy to act completely. But to know these two opposite polarities and move in them and create a rhythm is difficult -- and that rhythm is sattva.

"You made me altogether confused and lethargic." True.

"I am like mad." Perfectly true. You have always been. Now you know it -- and that is the definition of a man who is not mad A madman can never know that he is mad. Go to the madhouse, inquire. No madman can say, "I am mad." Every madman believes that except him the whole world is mad -- that is the definition of madness. You can never come across a madman who says. "I am mad." If he has that much wisdom to say that he is mad, he is already a wise man; he is no longer mad. Madness never accepts. Mad people are very. very reluctant. Even to go to the doctor they are reluctant: they say, "Why? For what? Am I mad? There is no need -- I am perfectly right. You can go."

Mulla Nasrudin went to a psychiatrist and he said. "Now something must be done -- things have gone beyond me. My wife has gone completely mad, and she thinks that she has become a refrigerator."

Even the psychiatrist became alert. He had himself never come across such a case. He said, "That is serious. Tell me more about it."

He said, "Eh, there is nothing more to it. She has become a refrigerator; she believes she is a refrigerator."

The psychiatrist said, "But, if this is only a belief, there is no harm in it. It is innocent. Let her believe. She is not creating any other trouble?'' Nasrudin said, "Trouble? I cannot sleep at all because in the night she sleeps with her mouth open -- and because of the light in the refrigerator I cannot sleep!" Now who is mad? Mad people never think they are mad.

Swabhav, this is a blessing that you can think, "I am mad." This is the sane part within you which realizes it. Everybody is mad. The sooner you realize it, the better.

"At the moment I feel no trust even." Good. Because when you become really alert it becomes difficult to feel trust. There are many stages. One stage, people feel doubt. Then they suppress the doubt because trust seems to be very promising: "Surrender, and you will attain everything." I go on promising you, "Surrender, and your enlightenment is certain." Trust seems to be very promising. Your greed is provoked -- you say, "Okay. Then we will trust and surrender." But this is not trust, this is greed -- and deep down you hide the doubt. You go on doubting -- by the side. You remain alert that trust is okay but don't trust too much because, who knows, this man may be after something, or just befooling, deceiving. So you trust, but you trust halfheartedly. And deep down is doubt.

When you meditate, when you become a little more understanding, when you listen to me continuously and I go on hammering from so many points of view, from so many sides -- I make many holes in your being. I go on hammering, breaking you down. I have to break your whole structure. I have to destructure you; only then can you be remade. There is no other way. I have to demolish you completely; only then a new structure is possible.

I go on destructuring; then, understanding arises -- flashes of understanding. In those flashes you will see that you don't even trust; the doubt is hidden there.

First, you doubt. Second, you trust with doubt hidden deep down. Third, you become aware of the hidden doubt and the trust -- and how can you both trust and doubt. You hesitate. you feel confused.

Now from this point two possibilities open: either you fall back to doubt, that is the first stage as you had come to me, or you grow into trust and drop all doubts.

This is a very, very liquid state. It can solidify in two ways: either on the lower rung where you are full of doubts again -- even the false trust has disappeared; or you grow into trust and the trust becomes a crystallization -- the suppressed part of doubt has disappeared. So this state is very, very vulnerable and one should move very cautiously and alertly.

"Now tell me what should I do? Where should I go?' There is nowhere to go when you have come to me. Now you can go anywhere, but you will have to come. To come to me is dangerous: then you can go anywhere, but everywhere I will haunt you. There is nowhere to go.

And nothing is to be done. Just be alert to the whole situation because if you start doing something, if you are hankering to do something, you will mess everything. Let it be as it is. Confusion is there, madness is there, trust has gone: just wait and watch and sit on the bank and let the river settle by itself. It settles on its own: you need not do anything. You have done enough -- now rest. Just watch and see how the river settles. It has become muddled; there is mud in it and dry leaves are floating on the surface -- don't jump into it! You are hankering to jump into it to do something so that the water can be made clean -- whatsoever you do you will make it more muddy. Please resist this temptation.

Remain on the bank, don't get into the river, and just be a watcher.

If you can watch without doing anything.... And that is the greatest temptation of the mind -- the mind says, "Do something: otherwise how are things going to change?" The mind says only with effort, with doing, can something be changed.

And that looks logical, appealing, convincing -- and it is absolutely wrong. You cannot do anything. You are the problem. And the more you do, the more you feel you are; the "I" becomes strengthened; the ego becomes strong. Don't do, just watch. Watching, the ego disappears. Doing, the ego strengthens. Be a witness.

Accept it -- don't fight it at all. What is wrong if confusion is there? Just a cloudy evening, clouds in the sky -- what is wrong? Enjoy it. Too much sun is also not good; sometimes clouds are needed. What is wrong in it? The morning is misty and you feel confused. What is wrong in it? Enjoy the mist also. Whatsoever the case, you watch. wait, and enjoy. Accept. If you can accept it, the very acceptance transmutes, the very acceptance transforms.

Soon you will see you are sitting there, the river has disappeared -- not only the mud, but the whole river -- the mist is no longer there, the clouds have disappeared, and the open sky, the vast space is available.

But patience will be needed. So if you insist, "Now tell me what to do," I will say, "Do patience." If you insist, "Where should I go?" I will tell you "Come closer to me."

Question 6

Brahmins have gone neurotic. They suffer from compulsion, obsession, neurosis.

To be clean is good, but to clean continuously is mad. And the mind can move to extremes. You can either be dirty, then you don't take a bath.... I used to know an Italian sannyasin. She happened to stay with me in a camp. I was surprised, she never took any bath. Then I inquired and she said, "Once a year," she takes. And she asked, surprised, "Is that not enough? -- once a year?' And then there are brahmins who are not doing anything else -- just taking baths.

I know a person, he is a close relative; he has some obsession. He has remained a bachelor all his life -- a very good man in all the ways except one, and that too is innocent, doesn't harm anybody, but has harmed him completely. He is a poor man because he has never earned much. He has lived on whatsoever had been left by his father, and has to live very, very miserly because he does not have much and it has to last his whole life. And he has no time to earn because of that obsession -- and the obsession is cleanliness. The whole day he is cleaning his house. There is nothing to clean: a small room, he goes on cleaning it. Then he will take his baths. And this is part of the obsession: that if he sees a woman he will immediately take a bath because he is a bachelor, a perfect bachelor, such that "just the shadow of a woman makes you dirty."

He goes to the public tap to bring water. He goes early in the morning so nobody can come across him, because if a woman crosses the path he has to clean his pot again -- throw the water, clean the pot, bring water again. And it has happened sometimes that thirty, forty, sixty times he will go -- the whole day. And you cannot stop traffic, and people are passing, and there are as many women as men. It is difficult. And he cannot miss -- he is looking for women. Even if he can see a woman far away, immediately... The whole day is wasted. He is so superbly clean, but what to do with this cleanliness? Whole life wasted.

It is always good to remember that balance is always right. Don't be dirty; don't get obsessed with dirt. Now hippies have got obsessed with dirtiness. That's reaction. It is not freedom, because reaction can never be freedom. Christianity insisted on too much cleanliness. They have a proverb that cleanliness is next to godliness. They insisted for cleanliness too much; now the whole generation, the modern generation, has revolted against it. Now hippies are not taking baths, they don't bother about any cleaning of the clothes -- as if dirtiness has become their sadhana: it is their discipline to be dirty. They feel they have got completely free from the old pattern of the society. No, you are not free: reaction, revolt. is not revolution. You may go to the other extreme, but you are caught in the same pattern: they were mad to be clean; you are mad to be dirty.

And if I am asked, "If there is only one way... one has to choose the extreme.!" then I will choose the extreme of cleanliness -- at least it is clean. But I am always for balance.

And nobody can make a discipline for you: you have to feel your body, your balance -- because uncleanliness, dirtiness. becomes a heaviness on your body, your mind. Cleanliness is not for somebody else or for the society: it is for you -- to feel light, to feel happy, to feel pure and clean. A good bath gives you wings.

A good bath, and you are a little unearthly, not part of this earth: you can fly a little. A good bath is a must. And nobody else can make the rule for you; you have to understand your own body. Sometimes you are ill and there is no need, because the bath can be disturbing; then don't be obsessed with it. Sometimes the situation is not such that you can take the bath; then don't be neurotic about it --

don't feel guilty. There is nothing in it to feel guilty: to take the bath is not a virtue; not to take the bath is not a sin. At the most it is good hygiene.

And you should have to look after your body; the body is the temple of the divine. It should be clean; it should be beautiful. Yon have to live in it; you have to be with it. It will affect you in many ways. In a clean body, in a clean temple, the possibility is more for a clean mind to happen and exist. I am not saying that this is equivalent. I am just saying the possibility -- in a clean body, more possibility. I am not saying that in a dirty body there is no possibility for a clean mind -- the possibility is there, but it will be a little difficult, against the grain.

Meditation is an inner bath of consciousness, and bath is a meditation for the body.

Question 7

If you understand me I am always talking on Lao Tzu. If you don t understand me, even while I am talking on Lao Tzu it will be of no use. In fact I am never just to anybody else -- Patanjali. Jesus. Mahavir, Buddha. No, I am never just; I cannot be. The Lao Tzu goes on coming in. I am continuously talking on Lao Tzu.

When I am talking on Lao Tzu, when I am talking on Patanjali, when I am talking on Buddha or Jesus; if you can understand me, Lao Tzu remains the continuous undercurrent. But if you don't understand me, then the question arises, "Why can you not continue talking on Lao Tzu?"

Lao Tzu to me is not a subject matter; Patanjali is. When I speak on Patanjali I speak on Patanjali. When I speak on Lao Tzu I don t speak on Lao Tzu; I speak Lao Tzu. And the difference is vast, tremendous.

Question 8

This is from Madhuri. Erhard is as near as Madhuri. Everybody is as near as Erhard. In fact enlightenment is a jump, not a gradual phenomenon -- in just a single step the journey is complete. It is as if you are sitting with closed eyes and you open the eyes and the sun is there; the whole world is filled with light.

Somebody is sitting with closed eyes: even then the world is filled with light and the sun is there, only he is sitting with closed eyes. And if he is enjoying it nothing is wrong in it, perfectly okay: but if he is miserable then I say why don't you open the eyes? The difference between ignorance and enlightenment is just that of opening the eyes. It is not much of a difference, if you are ready to open. If you are not ready to open, it is a tremendous difference.

Erhard is as near as anybody else, hut intellect seems to be the barrier for him -- as it is a barrier for you, most of you. He has understood the point -- exactly he has understood it -- but intellectually. When I talked about his few sentences last

time, I okayed them all. They are all perfectly true, but I have not said anything about the person. Whatsoever he has said is perfectly true; but you can study Lao Tzu -- intellectually you can understand and you can say the same things. As far as the words go they are true, but the man seems to be much too intellectually in it, not totally in it. And that's the problem.

And that is the greatest problem one can encounter: you understand everything I say, you can even explain it to others. but enlightenment will be as far away as ever. It is not a question of intellectually understanding. it is a question of total understanding -- your total being understands it. not only your mind. Your heart understands it. Not only your heart -- your blood and your bones, your marrow understands it. Nothing is left behind -- our whole being understands it, is bathed in that understanding. I hen the fragrance comes. then the dance happens, then you flower.

And there is only one step and the journey is complete. Between you and me the distance is only of one step -- not more than that. Not even two steps are needed.

But forget about Erhard. Just think about yourself, because Erhard is a problem to himself; it is none of your business to be bothered about. Just think about yourself. Have you not many times felt that you understand me perfectly, and again and again you miss? Why? If you understand me, why do you miss? You understand me intellectually, verbally, theoretically, but your being does not participate in it. So while you are near me you understand; when you have moved away, the understanding simply disappears: you are again back to your old standpoint, to your old world and the pattern. While with me you forget yourself and everything is clear, crystal clear. Away from me you are again into your hole, and everything is confused and nothing is clear.

Only one step exists. And the step has to be taken with the total being. You are just sitting and imagining that you have taken the step. You can go on sitting and you can go on imagining a great journey. If you do it for long, the journey becomes so real, appears so real, that you can start talking like an enlightened man -- but that won't help.

You have to be enlightened. It is not imagination; it is not thinking. It is being.