Because you are buddhas

Question 1

YOU miss the whole point, and you miss it in the analogy. Enlightenment is "going nowhere," neither upward nor downward. Enlightenment is to be where you are -- right now, this very moment. It is not a going; it is being. You don t go anywhere in enlightenment. Buddha is not going, climbing, to the Everest. You go inward; and that dimension of inwardness is neither upward nor downward.

It doesn't belong to the upward or the downward; those are the outer directions.

Inside, you are exactly where you are. Enlightenment is not going, but being -- being totally still. Hence, the jump is possible.

You are true. If it is going upward, how can you jump? In fact, even if it is going downward, to jump from the Everest will be simple stupidity. You will die. No, it is neither downward nor upward. You simply close yourself from all directions. You by and by settle within.

The Greek word, the Greek root, for the English word "mystic' is very, very beautiful. The Greek root means "to be set up in oneself." Then you become a mystic -- no going, no movement. Right this moment if you are not moving in any direction whatsoever -- down/up, right/left, future/past -- not moving anywhere, then your consciousness is still, with no wavering. In that moment there is enlightenment. That's why a jump is possible. How can you jump from Poona to Calcutta? It is impossible. You can jump inside because you are already it. No time is needed, only understanding. No postponement is necessary, no need to say "tomorrow.

Only understanding is needed. You understand and it happens immediately. So the whole effort is because the understanding is not there.

And never try any analogy. You will undo it. Analogy is always an indication; you should not take it literally. -Jump" here does not mean jump; "going upward" doesn't mean going upward; "going downward" doesn't mean going downward. These are indications; don't be literal. Just take the fragrance and

forget the flower; otherwise you will go on misunderstanding me. And this has happened so many times, millions of times; with all religious people it has been happening because they talk in analogy. There is no other way to talk. They talk in similes, parables. And then you can extend the parable to foolishness. If you go on extending the parable, a point comes when the whole thing is lost and everything becomes stupid.

That's why in the hands of the enemies all religions become stupid. The whole trick is: that you go on extending the analogy -- a point comes where it is no longer tenable. no longer significant. For example, Jesus says "my father who is up in heaven." Now this "up" does not mean up. "My father" doesn't mean my father, because there can be no "mine" in it. "... who is up in heaven" -- now you can distort the whole meaning easily. When Christian friends also destroy it, enemies are bound to destroy it. They pray looking upwards. It is foolish because, in fact, in existence nothing is up and nothing is down. If you take existence in its totality. what is down and what is up? There can be nothing down and nothing up -- these are relative terms.

If you take the word "father," then difficulties arise. An Aryasamaji -- a modern sect of Hinduism, fanatic and foolish -- came to me, and he said, "I have heard you sometimes refer to Jesus also. Are you a Christian?" I said, "In a way, yes." Of course he became mad. He couldn't understand "in a way." He said, "I can prove that your Jesus is completely wrong. He says 'my father in heaven' -- then who is the mother?" Now this is how analogies can be.... Who is the mother? Without a mother how can there be a father? Perfectly true. It seems so simple. You can defeat the argument.

And then Christians, being afraid because they say "God is the father," then they have to make it clear that Jesus is the only begotten son, because if everybody is the son then the whole point is lost: what is the speciality and uniqueness of Jesus. So he is the only begotten son. Now things go from worse to worse. Then who is everybody else? All bastards? The whole world? Only Jesus is the son -- then about you, what about you? What about popes. and apostles, and the whole world? The whole existence then becomes bastard, without a father. Nobody knows.

You can extend an analogy. There comes a point when it destroys its whole meaning -- not only that, it gives such a stupid picture that anybody will laugh.

Hence, religion can be understood only in deep sympathy. If you have sympathy you can understand it: if you don't have sympathy you can only misunderstand it -- because the whole phenomenon is in parables. To understand a parable the understanding of language is not enough, the understanding of grammar is not enough, because a parable is something which transcends grammar and language. If you are very sympathetic, only then will you have the possibility to catch the meaning.

An analogy is not a proof. An analogy is just a method to indicate something which cannot be said -- to show something which cannot be said. Remember this always: otherwise you will he caught in your own cleverness.

Question 2

Because of their stupidities. You can be enlightened in a single minute; you can wait for forty years. It depends how gross you are. You can wait for lives; it depends how much you cling to your ignorance. The Zen Master is not responsible that the disciple had to wait for forty years. The disciple is responsible. He must have been a very dull-headed man, a dullard; nothing penetrates in his mind. Or he may have been intellectually very clever, so whatsoever is said he creates an intellectual understanding around it -- and misses the point that can be caught only from heart to heart. In a deep rapport, where heart and heart meet, the flower of understanding blooms.

So those who had to wait for forty years either must have been very foolish or very knowledgeable. Both are types of foolishness. They must have been either pundits or just idiots; both are the same.

Pundits miss more than idiots. Even an idiot sometimes can understand, can have understanding, because he is simple. He has no complex mind: if something penetrates it penetrates. But with a man of knowledge -- a scholar, a logician, a theologian, a philosopher -- there are subtle layers which are almost impossible to penetrate. If you are simple it can happen right now. If you are not simple you will have to wait; and then you have to understand what complexity is creating the problem.

You alone are responsible for whatsoever happens. The Master is just a presence.

You can partake of him. He is just like a sun, a lamp of light: you can open your eyes and you can see, but if you don't open the eyes, the lamp is not going to force you to open the eyes. Even the sun cannot do that. But always remember, if you are waiting it is because of you, either your cleverness or your stupidity.

Drop both. That's how one becomes a disciple -- drop both your stupidity and your knowledge. When you drop both there is no barrier; you are vulnerable, you are open. In that opening the enlightenment is possible any moment.

Question 3

Because a seed is a seed and cannot understand, and a man is not a seed and can understand. But if you are a seed you won't listen; if you are a man you will understand. It depends on you because you may look like a man -- you may be just a seed or even a rock. Appearance is not the real thing. You all look like man, but rarely is one a man.

The word "man" is beautiful. It comes from a Sanskrit root manu. Manu means "one who can understand." Thence, from that same root, comes the Indian term man, manasvi: one who can understand. "Man" is a beautiful word. It means "who can understand," "who has the capacity to understand." So I cannot say to a seed, "Take a sudden jump and flower," but I say to man. And this is the irony, that sometimes even a seed can hear it and the man won't hear.

Have you read anything about Luther Burbank, an American lover of trees and plants? He did this miracle: he talked to seeds, he talked to his plants, and he talked continuously -- that's what I'm doing -- and a moment came when the plants started hearing him. He was working on a cactus for seven years -- continuously talking to the cactus, saying, "You need not be worried and need not be defensive, because there is no danger to your life."

Every cactus has thorns to protect himself. That's his armor. Insecure in a desert; a cactus lives in a desert in very deep insecurity and danger. How a cactus survives in a desert is a miracle, and some cactuses survive even for two thousand years, very old cactuses. In a desert there is no water; life must be a very deep struggle. They live only on the dewdrops. That's why they don't have leaves, because leaves evaporate too much water. That is their trick so the sun cannot evaporate water from them. The water is so scarce. Cactuses have no leaves, only thorns; and deep inside their belly they go on accumulating water.

For months together if there is no water they will live; they are really only accumulators of water. They don't have anything extra -- no leaves, nothing. And there has never been any species of cactus without thorns.

This man Burbank was mad. Friends started thinking. "He has gone crazy." Even his whole family started thinking, "Now this is too much: every day sitting near the cactus and talking. saying, 'You need not be afraid; I am your friend. You can withdraw your thorns. There is no insecurity -- you are at home with a friend, a lover. You are not in a desert. And nobody is going to harm you."

Seven years is a long... but it happened. After seven years a new branch sprouted out of the cactus without any thorns. That was the first human contact with the world of trees. It is a rare phenomenon -- just by talk.

That's why I go on talking, persuading you you can jump. knowing well that maybe seven years or seventy, or who knows? You will even start thinking about me: "He is crazy, goes on saying things every day; nobody listens." But if Burbank can succeed with seeds. cactuses, trees. why not me?

Question 4

If I were alone, you were not there, I would never speak on Patanjali; because that would be absolutely absurd. If only you were there and I were not, then I would continuously speak on Patanjali; because then it would not be possible to speak on Lao Tzu. But because you are there and I am here it is a fifty-fifty case -- on condition that if you hear me on Lao Tzu I will talk on Patanjali. You have to hear me on Lao Tzu, then I will talk on Patanjali; and because you want to hear me on Patanjali. you will have to hear me on Lao Tzu also.

Your whole mind would like to think in gradual steps. That what I mean when I say Patanjali. I'm not saying anything about Patanjali -- don't misunderstand.

Patanjali means that you would like to grow gradually, slowly. step by step: that means you would like to postpone, prepare. Patanjali means postponement, preparation. Remember the "p's" -- Patanjali and postponement, preparation.

With Patanjali time is possible, tomorrow is possible, future is possible. He is not saying to you, "Just now, right now, jump." He is very, very logical, scientific, gradual -- does not talk nonsense; he talks sense. You can understand him easily; he starts from where you are.

Lao Tzu is simply absurd: looks more like a poet and less like a scientific mind; looks more like you can delight in him, but you cannot do anything with whatsoever he is saying. How can you do it? The distance is so vast.

I talk to you on Patanjali so that you become, by and by, aware, alert; and I go on talking on Lao Tzu also: that if you are really understanding Patanjali you will become more and more prepared. Patanjali prepares; again remember the "p's."

Patanjali prepares, he is a preparation, but if you go on listening to Patanjali you may go on preparing and preparing and preparing, and the moment never comes when you jump. It is like a man who always prepares, consults maps and guides, and never goes on a journey. In fact, that becomes his whole business, the whole hobby. He thinks about going, he purchases books about the Himalayas -- maps, guides, pictorial books -- he goes to see films, he talks to people who have been to the Himalayas and he prepares -- he purchases clothes and anything that may be required for the journey -- but he always prepares and then dies.

Listening to Patanjali that danger is there: you may get addicted with preparation.

There are many people -- "many" is not good, almost all -- who are addicted to preparation. They earn money with the idea that some day they are going to enjoy; and they never enjoy. By and by they forget about enjoyment and they become so addicted to earning money that money becomes the goal. Money is a means. And in the beginning they also had the idea that when the money is there they will enjoy -- they will do whatsoever they always wanted to do and could not do because the money was not there; when the money is there they are going to live really. But by the time money is there: now they are disciplined to earn

and they have forgotten how to spend; then money becomes the goal. Then they go on earning, earning, and they die.

Patanjali can become an addiction -- then you prepare, then you go on earning money, methods, but you are never ready to dance and enjoy. That's why I go on talking about Lao Tzu, so that whenever you feel that now you are ready, suddenly Lao Tzu hits deep in the heart and you take the jump.

When I talk on Lao Tzu I say I "talk Lao Tzu,' because from where he is talking, I am standing there. Whatsoever he says I would like to have said myself. I have never come across a single point where I can say I disagree with him. I agree totally. With Patanjali I agree conditionally, relatively, not absolutely, because Patanjali is a means and Lao Tzu is the goal.

If you can drop the means and right now take the jump, beautiful. If you cannot, then prepare a little. That preparation is not preparing you to take the jump; that preparation only prepares you to get courage. The jump is possible right now, but you don't have the courage. If you have the courage: right now, no need -- you can drop Patanjali completely. Patanjali his to be dropped someday -- the journey has to be dropped when the goal is achieved; the means have to be dropped when you have reached the end -- but you can never drop Lao Tzu; that is the very goal. So it is a fifty-fifty arrangement.

You will be surprised that sometimes you also like Lao Tzu very much, but liking is not the question. You can look at the stars in the night, and you like them, but what to do? How to reach? They are so far away.... One has to start from where one is. Patanjali is useful. Lao Tzu is absolutely useless. Use Patanjali so that someday you can use the useless Lao Tzu also; that is a luxury, a let-go.

Yes, Lao Tzu is a luxury, a let-go. Remember the "I's" -- he is a luxury, a let-go. If you can afford, beautiful. If you cannot afford, it simply creates a desire and a frustration and nothing else: a desire, of how things would be if you could take the jump. A tremendous desire arises. You feel him so near in your desire, but you cannot take the jump because the courage is not there; and, suddenly, he is so far away, like a star. Frustration falls on you.

Patanjali-and-Lao Tzu is a deep balance between means and ends, between the way and the goal.

Question 5

Because you are Buddhas. A rock cannot fall into unawareness. Because you are Buddhas you can fall: only awareness can fall into unawareness, only an alive person can die, only a loving person can hale, and only compassion can become anger. So there is no contradiction. This question arises in the mind: "If everybody is a Buddha. and everybody is God, why are we in so much ignorance?" Because you are gods, you can fall.

It happened: A Sufi mystic, Junnaid, was passing through a forest. He saw a man walking there, just on the bank of a deep lake. The man was completely drunk, a bottle in his hand, and he was wavering like a drunkard -- and any moment he could fall in the lake, and it was dangerous. So Junnaid reached him, took his hand in his hand and said, "Friend, what are you doing? This is dangerous.

Walking here, so drunk, you can fall. And the lake is very deep, and there is nobody around here. Even if you shout and cry, nobody will hear."

The drunkard opened his eyes and said, "Junnaid, you may not be knowing me, but I know you. What you are saying to me I would like to say to you also: that if I fall, at the most -- at the most -- my body will be harmed, but if you fall, then your whole consciousness.... " Junnaid went back to his disciples, and he said. "I found a Master today."

And he was right, the drunkard was right, because Junnaid was on the peak, moving at the peak of consciousness -- if he falls from there everything will be shattered. The higher you move, greater is the danger. People who walk on plane ground, even if they fall, what is going to happen? At the most, a little fracture like Teertha. So they go to the hospital and they can be bandaged. But if you move on the heights, then danger is very much.

Because you are Buddhas, that's why you have fallen in so much ignorance, in the so deep valley of darkness. So don't be depressed about it. If you are so deep in the valley, that is just an indication that again you can be at the peaks. The very possibility of falling happens because of the capacity to be on the peak. And it is good -- nothing is wrong -- because it is an experience. Your Buddhahood will become more clear. When you have passed through this darkness and suffering, and when you come back home, you will not be the same as you were before you fell. Your intensity of awareness will have a different quality now: you have suffered and you have known. You will be more alert. Your awareness will now be more alert, intense, integrated, crystallized.

It happened: A very rich man became frustrated with his riches -- as it happens.

In fact this should be the criterion of whether a man is rich or not. If a man is really rich he is bound to be frustrated with his riches. If he is not yet frustrated he is still a poor man; he may have money, but he is not rich -- because a rich man is bound to know that whatsoever he has has not satisfied him a bit. The deep anxiety, emptiness, follows him; now it is even more intense -- a clarity has come. A poor man can always hope that tomorrow will be good. How can a rich man hope? Tomorrow is going to be the same. The hope is dead. He has all that he can have; tomorrow is not going to add anything more. An Andrew Carnegie -- when he died he left thousands of millions of dollars. What can tomorrow add? A few thousand more? A few million more? But he cannot use those few million because right now he does not know what to do with his money. He has already more than is needed.

In fact, the more money you have, the less is the value of the money. Value depends on poverty. One rupee in a poor man's pocket has more value than the same rupee in a rich man's pocket because the poor man can use it; the rich man cannot use it. The more money you have, the less is the value. A point comes of saturation when the money is of no value -- whether you have it or not makes no difference; your life will continue the same. To be rich means to destroy the value of the money; then the money is valueless. You have the house that you wanted, you have cars that you wanted, you have everything that you wanted -- now the money is nothing, just a figure. You can go on putting figures in your bank balance -- of no use. Then sudden]y hope is dead; and suddenly one realizes: "I have not achieved anything."

This rich man, I was going to tell you, was really rich, and he became so frustrated with his riches that he left his palace in search of a wise man; because he was really cursed, really in suffering. He wanted to feel a little happier. He went from one wise man to another. but it was of no use. They talked much, but nobody could show him. And he insisted -- he must have been a very empirical man -- he insisted: "Show me happiness, then I will believe." He must have had a scientific mind. He said, "You cannot befool me by talking. Show me happiness -- where it is. Exactly if I see it, on]y then can I become your disciple." Now it is rare to find a Master who can show you. There are teachers, thousands and thousands. who can talk about happiness, and if you look at their faces you will see that they are in more suffering than you.

This rich man reached a village, and people told him, "Yes, we have a Sufi mystic. He may be of help. He is a little eccentric, so be a little aware of him. Be a little aware, hmm?... because nobody knows what he will do. But he is a rare phenomenon -- you go to him."

The rich man went; he tried to find him. He was not in the hut. People said that he had just gone towards the forest, so he went there. He was sitting under a huge tree, deep in meditation. The rich man stopped there, got down from his horse. And that man looked to be really in deep happiness, so silent, so calm.

Even everything around him was still -- the tree, the birds. It was very peaceful; evening was falling.

The rich man fell into his feet and said, "Sir, I would like to be happy. I have everything -- except happiness."

The Sufi opened his eye and said, "I will show you happiness. you show me your riches."

Perfectly right. If you ask him to show happiness, you ShOW your riches. He had thousands of diamonds in a bag on the horse's back because he had provided for it. He was always thinking, "If there is somebody who has happiness, he will ask; and the price has to be paid. And there is nothing you car_ get in life without paying for it." So he had brought them with him. Those diamonds were worth millions of rupees.

He gave the bag and said, "Look."

Just in a split second, the mystic took the bag in his hand and ran away. The rich man could not believe for a second what had happened. When he gathered his mind he ran away screaming and crying -- "I have been robbed!" Of course, the mystic knew the way in the village, and he could run fast. And he was a fakir, a strong man, and the rich man had never in his life run after somebody. So, weeping, crying, suffering... and the whole village gathered, and people said, "We had told you before,'Don't go; he's eccentric. Nobody knows what he will do.'" And the whole village became excited. It was a real suffering for the rich man. His whole life's earnings lost -- and to no avail.

Running around the whole town, the mystic came back to the same tree where the horse was still standing. He put the bag near the horse, sat under the tree, closed his eyes, became silent. Came the rich man -- running, breathing hard, perspiring, tears flowing -- his whole life was at stake. Then he suddenly saw the bag near the horse; he took it to his heart, started dancing, became so happy....

The mystic opened his eyes and said, "Look! Have I not shown you what happiness is?"

You have to know suffering; only then you know what happiness is. You need background. Every experience is an experience against a background. A Buddha has to come to the world to feel that he is a Buddha. You have to come into the world and suffer to know who you are. Without it there is no possibility. You are in the same state the rich man was in: running around the mystic, everything robbed, crying and weeping. I can see: everything robbed, you are running in this village of the world. The paths are not known, but you are robbed. You are unhappy to the very core, miserable. Running, running, running... one day you will come back to the tree, you will find the bag again. You will dance; you will be ecstatic. You will say, "Now I know what happiness is."

The world is a necessary experience. It is a school. One has to pass through it. To know oneself one has to lose oneself first. There is no other way; that's the only way. Nothing can be done about it. That is that.

Yes, that's why. Because you are Buddhas, that's why you suffer. Because you are Buddhas, that's why you have fallen in unawareness. You can go back home any day. It is for you; you have to decide and return back to the source.

In Christianity one word has been very much misunderstood, and that is "repent." The original Hebrew word for "repent" means return, not repent. That is the only repentance -- if you return! But just by being translated as "repent" the whole thing is lost. Mohammedans have a similar word, toba. Toba means return. It means "go back to the source." Toba also looks like repentance; that too is not repentance. Jains have a word: they call it pratikraman; that means return.

The whole point is how to go back to the source from where you have come. And that's all meditation is about: to return, to come back to the source and fall into it again. You are Buddhas, you have been Buddhas, you will remain Buddhas -- but Buddhahood has three stages: one, before you have lost it. the childhood of a Buddha; then, you search for it, the youth of a Buddha; then, you attain it, the old

age. Every child is a Buddha, every young man a seeker, and every old man should be, if things were right, one who has attained. That's why we respect and honor old people so much in the East. If everything goes well, a wise man means one who has come back to the source.

A child has innocence, but he is unaware of it, because he has it from the very beginning. How can he become aware of it? He needs the experience of the opposite; only then will he become aware. And then he would long to reach back to it again: everybody hankers to be a child again, tb be so innocent. The whole experience was so wonderful.

But it was not so wonderful at that time! Just go back to your childhood. Don't remember it -- relive it. It was a suffering. No childhood is happy: every child wants to become adult, mature. big, strong -- every child -- because every child feels himself helpless. He does not know what he has. How can you know when you have not lost it? He will have to lose innocence: he will have to move into the world of corruption; he will have to go deep into sins. He was a saint, but that saintlihood was not an achievement. It was just a natural gift.

If something is given to you by nature, you cannot appreciate it. That's why you are not grateful at all.

I have heard a Sufi story. A man came to a Sufi mystic and he said, "I am frustrated and I am going to commit suicide. I was just going to drown myself in the river and I saw you sitting on the bank. I thought.'Why not a last effort?' I would like to know what you say."

The mystic said, "Why are you so frustrated?"

The man said, "I have nothing. That's why I'm frustrated -- not a single pie. I'm the poorest man in the world, and I am suffering. And everything is so much effort -- I'm tired of it. Just bless me so that I can die because I have such bad luck that whatsoever I do I always fail. I am afraid that even in suicide I'm going to fail."

The mystic said, "You wait. If you are just going to commit suicide and you say that you don't have anything, just give me one day. Tomorrow, I will manage."

The next morning he took him to the emperor. The emperor was a disciple of the Sufi. He went into the palace, talked to the emperor, came back, took the man to the emperor and said to the man, "The emperor is ready to purchase your two eyes. And whatsoever cost you demand, he will give."

The man said, "What do you think? Am I mad -- to sell my eyes?"

The Sufi said, "You said you have nothing. Now, whatsoever you demand, whatsoever the cost -- a million rupees, two million rupees, ten million rupees, a hundred million rupees -- the king is ready to purchase the eyes. And just a few hours before, you were saying you have nothing -- and you are not ready to sell the eyes? And you were going to commit suicide. And I have persuaded the king to purchase your ears also, your teeth also, your hands, your legs. You demand the cost and we will cut everything and give the money to you. You will be the richest man in the world."

The man said, "I was thinking that you are a wise man -- you seem to be a murderer!" The man escaped. He said. "Who knows, if I enter in the palace and the king is also mad like this and they start taking my eyes out..."

He escaped, but for the first time he realized how much cost you will demand for your eyes. But you have never been grateful for them. You have never thanked God that you are alive. If you were going to die this very moment and somebody was there to allot you one day more, how much will you be ready to give? You will be ready to give all. But you have never thanked... because you got it free of charge. You got it as a gift, and nobody appreciates gifts.

Childhood is a gift. The innocence is there but the child is unaware. He will have to lose it. When he will lose -- in his youth he will wander, will get mixed into the ways of the world, will become completely dark, stained, a sinner -- then he will hanker. Then he will know what he has lost. And then he will go to the churches and to the temples and to the Himalayas, and seek Masters -- and he is asking nothing; he is asking only this -- give my innocence back. And if everything goes right and he is a courageous man, in the end, by the time he is going to die, he may have attained to that innocence again.

But when an old man becomes a child it is totally different. That is the definition of a saint: an old man becoming a child again, innocent. But his innocence has a different quality because he knows, now, it can be lost; and he knows, now, that when it is lost one suffers tremendously. Now he knows that without this innocence everything becomes hell. Now he knows this innocence is the only blissful state, the only liberation there is.

The same happens with your awareness: you have it, you lose it, you regain it. It becomes a circle. That's why Jesus says, "Unless you are a child, unless you are like a child, you will not enter my kingdom of God." That is returning; the circle is complete.

Forget the word "repent," replace it by "return," and Christianity becomes guilt- free. That "repent," the word "repent," has created the whole misery. Returning is beautiful; repent is an ugly phenomenon. And religion should not create guilt in you, it should create courage. Guilt creates fear. And the only thing needed is courage -- fearlessness -- to return back home.

Question 6

No. That will be the jump of the drug, not yours; and the point is for you to take the jump, not the drug. Drugs are not in search of enlightenment; they are quite well as they are. If you take a drug, and something happens to you, it is happening to the drug really, not to you. It is happening just to the chemistry of the body, not to your consciousness. It is a dream phenomenon, a hallucination.

It can be beautiful sometimes -- sometimes, remember. Sometimes it can be the very hell. It depends. That s why I say a drug can only create a situation in the

chemistry of your body, but if your mind was going through hell, the mind will continue going through hell. Now the hell will be stronger, that's all; because now the chemistry is different. You will move towards hell, but you will now go faster. The drug can give you speed. So it is good to call drugs "speed"; they give only speed, nothing else. If you were feeling beautiful and good, you will feel beautiful and good "with speed," but they cannot change you. Whatsoever you are you will remain the same.

And the danger is that you can be befooled by them. And once you are befooled and you think, "This is ecstasy, this is what was needed," then you are lost. Then you will think always in those terms: that take the drug and you experience God.

You are not experiencing anything, because God is not an experience at all. It is cessation of all experience. When all objects disappear -- experience is an object -- and when only the subjectivity remains, the consciousness -- nothing to know, but only the knower -- then there is God. God is not an object; God is pure subjectivity. No drug can give you that.

Question 7

I am still dancing. If you have eyes you can see. If you don't have eyes what can I do?

And there is no gradual enlightenment; enlightenment is always sudden. You can prepare gradually, you can prepare suddenly, but enlightenment is always sudden. It happens in a single moment. It is not that somebody is fifty percent enlightened, sixty percent enlightened, seventy percent enlightened, no. Just a moment before he was a hundred percent unenlightened, and just a moment afterwards he is a hundred percent enlightened. It happens suddenly: otherwise there would be degrees. There are no degrees.

It is just like death: it happens in a single moment. You cannot say that a man is half dead. Even if he looks half dead he is perfectly alive; that is only appearance.

A man may be in a coma, lying unconscious, but then too he is perfectly alive, not half dead. Either you are dead or you are alive -- there is no other way -- either this or that. Enlightenment is always sudden.

And preparation? This is the very subtle point to understand: preparation is not for enlightenment; preparation is for your courage. A courageous man can take it right now; a coward will take years to prepare himself. The whole problem is of fear. If the fear is dropped, you are in freedom. If you continue to nurse your fear and tend your fear, you will never be free. So make it a clear point in your minds: that enlightenment needs no preparation; all preparation is only because you are afraid. So it depends on you. Whenever you decide to drop the fear, it can happen.

It is not something outside you which has to be attained; you are already carrying it with you. It is just like childbirth: a woman is carrying the pregnancy - - the child is already there, throbbing, alive, kicking -- but if the woman is very much afraid, the birth will take a long time. If she is very much afraid and tense, when the child wants to come out of the womb, she will clench her whole mechanism in fear and will not allow the child to come out. The child needs a relaxed passage to come out, and the woman is so tense that she won't allow the child to come out. And the child wants to come out because now that is his only life -- a few days more and, if he is in the womb, he will be dead. So the child will make all the efforts to come out, and the woman is tense: there is a conflict. That conflict creates pain; otherwise no childbirth shou]d be with pain. There is no need; it is not a necessity.

Go to the old, ancient tribes in India. Childbirth happens so easily, so naturally, that those people have never heard that there is any pain in it. A woman will be working in the field, and the child is born -- not a single person to look after her; she will look after herself. She will put the child under the tree, do her whole day's work -- there is no hurry to go back home -- then take the child back by the evening. Simple. Just simple, as it is happening in animals, no problem.

The mother creates the problem. The mother is tense, afraid. That tension, and the child's effort to come out, creates a struggle; and, then, it takes time.

The child is ready to come out any moment. You have all passed the gestation period. As I see, everybody is in the ninth month -- everybody has always been in the ninth month. Now, the whole problem is how to relax and let the child come out and be born. You can relax only if you are not afraid. Accept, don't be afraid. Accept life. It is the friend, not the enemy. This whole existence is a home; you are not strangers here. Forget all about what Darwin says -- survival, struggle, conquest. All nonsense. Listen to people who say it is a home, because they are true. Otherwise is not possible.

You are born in life -- how can it be against you? How can the mother be against the child? And you will return back to it: just like a wave reaching high, dancing in the sun, and then going back. How can the ocean be against the wave? In fact the whole strength of the wave is a gift from the ocean: it rises high, not that it rises, but because the ocean rises in it.

You are just waves in a cosmic ocean of consciousness. Accept it. Feel at home.

You are not strangers here; you are beloved to the existence. And then, suddenly, you gather courage because there is no fear.

Enlightenment is always sudden. If you have to move gradually it is because of your nonaccepting mind, afraid, cautious.

Question 8

Of course.

And I will also tell you that whenever you meet God, shoot him... because that will be the last barrier. Shoot him immediately so that you alone are left in your aloneness; otherwise he will become the world, the experience.

And the whole point, you have understood well, is to drive you crazy. So crazy that you become fed up with your craziness and suddenly jump out of it; otherwise you won't jump. If you are at home in your craziness, how will you jump out of it? So I will make the whole situation so desperate, so intensely desperate, that you jump out of your skin, and you are free.

Question 9

But if you have experienced the nonbeing, what is the need to ask? There is no "if" if you have experienced. If you ask, you may have imagined that you experienced the state of nonbeing -- because from the state of nonbeing, no questions arise. They cannot; there is no possibility. Who will create the question in a state of nonbeing? Once you have known that sunya, that emptiness, nothing arises.

You must have imagined. And it happens: before one achieves to the state, one imagines it many times. because of desire. Listening to me continuously, you create a desire: how to be enlightened, how to be free from all this suffering. That desire will create dreams. If the desire is very intense it will create such vivid dreams that they will look like visions. They will be more real than ordinary reality; and then you will be thinking that you have experienced. No.

If experience of nonbeing happens, all questions dissolve -- not that they are solved, no question is ever solved, but because questions are absurd. They cannot be solved. All questions are absurd. When I say this I mean: if somebody asks, "What is the smell of red color?" the question looks grammatically right, but it is absurd because red color, or any color for that, has no connection with any smell. But somebody asks, "What smell is red color?"..it is absurd. All questions are absurd; so they do not need to be solved.

Once you are silent, absolutely silent, you suddenly understand the foolishness of all the questions -- and all the philosophies, because all the philosophies depend on the notion that questions are worthwhile to be answered.

No. You can imagine; when you imagine then this will happen.

"I have experienced the center of nonbeing from which all being arises as well as the ecstasy of which you speak. If I ask WHAT DO I DO TO JUMP INTO ENLIGHTENMENT...?"

But what is the need now? You say you have experienced the center of nonbeing.

You say that you have achieved and experienced the state of ecstasy. This is enlightenment. Then any jump will be jumping out of it. So please, don't jump!

Now jumping will be dangerous. You will jump into the world again. This is for worldly people that I am shaking -- "jump into enlightenment" -- not for Buddhas, those who have attained. They should not jump. They should avoid all jump and all temptations to jump; otherwise they will be back in the world, and then again the trouble will arise.

Remember not to become victims of imagination. Imagination can play tremendous games -- not only with you; it has played with everyone.

Whatsoever you demand, it can supply you.

It happened: Mulla Nasrudin applied for a job on a ship. He was interviewed.

The man who was taking the interview asked, "If there comes a storm, what will you do?"

He said, "I will put down an anchor."

The man said, "There comes another storm, an even greater one than the first, what will you do?"

He said, "I will put down another anchor." So on, so forth it went.

" -- tenth storm!" And Nasrudin said, "I will put down another anchor."

The man said, "But from where are you getting these anchors?"

He said, "From where are you getting your storms! The same place."