... the personality and obeying the individuality. I have not said that you have to disobey everything - you will go nuts, unless you are already nuts. I have emphasized disobedience because all the religions have been emphasizing obedience. Obedience to whom? Obedience to their God, which is their creation; obedience to the commandments, which are their creation; obedience to society, convention...

... consolation. One question is there: "Osho, You have taken God away, now there is only existence. Existence means nature; it is harsh, it is indifferent, it doesn't care. If there is no God then I feel very much afraid." Naturally, you will feel very much afraid because your God was nothing but a way to hide your fear. It was fear-oriented. It was just to keep your fear suppressed. Take God away...

... and fear springs up. It is there; even when you are putting the rock of God on the spring, it is still there. You know perfectly well that it is there, alive, ready to burst forth any moment - just waiting for its chance, an opportunity. Your whole life you have believed in God, and I have just said that there is no God - and that's enough! Perhaps for fifty years you have believed in God, found...

... consolation in it, then just an ordinary man like me says there is no God, and fifty years conditioning disappears and fear arises! Whom are you trying to deceive? If I can do this, anybody can do this. lust anybody meeting you on the road can whisper in your ear, "There is no God" - finished! Your God is dead! Your fear is more alive than ever. Hence all the religions teach, their scriptures...

... world. But to remember "Ram, Ram, Ram...." You will forget. But to continue to remember, "One Ram, two Ram, three Ram" will be a disturbance. And "one, two, three, four, five" will grow to "one thousand and four... one million, two million, three million...." You are going to get lost somewhere and forget the counting. Then it will be a real loss because God...

... effort, my whole involvement, my whole commitment; I am not going to live an unconscious life any more." It is not a prayer. In my vision there is no place for prayer because there is no place for God. To whom can you pray? - there is no one. The sky is absolutely empty. You are simply wasting your time and throwing nonsense words into the atmosphere, crowding the atmosphere with meaningless words...

... possible - through your occupation. It comes only in an unoccupied mind, in an aware mind - unoccupied, totally unoccupied. It comes - the bliss comes, God comes, the divine comes. It comes, not through your escape from yourself, but through your coming to yourself. How can you come when you are engaged in enjoyment? QUESTION: IF REALIZATION, IF THE ULTIMATE BEAUTY OR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, OF BLISS, OF...

... REALITY, LIES IN THE SELF, WHY ARE WE CONSTANTLY TRYING TO ESCAPE FROM THE SELF? IT WOULD SEEM TO ME IF THAT'S WHERE IT ALL LIES, WHAT A CRUEL TRICK FOR NATURE TO PLAY ON US. WE RUN AWAY FROM WHAT WE ARE MOST LOOKING FOR - IT SEEMS ILLOGICAL. Osho: The bliss lies within oneself, but that you have gained from some scripture; you don't know it. You don't know there is bliss in oneself, there is God in...

... oneself. If you know it, then there is no question. If you don't know it, and this has become a borrowed part of your knowledge, then the question comes. The question is created by the borrowed knowledge, not by one's own mind. You have not known the self; neither have you known the bliss; neither have you known God. If you have known it, then there is no question. QUESTION: DO YOU KNOW ALL AT ONCE, OR...

... COULD ONE FEEL THE BLISS OF THE SELF BEFORE CONFRONTING GOD? Osho: No, there is no question of God! The very bliss is God. QUESTION: YOU SAID EARLIER THAT THE MIND COMES INTO A VACUUM, IF I UNDERSTOOD CORRECTLY. IF THE NATURE OF THE MIND IS TO THINK, THEN TO PUT THE MIND INTO A VACUUM WOULD BE GOING AGAINST THE NATURE OF THE MIND. Osho: No! That will be going certainly against the nature that we have...

... this then you are simply creating through a process, through a technique, an illusory state of mind that can be created. QUESTION. HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? Osho: You can know it. QUESTION: IN THE BIBLE THERE'S A VERY SHORT SENTENCE AND IT SAYS, "BE STILL AND KNOW." Osho: That is quite right! QUESTION: "BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD." Osho: That is right. QUESTION: YOU HAVE DEFINED...

... MEAN BY CREATIVE? Osho: To be creative means constantly, moment to moment, living as a creative force - as a creative force, not as an occupied doer, not as a doer. There is no doer so there is no occupation, but the creation goes on. The very creation of the world, the very creation of the cosmos goes on. Not that there is an engineer, a God who is thinking about it, a painter - not thinking about...

... point of illusion. It may be anything - it may be a god, a liberation, a moksha - but mind always longs for there, and that has been the disturbance, that has been the misguiding of the mind. One is to be here. So the question is not going in the hotel; the question is going somewhere where you are already. So there can be no path, there is no possibility of there being any path. A path can join two...

... something, the mind by the very doing becomes dull. If you don't do anything, the mind is completely fresh, total; how can it be dull? The very achieving mind, the mind which longs for achievement, the mind which seeks achievement, the mind which is after achievement, is the hindrance. This longing to achieve is the hindrance. So God cannot be made an achievement. The enlightenment cannot be made an...

... TO BE DONE, FINE. NOTHING IS TO BE DONE AND THE ..... CAN BE ACHIEVED. Osho: The very achieving mind, the mind which longs for achievement, the mind which seeks achievement, the mind which is after achievement, is the hindrance. This longing to achieve is the hindrance. So God cannot be made an achievement. The enlightenment cannot be made an achievement. You cannot make it an achievement. It is...

...: You have simply awakened that which was asleep then that when you try to go through safe, secure, systematic methods, your mind is a mind which longs for serenity, safety, systems. All that you gain is a big ego. MAHARISHI: THE STATE OF ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT INERTIA. IT IS AN ACHIEVEMENT. GOD-REALIZATION, WHEN WE SAY YOU HAVE GOD-REALIZATION, IT IS AN ACHIEVEMENT FROM THE STATE WHERE YOU HAVE NOT...

... must be the ultimate attainment! And I don't think you will resurrect; neither did Jesus resurrect, he just escaped from the cave. He was fortunate enough that his country, Judea, was under the Roman empire. So the Roman governor Pontius Pilate was not interested at all in crucifying an innocent neurotic. A man who claims, "I am the only son of God" can only be thought of as neurotic. But...

... it is not harmful, let him think it -- he is not doing any harm to anybody. Pontius Pilate was of the opinion that Jesus was innocent; he had not committed any crime, and if he enjoys the idea that he is the only begotten son of God, let him enjoy! If you are jealous, you can have some other idea, "I am the only father of God." I don't think anybody can refute you, nobody has any evidence...

.... It is just the same as being the son of God. You can be the father of God, or the brother of God. It is, first of all, your imagination, hallucination -- it is innocent. If you meet somebody who says to you, "Do you know, I am the father of God" do you think he needs to be crucified? A very nice fellow, he just simply utters in your ear a truth in which he believes. You know that he has...

... gone off the tracks, but that does not mean that he needs a crucifixion. He has to be enjoyed, entertained -- give him a party where he can declare "I am the father of God." Applaud him, and dance with him, because it is so rare to find a God and you have found the father of God! Maybe he can give you some clue where God is hiding. The Jews were too serious. Unnecessarily they harassed...

... Jesus; he had not done any harm to anybody. But every organized religion has an ego, a great ego. Jesus was making Judaism a laughingstock. Riding on his donkey, moving from town to town, declaring "I am the only begotten son of God" -- it was not a crime, but it was hurtful to the ego of the Jews. "This man sitting on the donkey... a poor carpenter's son, and it is well known that he...

... changing: your moustache is growing, your beard is growing, your face is becoming older. Everything in you is a flux -- but it is very gradual, so it seems almost at a standstill. Otherwise, you don't have any identity. If things were jumping so fast that in the night you go to sleep and in the morning you wake up and find somebody else's face... You look in the mirror -- "My god, this was never my...

... allow him to push the buttons on the television!" Pope the Polack finds that his Catholic Christian empire is crumbling. He orders all the Vatican researchers to try and find a solution to this impending disaster. One day, Cardinal Catzass comes charging into the papal office. "I've got it! I've got it!" screams Catzass. "In one of the old manuscripts, it says that God has left his...

.... We look at the other person only through our need; then that look is offensive. When you look at the other person as a beauty in its own right, a grandeur, a divinity, a god or a goddess.... Yes, that's what I would like to tell you - that each man is a god and each woman is a goddess. When you look at the other as a god and a goddess then the other is fulfilled; that very look enhances grace, that...

.... When the many is lost how can you say even that one is one? Because one can be called meaningfully one only when the possibility for many exists. But the very possibility has disappeared. Buddha is not many, but how can you call him one? That's why in India we call god advaita, non-dual. We could have called him one, but we have resisted that temptation. We have never called him one, because the...

.... It simply says that the twoness, the manyness, has disappeared. It does not say what has appeared, it simply says what has disappeared. It is a negative term. Anything that can be said about the ultimate truth has to be negative. We can say what god is not, we cannot say what he is. Because to say what he is, we define him. Every definition is a limitation. Once god is defined he is no more...

... center of the whole is my center; then the language becomes more scientific. Buddha is even more keen. He will not use any wishy-washy expressions. He says simply, 'I am not.' Because the danger is - saying that I am god, or god is my center - the danger is that the 'I' may enter again from the backdoor. Buddha says, 'I am not.' He simply goes on dissecting the very phenomenon of 'I', and comes to a...

... rise above the ordinariness, love helps you to soar high. It makes you meditative, ecstatic. Love becomes the first proof that god exists, that life is not just matter, and man is not just body, that soul exists, that there is the world of the beyond. That woman must have been missing it. She may have loved many people, but whenever she looked into their souls there was nothing but a desire for sex...

... replied. 'My god!' exclaimed the boy, 'you mean I am jewish?' 'Don't knock it, boy,' he replied. 'If I had had six dollars more ten years ago you would have been black too.' The whole thing seems to be either money or sex. And everybody seems to be reducing life to be just a whorehouse. All sacredness of life is damaged. And then it is natural that if you have a heart which is waiting for love you will...

... lie in to give birth to her baby. 'The same position you were in when you started it,' the doctor told her. 'My god!' she exclaimed. 'Do you mean I will have to drive around Berlin in a taxi for two hours with my feet hanging out the window?' But this is happening. Your aquaintance with love happens in such odd and ugly places. Now the back seat of a taxi! It should happen in a church, in a temple...

.... The very association is ugly. One should make love only when one is feeling tremendously beautiful, happy, celebrating. One should dance before one makes love, one should sing and pray before one makes love, one should read a few sayings of Buddha, or a few sayings of Jesus, or one should recite the Koran - it is beautiful before one makes love. Love should be entered as a shrine of god. Then love...

... but an overflowing energy. Hence in the East we have respected the flower of lotus like nothing else. It has become the ultimate symbol of growth. We call the last center in your being, sahasrar - one thousand- petalled lotus. Sex is the lowest center, sahasrar the highest. By sex you become joined with nature, by sahasrar you are in tune with god, or with the whole. Move from the mud, transcend the...

... was said to you is lost in the turmoil, in the noise. Buddha says: See it right now! Not even a single moment's thinking. Thinking means missing. Hence this has been Buddha's constant practice: whenever a new seeker came to him asking questions, inquiring about truth, God, after-life, he would always say, "Wait, don't be in a hurry. Just sit by my side for at least two years not asking anything...

... you lie to a child?" I asked him. "How could you lie to a child who was asking out of such innocence, who trusted you? - and you deceived him! You don't know whether God exists or not and you were telling me that God exists and that I would be able to understand later on. And I knew that very moment that even you didn't understand. You don't know anything about God, you are just repeating...

... can be forced to bow down to some stupid idea of God, to some stupid idol of God. People are worshipping anything! Just put a stone in front of your house, paint it red, and just wait on the side and see. Within an hour somebody is going to pass and will bow down to it, thinking it is Hanumanji. Somebody else will come and will put two flowers there and somebody else will follow with a coconut. And...

... this is the beginning of a temple! Soon you will find that a temple has arisen there. People are so afraid, they are ready to bow down to any nonsense, to any stupidity. We call religious people "God-fearing." In fact, a religious person is never God-fearing; he is God- loving certainly, but never God-fearing. Fear has no place in a religious man's life - love and only love. And where love...

... asleep." And in all the languages we say... whenever somebody dies nobody says that he is simply dead. We say "He has gone to God. He has become beloved of God. God has chosen him and called him. He has gone to the other world. He has become heavenly." One man was saying to the other, his friend, "My wife is just divine." And the other said, "But my wife is still alive...

...!" You talk about people's divinity, etcetera, when they are dead. There was a great conflict between Voltaire and Rousseau; their whole lives they were quarreling. Voltaire died; somebody informed Rousseau that Voltaire had died. He said, "Really? He was a great man - provided that he is really dead!" If he is not dead then he will withdraw his words. Alive, they are enemies; dead...

... this earth is in trouble. Why does man condemn himself? Why can't he accept nature? Because through condemnation the ego is created. There is no other way to create the ego. To create the ego, you have to fight; to create the ego, you have to condemn something as bad, and applaud something as good; to create the ego, first you have to create a god and a devil. And then you have to fight with the...

... devil and try to reach the god. A conflict is needed for the ego. If there is no conflict, there cannot be any ego. Just think... if there is no fight within you, if you accept yourself totally - you are happy as you are, deeply content, deeply satisfied, not even a single note of complaint, thankful - how can the ego exist? How can you say 'I am'? The more you fight, the more 'I' is created. That is...

.... If your smile is false, your kiss will be false, your love cannot be true; and all your prayers will be just words and nothing else. How can you find a god, how can you become god like if you are not true? You seek truth but in your life you are always untrue. How can an untrue person meet the truth? This seems an almost impossible thing. The truth will knock at your door, you need not go anywhere...

... crime! He was crucified because this was his crime: he was moving with ordinary people living an ordinary life. That cannot be tolerated by the respectable world, that cannot be tolerated. This man who moves with prostitutes, gamblers, drunkards, who is found in wrong company, this man says that he is the Son of God! This is heresy! This man is claiming too much, he has to be punished, because if such...

... and their conception of God is very revengeful. The Jewish God is very revengeful, he will throw you in fire if you don't obey him. Obedience seems to be the greatest rule. And this Jesus, the son of a carpenter, an ordinary man, is moving with suspicious people and claiming that he is a prophet, the prophet for whom the whole Jewish world has been waiting. No, he has to be punished. China was more...

... tolerant. Chuang Tzu was not punished because China had no conception of a ferocious God; in fact there was no conception of God. Confucius never believed in God, he believed in rules; and he was the basis for China. But he said that rules are human, there is no divineness about them and they are arbitrary, relative, you can change them. One has to follow them but there is nothing divine about them, no...

... body is nothing, dirt unto dirt, dust unto dust, this body will fall back into the mud, this is just mud. ... DRAGGING HIS TAIL IN THE MUD. Nature is muddy, it is there. You are made of it and you will dissolve into it. But if you want to be worshipped for thousands of years then there is no problem. If you want a cult around you, if you want to become a deity, placed in a temple shrine, enshrined...

..., I say you are a religious man although you may not be going to the temple. If you are unhappy and you go continuously to the temple, I don't call you a religious man. If you are happy, blissful, if your whole being exudes ecstasy and peace, at homeness in existence, you are a religious man - whether you believe in God or not. Those are just words, don't bother about them. Find your peace, find...

... comes out, sprouting. And then follow it: wherever it leads, follow it. Don't listen to anybody; that is your way to God. And all that a master can do is to bring you to your inner voice. The master should not become the substitute, otherwise you will become even more crowded than you were before. Don't make me your voice, I am not your enemy. Don't listen to me! Only this much is enough: that you go...

... I am here to enquire. You are in such bad shape because so many people have wanted so many things out of you. If you fulfill them you will remain unfulfilled, because nobody can expect the thing that you are here for - for that you have to search, it is an inner enquiry. That is the soul! You may call it God, you may call it truth, names differ, but the real thing is to find the authentic destiny...

... always be at the top. You may appreciate Christ, but Krishna will be at the top. Even a man like Bertrand Russell, who became absolutely agnostic in his later life, became religionless, stopped believing in God or in any future life -- even he says that he knows well that Buddha seems to be the greatest person ever born in the world, but intellectually he can say that: his heart goes on saying, "...

... the label; they put "Communist Prison." Then you are happy and rejoicing that you are free -- in the same prison! Only the words change. First you were taught there is a God, he created the world; now you are taught there is no God and nobody has created the world; but both things are being taught to you. And religion cannot be taught. All that can be taught will be politics. That's why I...

... interfering in everybody else's life; nobody wants to leave you alone. And such subtle techniques have been used, unless you are very, very alert you will not be able to know what type of techniques have been used to make you a slave. Religions say that wherever you are, God is looking at you. That means nowhere is there any possibility to be alone and to be yourself. This God seems to be a peeping Tom...

.... Wherever you are -- even in your bathroom -- he is there looking at you. Even there, you cannot hum a song, even there you cannot make faces in the mirror, even there you cannot have a little dance of your own, no. God is looking. And "God" means very serious: an old man -- white hair, white beard -- and always a long face and serious, and he is looking. I have heard about a nun who used to...

... take her bath without removing her clothes. So somebody asked, "What are you doing? In the bath you can remove your clothes." But she said, "God is looking everywhere, so how can I be naked? That will be insulting." But if God is looking everywhere, he must be looking under the clothes. So what is the point? You can be naked anywhere. that means. God is looking everywhere: you...

... within it manipulates through God, conscience, morality, hell, heaven. and a thousand and one things. Hence, there is a need of catharsis. You are not natural, and only through catharsis will you be able to unburden yourself from the society, will you be free from society. Free from society, you become available to nature; available to nature, you become available to existence. And, to me, existence is...

... God. Question 6 WHY DO YOU EMPHASIZE THAT ONE SHOULD JUMP DIRECTLY INTO THE SEVENTH STEP, THAT IS DHYAN, AND THEN FINISH THE OTHER STEPS SO AS TO BE TOTAL TO REALIZE SAMADHI? For a specific reason. I insist first to jump into dhyan, into meditation, and then complete all the other steps because you have lost the taste of dhyan. of meditation, so completely that unless you regain the taste you will...

... done. In those days there was no need to give you a taste of meditation, you had already known it, but now things are totally different. You don't know what meditation is. When I say "meditation," just a word rings in your ears -- there is no response. If I say lemon" the saliva starts flowing in your mouth, but when I say' meditation," nothing corresponds. When I say "God...

... become more and more silent, life becomes spontaneous: niyam, an inner discipline, comes automatically. Just a little help from you, and understanding, and things start falling in line. But the first thing is to know what meditation is; everything else follows. Jesus said, "Seek ye the kingdom of God first, then all else shall follow." The same I say to you. Question 7 OBVIOUSLY, I HAVE...

... are invented? Just to make you feel inferior, and to make these people feel superior; to create a gap. That gap is not helpful, that gap is dangerous, because that gap makes you remain what you are. You start thinking, what can I do? Mahavira is a special person, Buddha is a special person. Jesus is the only begotten son of God. You are not son of God. You are son of a poor man, just ordinary like...

... you. Jesus is the son of a virgin woman. Now that is absolutely idiotic. Virgin girls don't give birth to people. But Jesus has to be separated from the ordinary humanity. This keeps him above, and it has kept humanity crawling on the ground, feeling that this is our faith, our destiny. We cannot go above where we are. We are not born of a virgin mother, we are not the only begotten son of God. We...

... but rotten pornography. I have read it from the first page to the last. This book should be banned. This book should not be in any church, in any library, in any university. Because it is sheer pornography, and not one or two pages, five hundred pages." He said, "My God, I had never thought about it." And I showed him few pages, and I told him, "Read it. Can you read this page...

... before your daughter?" And he had to confess, "I cannot. This is ugly." But this is holy BIBLE. He said no more. "You have disturbed me. Now I cannot sleep. My whole life's idea was that this is God's word. But how can God write such pornographic passages?" Naturally, first one gets a shock, first one tries to defend, tries in every way to find that "I am not right, he is...

... is against religion. It is against God. Celibacy is spiritual. Now all these things are absurd. Sex is a natural phenomenon. It is not against nature, not against life, not against God. Because if it is against God, then why he goes on creating people with sexual energy? On the one hand you say God creates everything. Then who has created sex? It must have been God. And if God is not against sex...

..., then how it can be sin. And if it is sin, then God is the greatest sinner in the world because he has given sex to millions of people, millions of animals, millions of insects, millions of birds, millions of trees. This whole existence has sexual energy, because that is the only reproductive energy. This whole creation is full of sexuality. God cannot be against it. The priest is against it, and why...

... literal meaning. You are asking the symbolic meaning. And there is a great symbolic meaning. In the biblical story, Eve and Adam are seduced by the snake, who tells to Eve that if you eat from the tree of knowledge you will become like gods. That's why God has prevented you from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Now this is a great temptation. She persuades Adam and they both eat from the tree...

.... They become, by and by, black and white. Black and white is the language of civilization. The rainbow is the language of the primitive. Black and white is not a true language, but we tend... all people who have been trained in Aristotelian logic tend to think in black and white, good and bad, night and day, summer and winter, God and devil - black and white! And there are no other mid-stages. Who is...

... in between God and the devil? - nobody. This is not possible. Watch a rainbow: seven colors. Black on one side, white on the other side, and between these two a great range of colors, step by step. The whole of life is colorful. Think in colors, don't think in black and white. That is one of the greatest diseases that has happened to humanity. The name of the disease is 'Aristotle-itis' - it comes...

...; they become one with the crowd. There they do not feel alone... surrounded, so many people are there. If you meditate, you will be alone, and if you get mad after money, you will never be alone - the whole world is going there. If you search for God you will be alone; but if you search for politics, power, then the whole world will be there, you will never be left alone. People are afraid of being...

... astray. There are millions of things which can be learnt only if you are courageous enough to make mistakes. Remember only one thing: don't make the same mistake again and again. If religion is decided by others, then there is no need to search. Your father says: God is. Your mother believes in heaven and hell, so you believe. The authority, the priest, the politician, says something and you believe it...

.... You cannot reach God as a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. You reach as you, authentically you, and you cannot follow anybody's path. FOLLOWING UNNAMED RIVERS, LOST UPON THE INTERPENETRATING PATHS OF DISTANT MOUNTAINS, MY STRENGTH FAILING AND MY VITALITY EXHAUSTED, I CANNOT FIND THE BULL. And there comes a moment in the search when one feels completely exhausted, tired. One starts thinking it...

... same desires, you find the same footprints of the bull. Even under desires you find God hidden. Even under the so-called worldly things, you have been seeking something of the beyond. If a man is searching for more and more money, what in fact is he searching for? - money? If he is searching for money, then there will come a point where he will be satisfied - but that point never comes. It seems he...

... and white - all the colors together. To be rich means to be mature, alert, alive. The man who is searching for money is searching for something else; that's why when money is achieved, nothing is achieved. The man who is searching for power, for what is he searching in fact? He wants to be a god. And in the world, he says, if you have power you can pretend to be a god. Behind his search for power...

..., the same search for God is hidden. So when he attains to power, suddenly he will feel powerless inside, impotent; outside, riches; inside, poor, a beggar. EVEN UNDER THE FRAGRANT GRASS I SEE HIS PRINTS. DEEP IN REMOTE MOUNTAINS THEY ARE FOUND. THESE TRACES NO MORE CAN BE HIDDEN THAN ONE'S NOSE LOOKING HEAVENWARD. And then one is surprised: How was it possible that I couldn't see these footprints...

..., not out of understanding. Once you become a follower, you are losing the track. Once you become a follower, one thing is certain: that you are not inquiring any more. You can become a theist and you can say, "God is, I believe in God." You can become an atheist and you can say, "I don't believe in God. I am an atheist, or a communist," but in both the cases you have joined a...

... church. You have joined a doctrine, a dogma. You have joined a mob, a crowd. The search is individual, full of danger. Alone one has to move. But that is the beauty of it. In deep aloneness, only in deep aloneness where not even a thought is present, God enters in you, or is revealed to you. In deep aloneness, intelligence becomes a flame, bright. In deep aloneness, silence and bliss surround you. In...

... on the whole path I have to make you capable of being alone. I have to help you drop fear, to help you to become decisive. Trust life - there is no need of any other trust. Trust life and it leads you spontaneously and naturally to the ultimate, the truth, God - or whatsoever you want to name it. The river of life is flowing towar ds the ocean. If you trust, you flow in the river. You are already...

... AVOID BEING DROWNED. WHEN ASKED 'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?' I ANSWER 'THE POWER OF THE MAKAHANNYA.' SOMETIMES AFFIRMING THINGS, SOMETIMES DENYING THEM, IT IS BEYOND THE WISDOM OF MAN. SOMETIMES WITH COMMON SENSE, SOMETIMES AGAINST IT, HEAVEN CANNOT MAKE HEAD OR TAIL OF IT. I HAVE SEEN THE SUN RISING IN THE EVENING, and since then I have been drunk with that which is. You can call it God, you can call it...

...; if Yoka exists then the song cannot exist. The song can exist only when the first condition has been fulfilled: that Yoka has disappeared. When he is no more there, when he is no more obstructing the passage, when he is absolutely empty, only then can God take possession of him. Zen people don't use the word 'God', they use the word 'Buddha-nature'. But it is the same; one is possessed. The song...

... the unborn and grasp the timeless? Why be worried about death and birth?' Another push, another provocation, another temptation. 'Why not embody the unborn? Why don't you yourself think that there is no death, that the soul is immortal, that life never dies? Everybody else believes that, why don't you believe that way? Embody the unborn and grasp the timeless - why be worried with time and flux and...

... of saying that God is everywhere, in everything; that God is the soul of everything. Buddhahood is everybody's nature. And the second is the SATORI-event. Every man is from all eternity in the state of SATORI. The SATORI-event is only that historic, anecdotal instance when man suddenly ceases not recognizing that he has always been in the SATORI-state. You are a Buddha. When you recognize it, or...

... is not attached to the world, he is not attached to God; he is simply not attached. He is not hankering for the worldly things and he is not hankering for the other-worldly things; he is not hankering at all. He is at ease. DO YOU NOT SEE HIM, THE REALLY WISE MAN, ALWAYS AT EASE, UNMOVED? GETTING RID OF THINGS AND CLINGING TO EMPTINESS IS AN ILLNESS OF THE SAME KIND... There is no difference. There...

... morning it is one thing, in the afternoon, another, and by the evening nobody knows - even HEAVEN CANNOT MAKE HEAD OR TAIL OF IT. Why? - because it is so spontaneous, so utterly of the moment. It is a response. SOMETIMES AFFIRMING THINGS... You ask the Buddha 'Is there God?' and sometimes he says 'Yes. What else? Only God is.' And you ask the Buddha another day 'Is there God?' and he says 'No. Never...

... heard of it. What nonsense are you talking about? God?' And the third time you ask him 'Is there God?' and he closes his eyes and sits, silent, answering not at all. Or the fourth time you ask him about God, and he says something about something else. Not talking about God at all, he talks about something else. He responds to the question - in fact, more to the questioner than to the question. He...