When you are Not, God is

The first question:

Thinking cannot be stopped. Not that it does not stop, but it cannot be stopped. It stops of its own accord. This distinction has to be understood, otherwise you can go mad chasing your mind.

No-mind does not arise by stopping thinking. When the thinking is no more, no-mind is.

The very effort to stop will create more anxiety, it will create conflict, it will make you split. You will be in a constant turmoil within. This is not going to help.

And even if you succeed in stopping it forcibly for a few moments, it is not an achievement at all -- because those few moments will be almost dead, they will not be alive. You may feel a sort of stillness, but not silence, because a forced stillness is not silence. Underneath it, deep in the unconscious, the repressed mind goes on working.

So, there is no way to stop the mind. But the mind stops -- that is certain. It stops of its own accord.

So what to do? -- your question is relevant. Watch -- don't try to stop. There is no need to do any action against the mind. In the first place, who will do it? It will be mind fighting mind itself. You will divide your mind into two; one that is trying to boss over -- the top- dog -- trying to kill the other part of itself, which is absurd. It is a foolish game. It can drive you crazy. Don't try to stop the mind or the thinking -- just watch it, allow it. Allow it total freedom. Let it run as fast as it wants. You don't try in any way to control it. You just be a witness. It is beautiful!

Mind is one of the most beautiful mechanisms. Science has not yet been able to create anything parallel to mind. Mind still remains the masterpiece -- so complicated, so tremendously powerful, with so many potentialities. Watch it! Enjoy it! And don't watch like an enemy, because if you look at the mind like an enemy, you cannot watch. You are already prejudiced; you are already against. You have already decided that something is wrong with the mind -- you have already concluded. And whenever you look at somebody as an enemy you never look deep, you never look into the eyes. You avoid!

Watching the mind means: look at it with deep love, with deep respect, reverence -- it is God's gift to you! Nothing is wrong in mind itself. Nothing is wrong in thinking itself. It is a beautiful process as other processes are. Clouds moving in the sky are beautiful -- why not thoughts moving into the inner sky? Flowers coming to the trees are beautiful -- why not thoughts flowering into your being. The river running to the ocean is beautiful -- why not this stream of thoughts running somewhere to an unknown destiny? is it not beautiful?

Look with deep reverence. Don't be a fighter -- be a lover. Watch! -- the subtle nuances of the mind; the sudden turns, the beautiful turns; the sudden jumps and leaps; the games that mind goes on playing; the dreams that it weaves -- the imagination, the memory; the thousand and one projections that it creates. Watch! Standing there, aloof, distant, not involved, by and by you will start feeling...

The deeper your watchfulness becomes, the deeper your awareness becomes, and gaps start arising, intervals. One thought goes and another has not come, and there is a gap.

One cloud has passed, another is coming and there is a gap.

In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses of no-mind, you will have the taste of no-mind. Call it taste of Zen, or Tao, or Yoga. In those small intervals, suddenly the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Suddenly the world is full of mystery because all barriers are dropped. The screen on your eyes is no more there. You see clearly, you see penetratingly. The whole existence becomes transparent.

In the beginning, these will be just rare moments, few and far in between. But they will give you glimpses of what samadhi is. Small pools of silence -- they will come and they will disappear. But now you know that you are on the right track -- you start watching again.

When a thought passes, you watch it; when an interval passes, you watch it. Clouds are also beautiful; sunshine also is beautiful. Now you are not a chooser. Now you don't have a fixed mind: you don't say, "I would like only the intervals." That is stupid -- because once you become attached to wanting only the intervals, you have decided again against thinking. And then those intervals will disappear. They happen only when you are very distant, aloof. They happen, they cannot be brought. They happen, you cannot force them to happen. They are spontaneous happenings.

Go on watching. Let thoughts come and go -- wherever they want to go. Nothing is wrong! Don't try to manipulate and don't try to direct. Let thoughts move in total freedom. And then bigger intervals will be coming. You will be blessed with small satoris. Sometimes minutes will pass and no thought will be there; there will be no traffic -- a total silence, undisturbed.

When the bigger gaps come, you will not only have clarity to see into the world -- with the bigger gaps you will have a new clarity arising -- you will be able to see into the inner world. With the first gaps you will see into the world: trees will be more green than they look right now. You will be surrounded by an infinite music -- the music of the spheres.

You will be suddenly in the presence of God -- ineffable, mysterious. Touching you although you can not grasp it. Within your reach and yet beyond. With the bigger gaps, the same will happen inside. God will not only be outside, you will be suddenly surprised -- He is inside also. He is not only in the seen; He is in the seer also -- within and without.

By and by... But don't get attached to that either.

Attachment is the food for the mind to continue. Non-attached witnessing is the way to stop it without any effort to stop it. And when you start enjoying those blissful moments, your capacity to retain them for longer periods arises.

Finally, eventually, one day, you become master. Then when you want to think, you think; if thought is needed, you use it; if thought is not needed, you allow it to rest. Not that mind is simply no more there: mind is there, but you can use it or not use it. Now it is your decision. Just like legs: if you want to run you use them; if you don't want to run you simply rest -- legs are there. In the same way, mind is always there.

When I am talking to you I am using the mind -- there is no other way to talk. When I am answering your question I am using the mind -- there is no other way. I have to respond and relate, and mind is a beautiful mechanism. When I am not talking to you and I am alone, there is no mind -- because it is a medium to relate through. Sitting alone it is not needed.

You have not given it a rest; hence, the mind becomes mediocre. Continuously used, tired, it goes on and on and on. Day it works; night it works. In the day you think; in the night you dream. Day in, day out, it goes on working. If you live for seventy or eighty years it will be continuously working.

Look at the delicacy and the endurability of the mind -- so delicate! In a small head all the libraries of the world can be contained; all that has ever been written can be contained in one single mind. Tremendous is the capacity of the mind -- and in such a small space! and not making much noise.

If scientists some day become capable of creating a parallel computer to mind...

computers are there, but they are not yet minds. They are still mechanisms, they have no organic unity; they don't have any center yet. If some day it becomes possible... and it is possible that scientists may some day be able to create minds -- then you will know how much space that computer will take, and how much noise it will make.

Mind is making almost no noise; goes on working silently. And such a servant! -- for seventy, eighty years. And then, too, when you are dying your body may be old but your mind remains young. Its capacity remains yet the same. Sometimes, if you have used it rightly, it even increases with your age! -- because the more you know, the more you understand, the more you have experienced and lived, the more capable your mind becomes. When you die, everything in your body is ready to die -- except the mind.

That's why in the East we say mind leaves the body and enters another womb, because it is not yet ready to die. The rebirth is of the mind. Once you have attained the state of samadhi, no-mind, then there will be no rebirth. Then you will simply die. And with your dying, everything will be dissolved -- your body, your mind... only your witnessing soul will remain. That is beyond time and space. Then you become one with existence; then you are no more separate from it. The separation comes from the mind.

But there is no way to stop it forcibly -- don't be violent. Move lovingly, with a deep reverence -- and it will start happening of its own accord. You just watch. And don't be in a hurry.

The modern mind is in much hurry. It wants instant methods for stopping the mind.

Hence, drugs have appeal. Mm? -- you can force the mind to stop by using chemicals, drugs, but again you are being violent with the mechanism. It is not good. It is destructive. In this way you are not going to become a master. You may be able to stop the mind through the drugs, but then drugs will become your master -- you are not going to become the master. You have simply changed your bosses, and you have changed for the worse. Now the drugs will hold power over you, they will possess you; without them you will be nowhere.

Meditation is not an effort against the mind. It is a way of understanding the mind. It is a very loving way of witnessing the mind -- but, of course, one has to be very patient. This mind that you are carrying in your head has arisen over centuries, millennia. Your small mind carries the whole experience of humanity -- and not only of humanity: of animals, of birds, of plants, of rocks. You have passed through all those experiences. All that has happened up to now has happened in you also. In a very small nutshell, you carry the whole experience of existence. That's what your mind is. In fact, to say it is yours is not right: it is collective; it belongs to us all.

Modern psychology has been approaching it, particularly Jungian analysis has been approaching it, and they have started feeling something like a collective unconscious.

Your mind is not yours -- it belongs to us all. Our bodies are very separate; our minds are not so separate. Our bodies are clear-cutly separate; our minds overlap -- and our souls are one.

Bodies separate, minds overlapping, and souls are one. I don't have a different soul and you don't have a different soul. At the very center of existence we meet and are one.

That's what God is: the meeting-point of all. Between the God and the world -- 'the world' means the bodies -- is mind. Mind is a bridge: a bridge between the body and the soul, between the world and God. Don't try to destroy it!

Many have tried to destroy it through Yoga. That is a misuse of Yoga. Many have tried to destroy it through body posture, breathing -- that too brings subtle chemical changes inside. For example: if you stand on your head in shirshasan -- in the headstand -- you can destroy the mind very easily. Because when the blood rushes too much, like a flood, into the head -- when you stand on your head that's what you are trying to do.... The mind mechanism is very delicate; you are flooding it with blood. The delicate tissues will die.

That's why you never come across a very intelligent yogi -- no. Yogis are, more or less, stupid. Their bodies are healthy -- that's true -- strong, but their minds are just dead. You will not see the glimmer of intelligence. You will see a very robust body, animallike, but somehow the human has disappeared.

Standing on your head, you are forcing your blood into the head through gravitation. The head needs blood, but in a very, very small quantity; and very slowly, not floodlike.

Against gravitation, very little blood reaches to the head. And that, too, in a very silent way. If too much blood is reaching into the head it is destructive.

Yoga has been used to kill the mind; breathing can be used to kill the mind. There are rhythms of breath, subtle vibrations of breath, which can be very, very drastic to the delicate mind. The mind can be destroyed through them. These are old tricks. Now the latest tricks are supplied by science: LSD, marijuana, and others. More and more sophisticated drugs will be available sooner or later.

I am not in favour of stopping the mind. I am in favour of watching it. It stops of its own accord -- and then it is beautiful When something happens without any violence it has a beauty of its own, it has a natural growth. You can force a flower and open it by force; you can pull the petals of a bud and open it by force -- but you have destroyed the beauty of the flower. Now it is almost dead. It cannot stand your violence. The petals will be hanging loose, limp, dying. When the bud opens by its own energy, when it opens of its own accord, then those petals are alive.

The mind is your flowering -- don't force it in any way. I am against all force and against all violence, and particularly violence that is directed towards yourself. Just watch -- in deep prayer, love, reverence. And see what happens! Miracles happen of their own accord. There is no need to pull and push.

You ask: How to stop thinking? I say: Just watch, be alert. And drop this idea of stopping, otherwise it will stop the natural transformation of the mind. Drop this idea of stopping! Who are you to stop? At the most, enjoy.

And nothing is wrong -- even if immoral thoughts, so-called immoral thoughts, pass through your mind, let them pass; nothing is wrong. You remain detached. No harm is being done. It is just fiction; you are seeing an inner movie. Allow it its own way and it will lead you, by and by, to the state of no-mind. Watching ultimately culminates in no-mind.

No-mind is not against mind: no-mind is beyond mind. No-mind does not come by killing and destroying the mind: no-mind comes when you have understood the mind so totally that thinking is no longer needed -- your understanding has replaced it.

The second question:

IT APPEARS weird but it is true -- because on one level everybody is already a Zen master, on one level everybody is already a Buddha; on another level everybody is the Emperor, the ego.

There are two planes in you: the plane of the mind, and the plane of the no-mind. Or, let me say it in this way: the plane when you are on the periphery of your being and the plane when you are at the center of your being. Every circle has a center -- you may know it, you may not know it. You may not even suspect that there is a center, but there has to be. You are a periphery, you are a circle: there is a center. Without the center you cannot be; there is a nucleus of your being.

At that center you are already a Buddha, a Siddha, one who has already arrived home. On the periphery, you are in the world -- in the mind, in dreams, in desires, in anxieties, in a thousand and one games. And you are both.

So it is possible that when I am talking about Zen masters you can feel: "Yes, it is true!" Not only is it intellectually true -- you can feel it is existentially true. "Yes! This is what is happening to me also." When listening to me, there are bound to be moments when you will see that you have been for a few moments like a Buddha -- the same grace, the same awareness, the same silence; the same world of beatitudes, of blessings, of benediction.

There will be moments, glimpses of your own center. They cannot be permanent; again and again you will be thrown back to the periphery... and then it will look weird. Then you will see that "I am like the Emperor: not understanding at all; stupid, sad, frustrated; missing the meaning of life" -- because you exist on two planes: the plane of the periphery and the plane of the center.

But, by and by, the weirdness will disappear. By and by, you will become capable of moving from the periphery to the center and from the center to the periphery very smoothly -- just as you walk into your house and out of your house. You don't create any dichotomy. You don't say, "I am outside the house so how can I go inside the house?"

You don't say, "I am inside the house so how can I come outside the house?" It is sunny outside, it is warm, pleasant -- you sit outside in the garden. Then it is becoming hotter and hotter, and you start perspiring. Now it is no longer pleasant -- it is becoming uncomfortable: you simply get up and move inside the house. There it is cool; there it is not uncomfortable. Now, there it is pleasant. You go on moving in and out.

In the same way a man of awareness and understanding moves from the periphery to the center, from the center to the periphery. He never gets fixated anywhere. From the marketplace to the monastery, from sansar to sannyas, from being extrovert to being introvert -- he continuously goes on moving, because these two are his wings, they are not against each other. They may be balanced in opposite directions -- they have to be; if both the wings are on one side, the bird cannot fly into the sky -- they have to be balancing, they have to be in opposite directions, but still they belong to the same bird, and they serve the same bird. Your outside and your inside are your wings.

This has to be very deeply remembered, because there is a possibility... the mind tends to fixate. There are people who are fixated in the marketplace; they say they cannot get out of it; they say they have no time for meditation; they say even if time is there they don't know how to meditate and they don't believe that they can meditate. They say they are worldly -- how can they meditate? They are materialistic -- how can they meditate? They say, "Unfortunately, we are extroverts -- how can we go in?" They have chosen only one wing. And, of course, if frustration comes out of it, it is natural. With one wing frustration is bound to come.

Then there are people who become fed up with the world and escape out of the world, go to the monasteries and the Himalayas, become sannyasins, monks: start living alone, force a life of introversion on themselves. They close their eyes, they close all their doors and windows, they become like Leibnitz' monads -- windowless -- then they are bored.

In the marketplace they were fed up, they were tired, frustrated. It was getting more like a madhouse; they could not find rest. There was too much of relationship and not enough holiday, not enough space to be themselves. They were falling into things, losing their beings. They were becoming more and more material and less and less spiritual. They were losing their direction. They were losing the very consciousness that they are. They escaped. Fed up, frustrated, they escaped.

Now they are trying to live alone -- a life of introversion. Sooner or later they get bored.

Again they have chosen another wing, but again one wing. This is the way of a lopsided life. They have again fallen into the same fallacy on the opposite pole.

I am neither for this nor for that. I would like you to become so capable that you can remain in the marketplace and yet meditative. I would like you to relate with people, to love, to move in millions of relationships -- because they enrich -- and yet remain capable of closing your doors and sometimes having a holiday from all relationship... so that you can relate with your own being also.

Relate with others, but relate with yourself also. Love others, but love yourself also. Go out! -- the world is beautiful, adventurous; it is a challenge, it enriches. Don't lose that opportunity! Whenever the world knocks at your door and calls you, go out! Go out fearlessly -- there is nothing to lose, there is everything to gain.

But don't get lost. Don't go on and on and get lost. Sometimes come back home.

Sometimes forget the world -- those are the moments for meditation. Each day, if you want to become balanced, you should balance the outer and the inner. They should carry the same weight, so that inside you never become lopsided.

This is the meaning when Zen masters say: "Walk in the river, but don't allow the water to touch your feet." Be in the world, but don't be of the world. Be in the world, but don't allow the world to be in you. When you come home, you come home -- as if the whole world has disappeared.

Hotei, a Zen master, was passing through a village He was one of the most beautiful persons who have ever walked on earth. He was known to people as 'The Laughing Buddha' -- he used to laugh continuously. But sometimes he would sit under a tree -- in this village he was sitting under a tree, with closed eyes; not laughing, not even smiling; completely calm and collected.

Somebody asked: "You are not laughing, Hotei?"

He opened his eyes and he said, "I am preparing."

The questioner could not understand. He said, "What do you mean by 'preparing'?"

He said, "I have to prepare myself for laughter. I have to give myself rest. I have to go in.

I have to forget the whole world so that I can come again rejuvenated and I can again laugh."

If you really want to laugh you will have to learn how to weep. If you cannot weep and if you are not capable of tears, you will become incapable of laughter. A man of laughter is also a man of tears -- then a man is balanced. A man of bliss is also a man of silence. A man who is ecstatic is also a man who is centered. They both go together. And out of this togetherness of polarities a balanced being is born. And that is what the goal is.

So sometimes when I am talking about Buddhas, you may have glimpses, you may start flying into the inner world. And you will see, yes! -- you know what it is. It simply fits with you in some moments. You can become a witness to it. But in some other moments it is weird. You don't know what a Buddha is. You have lost contact with your own inner center; now you are on the periphery. You can understand a Machiavelli, but now you cannot understand a Buddha. You are both!

And I am not in any way suggesting that you choose one. I would like you to remain in the world and also to have a few holidays for yourself. Even God had to rest on the seventh day. In six days He created the world, and then the seventh day He rested -- even God! Some theologians have reached to the conclusion that He must have been a Jew, because nobody else can work six days a week. He worked for six days continuously.

If you ask Hindus, they have a better conception of God and His creativity. I also think that this concept of working six days and resting the seventh is a Jewish concept -- the businessman's concept. Even on the seventh day, it seems, very reluctantly He would have allowed Himself a little space. Hindus have a totally different attitude. They say: God's world, His creation, is not like a profession, not like business -- God's creation is like play. So each moment is both: work and worship, work and rest. That is the difference between work and play. Hindus call it leela -- God's play. It means He is resting and at the same time He is doing.

That is the difference between a profession and a vocation. A profession is work -- you get tired, then you need rest. A vocation is a play -- while you are working you are also resting, your very work is your rest. In a profession, vacation is needed separately. In a vocation, vacation is implied in it -- vocation is at the same time vacation also.

So Hindus don't have any concept that God created the world in six days and then rested.

No, He has never rested -- in that way. And, in that way, He has never created the world - He is still creating! And His very creativity is His rest.

Have you watched a businessman? Six days he works in the marketplace; the seventh day he comes home and starts painting. Now he says this is rest. Painting is his love, his play; it gives rest. Or he comes home and starts playing a flute. Six days he has been working and now he is again working, but this is no longer work -- it is play.

God is playing. And a real man of understanding becomes godly -- godly in the sense that he is in the world and yet he remains out of it; on the periphery and yet he remains mindful of his center. Doing a thousand and one things, yet he remains a non-doer. In tremendous activities, but he is never lost. His inner light burns bright.

The third question:

THERE IS a great difference. Looking means you are looking for something; you have already some idea to look for. You come here and you say, "I am looking for Teertha" -- then you have an idea. Then you look all around for where Teertha is. The idea is there already.

Looking is already prejudiced. If you are looking for God, you will never find Him -- because looking means you have a certain idea already of who God is. And your idea is bound to be either Christian or Judaic or Hindu or Mohammedan. Your idea is going to be your concept -- and your concept can never be higher than you. And your concept is bound to be your concept. Your concept is bound to be rooted in ignorance, borrowed. At the most, it is just belief; you have been conditioned for it. Then you go on looking.

A person who is looking for truth will never find it, because his eyes are already corrupted, he already has a fixed concept. He is not open. If you have come to me to look for something, then you already have an idea -- you will miss me. Then whatsoever I say you will interpret according to your idea and it will not be my meaning, it will be your meaning. You may find yourself agreeing with me, you may find yourself not agreeing with me -- but agreeing or not agreeing is not the question at all, it is not the point at all.

You have missed me. You can agree, but you are agreeing with your own idea.

You say: "Yes, this man is right," because this man fits with your idea. Your idea is right so that's why this man is right. Or, you don't agree because it doesn't fit with your idea.

But in both the cases your idea is more important. You will miss me.

A man who is looking for something will always be missing it.

Seeing is just clarity -- open eyes, open mind, open heart. Not looking for something in particular; just ready and receptive. Whatsoever happens, you will remain alert, receptive, understanding. Conclusion is not there! Conclusion has to come: by your own eyes you will see -- and there will be a conclusion. The conclusion is in the future. When you are seeing, the conclusion is not already there. When you are looking, the conclusion is already there. And we go on interpreting according to our ideas.

Just the other night I was reading a joke:

A small child is reading a pictorial book on wild life, and he becomes very intrigued with the pictures of ferocious lions. He reads whatsoever is there, but one question is not answered there so he asks his mother.

He asks his mother: "Mom, what type of love-life do lions have?"

The mother said, "Son, I don't know much about Lions because all your father's friends are Rotarians."

If you have some idea in the mind, you corrupt. Then you are not listening to what is being said -- then you are listening according to yourself. Then your mind is playing an active role. When you are looking, mind is active. When you are seeing, mind is passive.

That is the difference. When you are looking, mind is trying to manipulate. When you are seeing, mind is silent -- just watching, available, open, with no idea in particular to enforce on reality.

Seeing is nude. And you can come to truth only when you are absolutely nude; when you have discarded all clothes, all philosophies, all theologies, all religions; when you have dropped all that has been given to you; when you come empty-handed, not knowing in any way. When you come with knowledge you come already corrupted. When you come in innocence, knowing that you don't know, then the doors are open -- then you will be able to know. Only that person who has no knowledge is capable of knowing.

The fourth question:

In the search for a meditative state of mind, that peril always exists. In the search of one's own self there is always a danger that you may choose the inner against the outer -- then the withdrawal becomes schizoid, because you become lopsided, you lose balance.

Balance is health. To lose balance is to lose health. And balance is sanity -- to lose balance is to become insane. The fear is always there. The danger is always there. The danger comes because of your mind.

It is always easy for the mind to change its diseases. Somebody is mad after women; only sex is his obsession. One day or other he will be fed up with this, tired of it all. He will start moving to the other extreme: he will start thinking of brahmacharya -- celibacy -- of becoming a Catholic monk or something.

There is danger. It is as if you have been eating too much and then one day you decide to fast. Eating too much is bad but fasting is not better. In fact, by eating too much you are not going to die so soon; you may become heavier, fatty, uglier, but you will linger on, you will drag on. But by fasting, within weeks you will disappear; you cannot survive more than three months. Both are dangerous.

Eating too much is neurotic. Fasting is the opposite neurosis, but still neurotic. Have a balanced diet. Eat as much as is needed by the body; don't go on stuffing your body. But this is how it happens. I have been watching people: whenever a society becomes very rich, fasting comes as a cult.

In India, Jains are one of the richest societies -- fasting is their cult, fasting is their religion. Now America is becoming very rich -- fasting is becoming more and more a fashion. It is difficult to find a woman who is not on a diet. People go to nature cure clinics to fast.

A poor man's religion is always of festivity, feast. Mohammedans, poor people, when their religious day comes they feast. They starve the whole year so, of course, the religious day, at least on that day, they change their clothes, new clothes, colorful, and they enjoy -- at least for one day they can enjoy.

Jains feast the whole year, and when their religious days come they fast. That is logical.

A poor man's festival is going to be a feast; a rich man's festival is going to be a fast.

People move to the opposite extreme.

So when you start meditating, there is a danger that you may become too much attached to this introversion. Meditation is an introversion; it leads you to your center. If you lose your elasticity and you become incapable of coming back to the periphery, then it is a withdrawal -- and a dangerous withdrawal. It is schizoid.

Be alert! That has happened to many people. The whole history is full of such people who became schizoid.

When you are meditating, always remember that the periphery is not to be lost permanently. You have to come to the periphery again and again so the route remains clear and the path remains there. Hence my insistence to meditate but not to renounce the world. Meditate in the morning and then go to the market; meditate in the morning and then go to your office. Meditate and then make love! Don't create any dichotomy, don't create any conflict. Don't say, "Now how can I love? I am a meditator." Then you are moving in a dangerous direction; sooner or later you will lose all contact with the periphery. Then you will become frozen at the center. And life consists of being alive -- changing, moving. Life is dynamic, it is not dead.

There are two types of dead people in the world: dead on the periphery and dead on the center. Become the third type: alive in between; go on moving from the center to the periphery, from the periphery to the center. They are enriching to each other; they are enhancing to each other. Just watch! If you meditate and then make love, your love will have a tremendously new depth to it. Love and then meditate and suddenly you will see: when your energy is full of love, meditation goes so deep and so easily. You simply ride on the wave -- you need not make any effort. You simply float and reach higher and higher and higher. Once you understand the rhythm of the polar opposites, then there is no fear.

Remember: life is a rhythm between day and night, summer and winter. It is a continuous rhythm. Never stop anywhere! Be moving! And the bigger the swing, the deeper your experience will be.

So make it a point that you have to be continuously journeying, you have to travel. When you go to the inner center in your meditation, enjoy it! -- as if there is no periphery.

Forget the periphery completely; there is no need to remember it. Don't be distracted by it. Dig deep into your own being -- be enriched by it! And bring that flavor back to the periphery. Bring that fragrance back to the world. Bring that aura, that light, that grace, that dignity, that grandeur, back to the periphery.

Walk in the marketplace like a Buddha. Live in the world... the world is very enriching, because relationship mirrors. All relationships are mirrorlike. You see your face in the mirror of the other's being. It is very difficult to see your own face directly -- you will need the other, the mirror, to see your own face. And where can you find a better mirror than the eyes of the other?

Sometimes, look in the eyes of your enemy and you will see a facet of your being.

Sometimes look in the eyes of your lover, your friend, and you will see another facet of your being. Sometimes look in a person's eyes who is indifferent to you and you will see yet another facet of your being. Collect all these faces -- they are yours; aspects of your being. In different situations, with different people, in different worlds, move... and gather all this richness and awareness and alertness and consciousness. Then go back to the center and take all this awareness with you, and your ecstasy in the meditation will be deeper and richer for that.

And this has to go on continuously. Pour your center on the periphery, and pour your periphery on the center. Pour your love in your meditation and pour your meditation in your love.

This is what I teach. This is what I call a dynamic life. And a religious life is a dynamic life.

The fifth question:

Even this is becoming a practice. Please comment.

Knowing always becomes knowledge -- and you have to be alert not to allow it. One of the most delicate situations on the path of a seeker: knowing always becomes knowledge -- because the moment you have known something, your mind collects it as knowledge, as experience.

Knowing is a process. Knowledge is a conclusion. When knowing dies it becomes knowledge. And if you go on gathering this knowledge, then knowing will become more and more difficult -- because with knowledge, knowing never happens. Then you carry your knowledge around you. A knowledgeable person is almost hidden behind his knowledge; he loses all clarity, all perception. The world becomes far away; the reality loses all transparency.

The knowledgeable person is always looking through his knowledge. He projects his knowledge. His knowledge colors everything -- now there is no longer any possibility of knowing. Remember: knowledge is not gathered only through scriptures -- it is also gathered, and more so, through your own experience.

You love a woman, for example. You have never known a woman before, have never fallen in deep love. You fall for the first time -- you are innocent, you are a virgin. You don't know what love is -- your mind is open. You don't have any knowledge about love.

You are spontaneous. You move into the unknown. It is mysterious. Love opens doors of unknown temples, sings unknown songs into your ears and into your heart, dances with unknown tunes. And you don't know anything; you don't have any knowledge to judge by, to evaluate, to condemn, to say good or bad. It is ecstatic. You are gripped by the ineffable experience of love. You live in moments of grace.

But, by and by, you become knowledgeable -- now you know what love means; now you know what the woman means; now you know the geography, the topography of love.

You have become knowledgeable.

You fall in love with another woman. Now, nothing like the first experience happens -- nothing like it. Dull. A repetition. As if you have gone to see the same movie again, or reading the same novel again. A little difference here and there, but not much. Now, why are you missing? Why is the same mysterious experience not gripping you? Why are you not throbbing with the unknown again? You are knowledgeable. Something so beautiful like love has become a repetition.

Knowing always becomes knowledge. So you have to be very alert: know something -- the moment it becomes knowledge, drop it. Go on dying to your knowledge. Never carry it -- because no other woman is the same. Your first woman was a totally different world; this new woman you have fallen in love with is a totally different world. It is not going to be the same. But if you move through knowledge it will look like the same.

Drop the knowledge. Be again innocent. Again move into the unknown -- because no two persons are alike. Every person is so unique that there has never been a person like that before and there will never be again. Learn again from A B C and you will be full of wonder. And then you have learnt a deep experience: never allow any knowledge to settle.

All knowing becomes knowledge. The moment it becomes knowledge, drop it. It is just like dust gathers on the mirror; every day you have to clean it. On the mirror of your mind dust gathers, dust of experience: it becomes knowledge. Clean it. That's why every day meditation is needed. Meditation is nothing but cleaning the mirror of your mind.

Clean it continuously! If you can clean it every moment of your life, then there is no need to sit separately for meditation.

Remember, be alert that knowledge has not to be gathered, that you have to remain like a child -- full of wonder, full of awe. Every nook and corner is mysterious, and you don't know what it is. You cannot figure it out, what this life is. Enchanted you run in this direction and that direction.

Have you watched a child running on the sea-beach? So elated! in such euphoria! collecting shells and colored stones. Have you watched a child running in a garden to catch a butterfly? You will not run that way even if God is there; you will not run that way. You will not be so ecstatic even if God is there. You will move like a gentleman.

You will not rush, you will not be mad. You will still keep your manners; you will still show that you are mature, you are not a child.

And Jesus says: "Only those who are childlike, they will be able to enter into my Kingdom of God" -- only those who are childlike, only those who are still capable of wonder. Wonder is the greatest treasure in life. Once you lose wonder, you have lost your life -- then you drag, but you no longer live. And knowledge kills wonder.

That is one of the most difficult problems the modern mind is facing, because knowledge has accumulated every day more and more. The twentieth century is so much burdened with knowledge. Hence religion has disappeared -- because religion can exist only with wonder, with wonder-filled eyes; eyes which don't know but are ready to rush into any direction to see what is there; innocent eyes, virgin hearts. So remember to remain capable of childlike wonder.

Science grows out of doubt. Religion grows out of wonder. Between the two is philosophy; it has not yet decided -- it goes on hanging between doubt and wonder.

Sometimes the philosopher doubts and sometimes the philosopher wonders: he is just in between. If he doubts too much, by and by he becomes a scientist. If he wonders too much, by and by he becomes religious.

That's why philosophy is disappearing from the world -- because ninety-nine percent of philosophers have become scientists. And one person -- a Buber somewhere, or a Krishnamurti somewhere, or a Suzuki somewhere -- great minds, great penetrating intellects, they have become religious. Philosophy is almost losing its ground.

If you become too sceptical, you become scientists. If you become too childlike, you become religious. Science exists with doubt. Religion exists with wonder. If you want to be religious then create more wonder, discover more wonder. Allow your eyes to be more filled with wonder than anything else. Be surprised by everything that is happening.

Everything is so tremendously wonderful that it is simply unbelievable how you go on living without dancing, how you go on living without becoming ecstatic. You must not be seeing what is happening all around.

Just to be is so miraculous, just to breathe is so miraculous. Just to breathe and just to be! -- nothing else is needed for a religious person. To be full of wonder. And when one is full of wonder, praise arises, and praise is prayer. When you see this wonderful existence, you start praising it. In your praising, prayer arises. You say: "Holy, holy, holy! " It is holy. It is so beautiful and so holy.

So, the questioner has raised a very pertinent question: "You have reminded me again that, for me, knowing becomes knowledge, which becomes the practice of that knowledge." These are the three steps. First knowing; then the knowing dies, shrinks, becomes knowledge; then knowledge also shrinks even more and becomes practice or character.

A man of character is the deadliest man in the world. He practises his knowledge; he tries to follow his knowledge. He is not spontaneous. He is continuously managing, manipulating, pushing himself this way and that; somehow holding himself together. He is not responsible -- responsible in the sense of being capable of response. If you come across him, if you embrace him, he will answer it, but that answer will come out of his past experiencing -- out of his character.

A man of character is predictable. Only a mechanism can be predictable. A fully conscious man is unpredictable. No astrologer can predict anything about a fully conscious man. He moves moment-to-moment, full of wonder. He acts out of wonder; he acts out of response to the moment. He carries no knowledge, he carries no character with him. Each moment he is new, reborn.

So these are the three steps: knowing dies; knowing becomes knowledge; knowledge becomes character. Be aware -- beware! Don't allow your knowing to fall and to become knowledge. And never allow your knowledge to control you and to create a character for you. A character is an armour. In the armour you are jailed... then you can never be spontaneous. You are already in your grave -- a character is a grave.

Let your knowing be there, but don't allow it to become knowledge or character. The moment it is turning into knowledge, drop it, empty your hands. Forget all about it. Move ahead! again like a child. Difficult, I know. Easy to say; difficult to be that way -- but that is the only way you can attain to satchitanand -- you can attain to truth, you can attain to consciousness, you can attain to bliss.

Yes, it is hard. One has to pay too much for it -- but God is not cheap. You will have to pay with your whole being. Only when you have paid totally and you are not holding anything and you are not a miser, and you have sacrificed and surrendered yourself totally, will you attain. God comes to you when you are not; when you have become just a zero God comes to you. He is just waiting by the corner. The moment you become empty, He rushes towards you, He comes and fulfiles you.

Don't allow knowing to become knowledge and character. Then a totally different type of character will arise which will not be like the character you have seen in the world. It will be inner -- a discipline which comes from the innermost core of your being. Never forced! -- always spontaneous. It is not like a commandment: it is an organic growth. God is your spontaneous organic growth.