Life Undefined is What God is

The first question:

The question is from Swami Anand Subhuti. No -- you have not missed me at all.

People who leave me with certainty, security, they are the ones who have missed me.

I am not here to give you a dogma. A dogma makes one certain. I am not here to give you any promise for the future -- any promise for the future makes one secure.

I am here simply to make you alert and aware. That is: to be herenow -- with all the insecurity that life is; with all the uncertainty that life is; with all the danger that life is.

I know you come here seeking some certainty, some creed, some 'ism', somewhere to belong to, someone to rely upon. You come here out af your fear. You are searching a sort of beautiful imprisonment -- so that you can live without any awareness.

I would make you more insecure, more uncertain, because that's how life is, that's how God is. When there is more insecurity and more danger, the only way to respond to it is by awareness.

There are two possibilities. Either you close your eyes and become dogmatic -- become a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan... then you become like an ostrich. It doesn't change life: it simply closes your eyes; it simply makes you stupid; it simply makes you unintelligent. In your unintelligence you feel secure -- all idiots feel secure. In fact, only idiots feel secure. A really alive man will always feel insecure. What security can there be?

Life is not a mechanical process. It cannot be certain. It is an unpredictable mystery.

Nobody knows what is going to happen the next moment. Not even God that you think resides somewhere in the Seventh Heaven, not even He -- if He is there -- not even He knows what is going to happen, because if he knows what is going to happen then life is just bogus, then everything is written beforehand, then everything is destined beforehand.

How can He know what is going to happen next if the future is open? If God knows what is going to happen the next moment, then life is just a dead mechanical process, then there is no freedom. And how can life exist without freedom? Then there is no possibility to grow, or not to grow. If everything is predestined then there is no glory, no grandeur.

Then you are just robots.

No -- nothing is secure. That is my message. Nothing can be secure, because a secure life will be worse than death. Nothing is certain. Life is full of uncertainties, full of surprises -

- that is its beauty! You can never come to a moment when you can say, "Now I am certain." When you say you are certain, you simply declare your death, you have committed suicide.

Life goes on moving with a thousand and one uncertainties. That's its freedom. Don't call it insecurity. I can understand why mind calls freedom insecurity.

Have you lived in a jail for a few months or a few years? If you have lived in a jail for a few years, when the day of release comes the prisoner starts feeling uncertain about the future. Everything was certain in the jail; everything was dead routine. Food was supplied to him, protection was given to him; there was no fear that he would be hungry next day and there would be no food -- nothing! Everything was certain. Now, suddenly, after many years the jailer comes and says to him, "Now you are going to be released." He starts trembling. Outside the wall of the prison, again uncertainties; again he will have to seek, search; again he will have to live in freedom...

Freedom creates fear. People talk about freedom but they are afraid. And a man is not yet a man if he is afraid of freedom. I give you freedom -- I don't give you security. I give you understanding -- I don't give you knowledge. Knowledge will make you certain. If I can give you a formula, a set formula, that there is a God and there is a Holy Ghost and there is an only begotten son, Jesus; there is Hell and Heaven; and these are the good acts and these are the bad acts; do the sin and you will be in Hell; do what I call the virtuous acts and you will be in Heaven -- finished! -- then you are certain.

That's why so many people have chosen to be Christians, to be Hindus, to be Mohammedans, to be Jains -- they don't want freedom. They want fixed formulas.

A Jew was dying -- suddenly, in an accident on a road. Nobody knew that he was a Jew.

A priest was called, a Catholic priest. He leaned close to the Jew -- and the man was dying, in the last throes of death -- and the priest said, "Do you believe in the Trinity of God the Father, the Holy Ghost and the son Jesus?"

The Jew opened his eyes and he said, "Look, here I am dying -- and he is talking riddles? Here I am dying and he is talking in riddles!"

When death knocks at your door, all your certainties will be simply riddles and foolish.

Don't cling to any certainty. Life is uncertain -- its very nature is uncertain. And an intelligent man always remains uncertain.

This very readiness to remain in uncertainty is courage. This very readiness to be in uncertainty is trust. An intelligent person is one who remains alert whatsoever the situation -- and responds to it with his whole heart. Not that he knows what is going to happen; not that he knows that 'do this' and 'that will happen'. Life is not a science; it is not a cause and effect chain. Heat the water to a hundred degrees and it evaporates -- it is a certainty. But like that, in real life, nothing is certain.

Each individual is a freedom, an unknown freedom. It is impossible to predict, impossible to expect. One has to live in awareness and in understanding.

You come to me seeking knowledge; you want set formulas so that you can cling to them. I don't give you any. In fact, if you have any I take them away. By and by, I destroy your certainty; by and by, I make you more and more hesitant; by and by, I make you more and more insecure. That is the only thing that has to be done. That's the only thing a

master needs to do! -- to leave you in total freedom. In total freedom, with all the possibilities opening, nothing fixed... you will have to be aware. Nothing else is possible.

This is what I call understanding. If you understand, insecurity is an intrinsic part of life - - and good that it is so, because it makes life a freedom, it makes life a continuous surprise. One never knows what is going to happen. It keeps you continuously in wonder.

Don't call it uncertainty -- call it wonder. Don't call it insecurity -- call it freedom.

"I leave you with no feeling of security, no sense of certainty, nothing to rely on."

Precisely that's what I have been always hoping. "Have I missed you?" No, not at all.

You have understood me well. Go with this uncertainty into the world; go with this insecurity into the world. And never be a coward, and don't regress back into some dogma.

"I have been with Bhagwan and I have not been with Bhagwan."

YES, IT IS SO. This is the paradox of love. You possess your beloved and yet you don't possess. You are with your beloved and yet you are not with. This is the paradox of love.

You cannot possess your beloved like a thing; you cannot become a possessor -- yet in a certain sense you possess your beloved, and in a certain sense you don't possess. In fact, the more you love, the more you make your beloved free. In fact, the more freedom you give to your beloved, the more you possess. The more you possess, the less you possess.

This is the paradox of love.

Here being with me is an act of love. I have nothing else to give to you -- except my love.

I have nothing else to share with you except my love. While you are here with me you will be in this paradox continuously: you will feel you have been with me, and you will feel that you have not been with me. Both are true -- and both are true together! That's the paradox of love.

The more you have been with me, the more you will feel that you have not been with me.

The less you have been with me, the more you will feel that you have been with me.

There are foolish people, unloving people, who come and listen once or twice and think they have known me. And they go with certainty, with decisions, conclusions. They don't know what love is. They don't know what truth is. They come with certain prejudices, and if they feel that I am agreeing with their prejudices, they think they have understood me and they say I am right. If I am not agreeing with their prejudices, they think they have understood me and 'this man is wrong'.

If you are here for a longer period... and the period is not as important as the depth of the relationship. That is the meaning of sannyas: it is a plunge into a deeper intimacy, into a deeper commitment.

Just the other night a woman was asking: "If I don't take sannyas, won't you accept me?"

I told her: "Yes, I accept you -- whether you take sannyas or not is irrelevant -- but you will not be able to accept me if you don't take sannyas."

If you are able to accept me, then sannyas is just a gesture of your acceptance, nothing else. It is just a gesture that 'I am coming with you', that 'I am ready to be with you', that 'even if you are going to hell I would rather be with you in hell than be in heaven alone' -- that's all. I am not promising you that I will take you to heaven -- nothing of the sort.

Nobody should be hoping that. I am not promising you anything of that sort. Maybe I am going to hell.

A sannyasin is one who has trusted me, who says, "Okay, so I am also coming -- but I am coming with you." Then something starts transpiring between me and you. It is not only changing your clothes, it is not only changing your name. It is simply dropping your whole past and starting from A-B-C. That's why I change your name -- mm? -- just to give you a new start, as if you are born again.

The day of your initiation into sannyas becomes your real birthday. You disown the past and you tell me: "I am ready for a new future -- I will not continue my past; I am ready to discontinue it. And I will not insist on my past -- I disclaim, I disown it. And I am absolutely open: wherever you lead, I am ready. I have no prejudices."

If you have been here with me in a deep intimate relationship, if you have loved me, and if you have tasted my love, this is bound to happen: "I have been with Bhagwan and I have not been with Bhagwan." Yes, you will feel that paradox. "I have seen him and yet something remains unknown, unseen." That will always remain -- unless you also become Bhagwan. Unless you also reclaim your divinity, unless you also become a God, something will remain unknown -- because we can know only that of which we have become capable.

Another woman last night came to me and she said, "I love you, but I cannot love you as a divine being -- I love you as a human being." That's okay! In fact, how can you see divineness if something of the divine has not already stirred in your heart? How can you see beyond yourself?

And the woman who said it is a dogmatic Christian. In fact she thinks -- maybe not very consciously, but unconsciously -- that Jesus is the only God there ever has been. But you must know that Jesus was crucified, and the people who crucified him, they were not crucifying a God -- they were crucifying a vagabond, they were crucifying a criminal; they were crucifying a man who was creating mischief.

The people who crucified Jesus were not able to see his godliness at all; they could only see the mischief in him. So whether Jesus was a God or not is not the question -- whether you can see or not is the question. And you can see only that which you are; you cannot see beyond yourself.

The moment you start seeing God in me, something of the God has been born in you.

And then it is not going to remain confined to me. The moment you start seeing God in me, by and by you will see God in Jesus, in Buddha, in Krishna. And, by and by, you will see God in other people. By and by, you will be able to see God in birds, in trees, in rocks -- and one day you will see that only God exists and nothing else. In fact, only God exists and nothing else.

The more you hear me, the more you will feel something has been left unheard. The more you see me, the more you will feel something is missing, you have not seen me totally.

The more close you are to me, the more intense your thirst will become. The more you love me, the more passionate you will become in your love; a burning desire will arise in you to become a God yourself.

Now there is a problem with Christians, Mohammedans, Jews, who think of God as a person -- there is a problem. They think God is the one who created the world. In the East we have a deeper understanding of God than that. Creation is not something separate from God: it is His play; it is He Himself hiding in many forms. Here He has become a rock, there He has become a flower. Here He is a sinner and there He is a saint. The

whole play is His. And He is the only actor and He goes on dividing His roles. He is in Jesus and He is in Judas.

In the East, God is not a person -- God is the very stuff the universe is made of. God is not a creator -- God is creativity. And the creator and the creation are just two aspects of the same creative energy.

In the West, the idea is something like a painter making a picture, a painting. By the time the painting is complete, the painting is separate from the painter. Then the painter can die, but the painting will remain. In the East, we don't think of God and the world as a painter and a painting -- we think of God as a dancer, nataraj. You cannot separate the dancer from the dance; if the dancer goes, the dance goes. If the dance stops, then the person is no more a dancer. Dancer and dancing exist together; they cannot exist separately; you cannot separate them.

God is more like a dancer. I am one of His movements; you are also one of His movements -- you may recognize it, you may not recognize it. The only difference in the world is that a few people recognize that they are Gods and a few people don't recognize that they are Gods. The difference is not of your being, it is only of recognition.

The more and more you love, the more and more you become understanding and aware, the more and more you will feel something is missing.

"I have heard him and yet still I am deaf to his teaching" -- you have really heard me.

Only then can this feeling arise. If hearing me you think you have understood me, you are really deaf -- not only deaf, you are stupid also.

I am saying something about the ineffable. I am saying something about the ultimate mystery. You can understand it, yet you can never understand it totally. It is elusive, it escapes. It is within reach, but it is not within grasp. You are always coming closer and closer to it, but you never arrive. And the day you arrive, then you are no more there; the distinction between the seeker and the sought disappears. Then you are it. That art thou -- then you are it! That is the moment of culmination.

I would like to tell Anand Subhuti: Go happily. go in insecurity, go in freedom; go independent -- there is no need to lean on anything or anybody. Don't use me as a crutch.

Allow me to help you to become independent, to be free of me and to be free of everything. You have not missed me. I have fallen like a seed into your heart. Just watch prayerfully, wait with deep gratitude, and in the right time the seed will sprout.

The second question:

FIRST: this is a sort of calamity that has befallen human beings. Somehow, when things are going beautifully, and you feel calm and quiet and collected, why do you start thinking of death?

The questioner says: "While in a peaceful state of being, I watched a bird flying by. I thought, 'This would be a nice time to die!"' Why not think: This would be a nice time to live! Why think: This would be a nice time to die! Something is implied in All over the world, and in the West more so, people have been taught not to be happy, not to enjoy life, not to be ecstatic. People have been taught that to be happy is somehow to be guilty. People have become deep down very much conditioned: when they feel happy, they almost always feel guilt arising. When they feel sad, everything is good. When they are depressed, nothing is wrong When they are serious, there is no guilt.

Have you watched it? Dancing with a woman, suddenly you feel guilty. Making love to a woman, suddenly you feel guilty. Enjoying your food, suddenly you start looking guilty.

Have you watched? Whenever there is happiness something of guilt arises in you. This never happens when you are sad; when you are depressed, when you are carrying a long face, then this never happens. But if you are smiling... people even feel afraid to laugh; they laugh reluctantly, as if they are going to do something wrong. The whole humanity has been conditioned to be unhappy. All happiness has been condemned as sin.

That's why saints are pained as if they never laugh. Christians, in fact, say that Jesus never laughed. This is absurd! If Jesus was an Enlightened man, only he is entitled to laugh. But Christians say he never laughed. Have you ever seen a picture of Jesus laughing? So dead, dull, serious, deathlike.

All Jesus' pictures are falsifications; they cannot be about the real Jesus. This real man must have been totally different, because we know he enjoyed drinking -- it is impossible to think of a person who enjoys drinking and not laughing. He enjoyed women -- it is difficult to think of a man who enjoys women and not laughing. He was friendly, almost in love, with a prostitute, Mary Magdalene. It is difficult to move with a prostitute -- he was not moving with a Catholic monk, not with a priest, not with the Pope... with a prostitute! These were the condemnations against him.

And he was moving with simple people, simple folk -- carpenters, farmers -- very uneducated people. You cannot expect them to be serious. He was not moving with scholars, with professors, with vice-chancellors -- no. He was moving with very simple people, ordinary people, down-to-earth people. It is impossible to think that he was not laughing. Late in the nights they would enjoy food and drink. He must have been gossiping, he must have been telling jokes.

But Jesus has been depicted as a serious man. And Christians say he never laughed. Then what is the function of an Enlightened man? If Jesus cannot laugh, then who is going to laugh in this world?

Somehow man has been conditioned to be unhappy. Happiness seems to be hedonistic, epicurean, pagan. A religious man has to be serious, has to carry a long face, a mask; he cannot smile. He cannot enjoy the small things of life -- his ego won't allow it. His ego keeps aloof, away, distant. He will not meet and mingle with ordinary people, and he will not enjoy ordinary gossiping. He will always remain aloof, far away.

This is an egoistic attitude, this is pious ego -- and a pious ego is more poisoned than ordinary egos because it is purer: it is pure poison. And these people have conditioned the human mind. They are neurotic people. Something is missing -- they are not normal, they are not healthy; they are morbid, ill. These ill people have conditioned humanity's mind.

They have destroyed laughter from the earth, they have destroyed festivity. They have

destroyed celebration -- and destroying celebration they have destroyed the very foundation of God. Life is a celebration!

Because of this conditioning, whenever you are feeling happy you think, "This is the right moment to die." Why not to live?! When you are miserable, that is the right moment to live; and when you are feeling happy, this is the right moment to die. Drop this nonsense! When a bird flies by and you are feeling peaceful, this is the moment to live and love and dance. Why be in a hurry for death? Death is coming on its own. It need not have any support from you. It is already coming.

While you are alive, be so alive that even death when it comes cannot kill you. A really alive person transcends death. Death happens only to dead people. Let me repeat it: Death happens only to dead people; who are already dead, only to those people does death happen. A really alive person transcends death, goes beyond death. Death comes, but misses the target.

How can you kill a person like Buddha? How can you kill a person like Jesus? How can you kill Krishna with his flute on his lips? -- impossible. Death itself will start dancing around him! His life is so abundant that death itself will fall in love with him.

Always remember that to be happy is to be religious, to be happy is to be virtuous. To be celebrating is to be prayerful. To be festive, and to remain in a festive dimension continuously, is to be a sannyasin. Then you enjoy whatsoever happens. You enjoy health when it happens; you enjoy illness also when it happens. Then both become beautiful. In health you enjoy activity; when you are ill you enjoy relaxation.

It is beautiful sometimes to be ill and just Lying on the bed, resting, not worrying about the world; allowing yourself a good holiday; singing, praying, meditating on the bed; reading a little bit, listening to music; or just doing nothing, just being lazy. It is beautiful! If you know how to enjoy health, you will be able to know how to enjoy illness also. Then you become a master, you become skillful.

This is the whole art of life!

You enjoy your youth, and when you become old you enjoy your old age. Old age has its own beauties; no young man can have those beauties. Youth is shallow; full of energy but shallow. Old age is not so full of energy, but things are settling and depth is arising.

If you miss your youth, you will miss your old age also -- remember. So I am not saying become old while you are young. I am saying be whatsoever you are; let that moment be your totality. When a child, be a child; never enforce your wisdom on any child because that is a crippling thing. Don't try to make a child old before he is old, don't crush him.

That's what has happened in the world: old people are dominating children, and they want to pull them out of their childhood faster than nature allows. They kill and they crush -- the child loses something forever. And when a child was not a child when he was a child, he will not be young when he is young. Something will always go on missing. He will always be late in life -- he will miss the train.

That's why so many people dream of missing the train. This is one of the commonest dreams in the world: people rushing towards the railway station, doing everything in a hurry; somehow they reach on the platform and the train is moving, or has moved, and they just see the last bogie leaving the platform.

This is the commonest dream; it is very significant. It simply shows that somehow you have been missing the train that life is. You always reach late; you are never in time. And the wonder of wonders is that everybody is studying the timetable so much. People go on

studying the timetable, but when they reach they are always late. They waste their time with the timetable.

This is what is happening when you read the Bible or you read the Koran or you read the Gita -- these are timetables. And reading the timetables you miss the train of life. Good sometimes to read them, when you have nothing else to do -- but don't make them a substitute for life. They are nothing compared to life.

While you can read the book of life, don't substitute it by any other book. When you can read a tree, read the tree! When you can read the rosebush, read the rosebush! When you can read a man, read the man! When you can read a woman, read the woman! These are alive books, the real Bibles. But you are too much concerned with dead books, and by the time you raise your eyes, the train has left.

A child has to be a child when he is a child. A young man has to be a young man when he is a young man. An old man has to be an old man when he is old. If you miss your youth then you will be in difficulty: you will never be really old; your body will start deteriorating and your mind will hanker around your youth. The unfulfilled desires, the sensuality, the sexuality, the greed, the ambition -- all that you always wanted to do and could not because at that time you were reading the Bible or the Gita -- now will haunt you. Now your mind will go after those things.

I was reading one beautiful story about a missionary:

He went to Africa to teach Christianity to a cannibal tribe. He was talking to the chief of the cannibal tribe -- a very old man, near about eighty-five, ninety. The cannibal listened very attentively, then he asked a few questions. One he said: "So do you mean to say to me that I should not fall in love with my neighbor's wife?"

The missionary said, "Yes, you have understood rightly."

And then the chief said, "And do you mean to say to me that I should not kill anybody in a fight?"

The missionary was very happy. He said, "Perfectly right! You have understood me."

The cannibal said, "Do you mean to say that robbing some body of his property or killing him in the fight or taking his wife as your own wife is wrong, immoral, a sin?"

The missionary said, "Absolutely, absolutely!" The chief said, "But I can't understand -- because I am too old to do all these things. So do you mean to say that to be an old man and to be a Christian are the same?"

Your so-called religions are just religions created by dead people. They don't allow you life. They don't allow you love. They go on condemning all that is beautiful and all that is right at the time.

My whole emphasis is to live the moment whatsoever it is, and live it with tremendous energy.

If you are a young man while young, you will be an old man while old -- very wise. You will have known all that is good and bad in life: the day and night, the summer and winter -- all you will have have known. By your own experience a wisdom will arise. And when you are dying, you will have enjoyed your life so tremendously that you will be able to enjoy your death also.

Only a person who has enjoyed his life becomes capable of enjoying his death. And if you are capable of enjoying your death, you have defeated death. Then there is no more birth for you and no more death for you -- you have learnt the lesson.

This is what we call Enlightenment: learning the lesson that life can teach you.

The questioner says: "While in a peaceful state of being, I watched a bird flying by. I thought, 'This would be a nice time to die.'"

This thought must have come out of your Christian background, the so-called, the pseudo-religious background, life-negating background -- otherwise you would have thought: "Nice time to live!" And you are alive so think in terms of life. Why do you think in terms of death? There must be some suicidal tendency in you. This I have watched in many people.

Once I took one of my professors -- he was my teacher -- I took him to a very beautiful place. Nothing like it exists anywhere in the world. I used to live in Jabalpur, and just thirteen miles away from there flows the beautiful River Narmada. Two miles amidst hills of marble, two miles' stretch of marble hills: it is something not of this world. On a full-moon night it is unbelievable; you cannot believe that it is there. It is so unreal! It has such a hypnotic energy in it.

I took my old professor on a full-moon night, just in the middle of the night when the moon is just on the head. He could not believe that such a beautiful thing is possible on this earth. He said, "What a beautiful place to die!"

But why does this idea arise? "What a beautiful place to live!" would have been absolutely relevant. "What a beautiful place to love! What a beautiful place to dance! and sing!" would have been relevant. But the idea arises: "What a beautiful place to die!" Why this death-obsession? Can't you enjoy anything? Can't you delight in anything? Become aware of such tendencies. And next time when a beautiful moment passes by -- dance! sing! paint! love! Death will take care of itself. It will come one day. Be ripe when it comes -- and the only ripeness that is possible is through living.

Live deeply, live totally, live wholly, so when death comes and knocks at your door you are ready -- ready like a ripe fruit to drop. Just a small breeze comes and the fruit drops; sometimes even without the breeze the fruit drops from its own weight and ripeness.

Death should be like that. And the readiness has to come through living.

THE QUESTIONER asks: "Yet during the 'stop' exercise when I was feeling some discomfort I experienced maybe as much separation as ever."

You think about death and you become disturbed by small things: a headache, an ant crawling on your body. You become distracted by such small things, small discomforts -- and you talk about death. Maybe you don't know what death is; maybe you have only heard the name. And you have seen people dying, but you yourself have never seen death.

In fact, when a person dies you see him Lying in repose -- silent, relaxed, with no discomfort. You think death is not a discomfort? You are seeing only a dead person; you have not seen his inner misery, you have not seen his inner conflict. You have not seen his inner struggle with death. You have not seen his inner anguish and turmoil. You just see the dead body -- painted, dressed well, washed, cleaned.

One man died. Mulla Nasrudin went to see with his wife. And the wife said, "Looks so beautiful and so silent!"

Nasrudin said, "Has to look beautiful and silent -- is coming from Kashmir, three months' holiday!"

Watch a dead person -- every person looks beautiful, silent. Not that he died in silence, not that he died beautifully -- rarely does a person die beautifully. Ninety-nine percent of people struggle very badly -- fight, great stress arises.

Just think! -- a small ant crawling on your body, a small thorn in your foot, and how uncomfortable you become. A small headache, stomach a little disturbed, and how much you become concerned. Just think! -- the body and soul are being taken apart. With the body you have become so involved; you have completely forgotten that you are a soul -- and you are being taken apart. You cling. You leave your claim with great difficulty, very reluctantly -- fighting, struggling, crying. But nobody can see it; it is something inside you -- only you can see it. You cannot even say anything.

You die in misery. Only a few people die blissfully. And when death becomes a bliss, it is a samadhi. When death is a relaxation...real relaxation. Deep inside you surrender, you welcome. You have known life, now you want to know death also. You have lived life, you have enjoyed it. A great trust has arisen in you about life -- and you know death is the culmination of life, the crescendo. It must be beautiful! When the whole journey has been beautiful, why not the goal? There is no reason to be afraid. When the whole journey has been such a tremendous joy, why not the end? It is the culmination. You have come home. You welcome, you are ready to embrace death. You relax, you simply slip into death.

And that's the moment! If you can die without any fight, you don't die -- and you are never born again. You have simply slipped out of the body confinements -- of the world.

You live! -- you live eternally. But then you live as an unembodied existence, with no limitations, with no boundaries.

Body gives you a boundary. Death takes away all boundaries from you. Body gives you a definition, makes you a man or a woman, makes you ugly or beautiful, makes you intelligent or unintelligent, makes you this and that -- body gives you definition. Death takes all definitions away. It simply leaves life undefined.

Life undefined is what God is. But to know this death you will have to know life well.

So if you can accept my suggestion: next time when a beautiful moment passes by, think in terms of life -- "What a beautiful moment to live and dance and be alive!" Then one day when death comes, you will say the same to death: "What a beautiful moment to die!"

All moments are beautiful, only you have to be receptive and surrendering. All moments are blessings, only you have to be capable of seeing. All moments are benedictions. If you accept with a deep gratitude, nothing ever goes wrong.

Question 3

Vice versa. Death does not determine, neither does the time of death determine anything.

It is you, conscious or unconscious, who determine the meaning of death. It is an Enlightened consciousness that makes death so beautiful, so tremendously beautiful. You are making even life ugly, and an Enlightened man makes even death beautiful.

It is you in the final analysis, always you, the decisive factor, who decide whatsoever happens to you. Remember it. This is the very key. If you are unhappy, it is you. If you are not living rightly, it is you. If you are missing, it is you. The responsibility is totally yours. Don't be afraid of this responsibility.

Many people become too much afraid of the responsibility because they don't see the other side of the coin. On one side is written 'responsibility'; on another side is written 'freedom'. Responsibility means freedom. If somebody else is forcing you to be in misery, then you cannot get out of it -- how can you get out of it if somebody else is forcing you into misery? Unless the other decides not to make you miserable you can never get out of it. If it is you who are responsible for your misery, then it is for you to decide. If you are enjoying being miserable, be miserable thousandfold -- there is no problem. Enjoy! If you are not enjoying it, then drop it. Be clear-cut.

What I see is: people go on thinking that they want to be happy, but what can they do? -- they are being forced to be miserable. This is absolutely absurd. Nobody is forcing anybody -- nobody can force anybody -- to be miserable. A man who knows how to be happy becomes happy in any sort of situation. You cannot give him any situation in which he will not find something to be happy about.

And there are persons who have learnt the trick of being unhappy. You cannot give them any situation in which they will not find something to be unhappy about.

Whatsoever you want to find, you will find. Life goes on supplying all sorts of things to you. You choose!

I have heard:

Two men were imprisoned. It was a full-moon night; both were standing near the window of their dark cell. The full moon was there. One was looking at the moon, and it was the rainy season -- must have been like these days -- and there was much water and mud just in front of the window. Dirty, and it was smelling and stinking.

One man continued to look at the moon, the other continued to look at the mud. And the man who was looking at the mud, of course, was feeling very miserable. And the man who was looking at the moon was aflame, aglow; his face was reflecting the moon; his eyes were full of beauty. He had completely forgotten that he was imprisoned.

BOTH are standing at the same window, but they are choosing different things. There are people: if you take them to a rosebush they will count the thorns; they are great calculators -- their mathematics is always right. And when they have counted thousands of thorns, it is simply logical that they will not be able to see the one roseflower. In fact, their inner world will say, "How is it possible? -- amidst so many thorns, how is a roseflower possible? It must be a deception, it must be illusory. Or even if it is possible, it is worthless."

Then there are people who have never known the thorns of a rosebush -- they look at the rose. And looking at the rose, feeling the rose, the beauty of it, celebrating the moment, they come to feel that even thorns are not so thornlike. "How can they be when they are

growing on the same rosebush as the roseflower?" When their mind is focused on the roseflower, they start looking at thorns also in a different way: they start thinking that thorns are there to protect the roseflower. They are no longer ugly, they are no longer irrelevant; they are no longer anti -- a positive attitude arises.

It is up to you to make whatsoever you want out of your life. An enlightened consciousness makes even death beautiful. An unenlightened consciousness makes even life ugly. For an enlightened consciousness, only beauty exists -- only beauty; only bliss exists -- only bliss.

So the question is not how to change ugliness into beauty, how to change pain into pleasure, how to change misery into happiness. No. The question is how to change the unconscious into conscious, the unenlightened attitude into the enlightened attitude -- how to change your inner world of being, how to attain to life-affirmative values and drop life-negative values.

The third question:

ALL PSYCHOLOGISTS are so-called psychologists -- because the real psychology does not exist yet, because man is still not known. Psychology is just a groping. It is still not a science; it is just in a very primary stage.

So every psychologist is a so-called psychologist because psychology is a so-called psychology. The real psychology is yet to be born. But the so-called psychology is paving the way for it, so it is valuable. When I say it is so-called psychology, I am not condemning it.

It is just like alchemy preceded chemistry and astrology preceded astronomy. This so- called psychology is preceding, is a requirement, for the real psychology to be born. Just as alchemists are no longer remembered, forgotten, you cannot even mention their names, sooner or later Freud and Jung and Adler will be forgotten the same way -- they are alchemists of the inner world.

Sooner or later, you will be surprised, a few other names will become more important which are already there but known only to a few people. For example, Gurdjieff will become more important than Freud in the coming century -- because he has tried to give a few keys for a real, objective psychology. Ouspensky's name will become more important than Jung's. And a few completely unknown names will bubble up into prominence.

But Freud, Jung and Adler have done a great service. They have paved the way. Without alchemy chemistry would not have been born. It is a must -- but it is so-called. We call it psychology because nothing else exists, but it is not yet real. It simply watches human beings from the lowest rung of the ladder.

You go to a pond; you see a lotus -- the lotus comes out of dirty mud. The modern psychology reduces the lotus to the dirty mud: it says the lotus is nothing but the dirty mud. It is right in a way, and yet absolutely wrong. Right in a way because the lotus needs the dirty mud; it comes out of the dirty mud. But to reduce it back to the dirty mud is not right.

The real psychology, if you ask a Buddha, or you ask a Patanjali, who are the pioneers of a real psychology -- which has not vet settled, which has not yet found its place in the human consciousness, which is still hovering around, seeking, searching for a nest -- they will say that rather than reduce the lotus to the dirty mud, why not raise the value of dirty mud to the lotus itself? Why say that the lotus comes out of the dirty mud? Why not say that the dirty mud carries a lotus within itself? that the dirty mud is an abode of the lotus, a temple? Why not raise the value of the dirty mud? And that seems to be better, more objective.

The higher should never be explained by the lower. The lower cannot explain the higher, but the higher can explain the lower.

Watch... Darwin says man comes from the monkeys, so he is nothing but a monkey.

Freud says art comes out of sexuality, so it is nothing but sexuality; meditation, religion, God, are nothing but frustrations, repressions, complexes. Then religion looks like a mass neurosis.

Darwin or Freud, they reduce the higher to the lower -- mm? But then go on the whole way. From where do the monkeys come? Then reduce them back, further back, go on, go on... finally you will come to matter. Then everything is reduced to matter. Then even Darwin is reduced to matter. You reduce religion to repressed sexuality, then how will you treat Freud himself? Then what is psychology? Then that too is reduced.

I have heard an anecdote: Adler was talking to a few friends and a few visitors. A group of Americans had come to see him, and he was talking about his famous theory about the inferiority complex. And he said, "If a man is inferior in one way, he tries to compensate for it in another.

"For example: Lenin was very small, his legs were very short, out of proportion. When he sat on a chair, his legs would not reach to the ground. That was the reason he rose so high: to prove that he was very powerful and he was not a weakling." Adler talked on and on, and he gave many examples as to why people who lack something always become ambitious for power.

Then somebody stood and said, "And what about psychologists? Do they lack something in their minds so that they become psychologists? Do they have a smaller mind than other people so that they try to compensate for it by thinking and talking and creating theories about mind?"

I don't know what Adler said to it, but in fact there is no answer to it. If religion is repressed sexuality, art is repressed sexuality, science is repressed sexuality, then what is psychology? What are Freud, Jung and Adler? Then you go on reducing backwards, and finally nothing is left -- only matter.

But everything comes out of this matter! -- that means everything is implied in matter; then matter is no more material; then matter carries gods hidden behind it... because a Buddha is born, a lotus flowers.

In the East we have a totally different attitude about psychology, and the attitude is: Always explain the lower by the higher. We say that sex is nothing but the lowest rung of

samadhi, sex is nothing but the lowest rung of your superconsciousness. Then the whole view changes. Then there is a possibility to grow.

The modern psychology leaves no possibility for growth. It reduces everything to dirt -- and there is no possibility to grow. In fact, there is no point in growing because all is going to be just repressed sexuality. If you listen to the modern psychologists, their definition of the normal man makes life worthless.

Einstein is abnormal, because a normal man never bothers about the mathematics of the world -- why should he bother? Michelangelo is abnormal; he must have some psychological problem -- that's why he becomes so imaginative. Van Gogh is abnormal.

Buddha, Jesus, Krishna -- all are in some way neurotic. They are not normal: abnormal.

They are all condemned. Then who is normal?

The man who only lives in unconsciousness is normal: he gets up early in the morning, goes to the marketplace, earns his living, gives birth to children, makes a house -- goes on moving in a routine for seventy years, then dies. This is the normal man. Not creative, not innovative, not original in any way; has nothing to contribute -- no art, no science, no religion.

Just think about a really normal world according to Freud: it will be the most boring world possible. There will be no music because it is repressed sexuality. There will be no poetry because it is just fantasy. There will be no science, because to be a scientist is just nothing but a deep instinct of voyeurism.

If you remain clean, you like a shower, you use beautiful clothes, then it is exhibitionism.

Then everything is condemned. Then everything is suspected and doubted. Then only animals are normal -- and if man is to be normal he has to just live an animal life. Then you cannot soar high. Then the whole sky is taken away from you, and you live caged in your small cages of normal routine life.

A world of normal people according to Freud is going to be worse than hell. Hell at least must be interesting! The world is beautiful because people soar high -- because there are Buddhas and Michelangelo's and Van Goghs and Picasso's; musicians and dancers and philosophers, and psychologists and poets and painters. The world is beautiful because not all are normal -- a few people try to be abnormal, a few people try to go beyond the norm, beyond the ordinary. And they try to raise themselves a little higher, to see more, to perceive more, to Live more.

People who are not satisfied with a dead, routine life, people who are adventurous, people who take risks, people who dare, and people who go into the unknown and the unfamiliar... you are all abnormal according to Freud! Otherwise, what are you doing here with me? Meditating? Meditation is not a good term with Freud. Then something has gone wrong; otherwise, an ordinary, normal person never thinks of meditation.

According to Freud, a normal person never thinks about himself. To think about the self is to become morbid. A normal person only thinks about others, never thinks about himself. Self-knowledge is a disease. The very idea of knowing oneself is ill. You are all abnormal. In fact, all great people, all rare people, are abnormal.

This psychology cannot be a real psychology. It cannot help us to explain Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mahavir, Patanjali; it cannot help us to understand the lotus -- it can only help us to understand the dirty mud. What type of psychology is this? It does not help us to see above the boundaries, beyond the boundaries. It confines us to the boundaries. I call it a

so-called psychology. Necessary, a preparation for the real psychology to come and take over. That's why I call all psychologists 'so-called'.

And the person who has asked the question says: "I am a so-called psychologist." Good that you are aware of the so-calledness of your science, that you are aware that it is not enough, that you are humble. It is very difficult to find a psychologist who is humble, because he thinks he has known man, he has known all that is possible to know. He becomes very, very egoistic. Good! It is a religious quality to be humble.

"Usually I enjoy it." It is good to help people; it is good to help them grow. Just one thing remember always: Don't help them just to be normal -- help them to grow; help them to become unique. Don't help them to become normal! Normal, they will be just part of a collectivity. Help them to become individuals. Help them to become rare, unique. Enjoy it! "Recently I have begun to appreciate witnessing. I wonder now if I am 'qualified' to be a psychologist."

If you ask me, and if my certificate can mean anything: To whomsoever it concerns, I certify you. By becoming a witness, the first rays are entering in you. You are really becoming qualified to be a psychologist. How can you be a psychologist if you have not witnessed even your own self? Then all your observations are from the outside. You see people's behavior -- you can be a behaviorist but not a psychologist.

When you have watched your innermost core... and that is the only way to watch it. You cannot watch it in somebody else -- because watching somebody else, you are always outside. You can watch the real human soul only from the inside. You have to become an introvert -- witnessing. That's why the questioner has become suspicious whether he can call himself qualified, because if he goes and asks Freudians they will say, "You are dropping out of the profession. An introvert is morbid. Witnessing? There is nothing to witness. You are losing your track." But I will say to you: For the first time you are really becoming a psychologist.

"Carl Rogers used the phrase 'unconditional positive regard' as the core of psychotherapy."

Yes, it is -- compassion. An unconditional acceptance of the other's being as he is.

Ordinarily psychology has a condemnatory attitude -- it goes on labelling. You say something and they will say you are a schizophrenic. You say something and you are a split personality. You say something, you are a neurotic or a psychotic. And they go on labelling -- as if man is just a thing to be labelled. Man is not a thing to be labelled: man is something to be revered, with deep regard.

"Compassion is so foreign and new to me."

Yes, it is foreign to psychologists because they take people as patients not as persons.

They have to treat you. Something has gone wrong; they have accepted it. It is new. If you start witnessing your being, you will feel more and more compassion. Allow it to happen more and more.

In deep compassion you will be able to help many more people -- because, in fact, compassion is the only thing that helps. Compassion is therapeutic. Compassion is the only therapy there is.