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Question 1:

WE STILL ARE. Jesus could not succeed. To be Jewish has nothing to do with any race; it is an attitude. To be Jewish means to be calculating, to be under the world of law and not love. To be Jewish means not to be poetic, but to be arithmetical. To be Jewish means not to be in awe of the wonder that surrounds you.

It is not just accidental that this whole century has been dominated by three Jews - Marx, Freud and Einstein - because the world is materialistic. It has never been so materialistic as it is now. One Jew, Marx, invented the idea that life is nothing but economics. That's what I mean: the calculation. Even religion is economics, even poetry is economics. Marx says that even consciousness depends on economical situations; it is a by-product. Consciousness is a by- product of economic situations, the structure of the society. Marx is the perfect Jew. You cannot find a better specimen.

Then there is Freud who tried to invent the idea that the whole of life moves according to unconscious laws, instincts. There is no conscious event in human life; everything is dominated by the unconscious. He was a fatalist; fatalism is another idea that the world is run by dead rules.

To Marx, it is economics which rules everything. To Freud, it is unconscious instinct which rules everything. Then there is Einstein who tried to invent the idea that the whole of life is nothing but a combination of atoms. All three are calculators.

To be a Jew has nothing to do with the Jewish race. There are Jews who are Hindus, there are Jews who are Jains, there are Jews who are Buddhists. To be a Jew is an attitude.

Christ has not succeeded: Christians are Jews! Christ can succeed only when law is defeated by love, when matter is defeated by spirit, when language is defeated by silence, when prose is defeated by poetry. When life is not ruled by economic, instinctive, historical laws, but life is ruled by grace - then Jesus succeeds.

So don't think that you are not Jews. Out of a hundred people, ninety-nine percent are Jews. Only sometimes one person is not Jewish. That person lives a life of love. He has no pattern to force his life into: he lives moment to moment; he flows from one moment to another moment with no idea of where he is going, with no goal. Then freedom happens.

Only in freedom is there consciousness, only in freedom is there God. God is total freedom. If you live moment to moment, not knowing where you are going, not knowing from where you are coming - if the past is irrelevant and the future also, if only the present has any relevance, any reality - you go beyond being Jewish.

Everybody is born a Jew. Rarely, very rarely, does somebody die not a Jew. That is a rare blessing. Just by calling yourselves Christians nothing is changed. Only labels change. The container changes, but the content remains the same.

Jesus has failed - but not because his revolution was not worth succeeding. Jesus has failed because his revolution was too much for you, it was beyond you. Just to look that far away, that high, is impossible. Your eyes are fixed on the earth; you have completely forgotten the sky. And because you have forgotten the sky, you have forgotten that you have wings. Looking down, groping in the darkness of the earth, you have become creepers - like a snake. You are no longer birds, birds of heaven.

Jesus failed because you are so deep in unconsciousness. And Jesus will go on failing; his very effort is such that success is almost impossible. As far as society is concerned, he may never succeed. Only with individuals is success possible.

Hence, all those who have known.... Ask the awakened: Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Zarathustra. You will always find their insistence is on the individual. They know well that at the most you can expect a few individuals to rise high. The greater part of humanity will do everything it can to hold onto its bondage, to remain secure in the imprisonment, to remain comfortable - and live somehow, dragging life as a burden; and die somehow. The greater masses will not listen, will not understand, will not try to transform themselves. Religion is individual.

And religion has no name. Whenever somebody becomes religious, immediately he is no longer a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. He's simply religious. It is an understanding; it is a different kind of knowing, a different way of seeing.

And when you see differently, you see a different reality. The reality depends on your eyes. If your eyes change, the reality changes.

If you are calculating you will never be able to know more than matter, because calculation has its limitation. If you are too arithmetical, you will never be able to know that which is beauty, that which is good, that which is true. You will never be able to know, because calculation cannot lead to that.

How can you know a beautiful flower by being arithmetical? You can count the petals, but you will miss the beauty. You can count the parts, but you will miss the whole. And you are certain to miss the beauty which surrounds the flower, which exists like a climate around the flower, but cannot be caught hold of by counting the petals. You have to forget counting, you have to forget the mind that counts.

Mind is Jewish. Once you go beyond mind you enter a different world: the world which cannot be accounted for, which cannot be explained; which is a mystery and which remains a mystery. The deeper you go in it, the greater the mystery; the more you know, the less you know. And there comes a moment - when you really know it, you know only one thing: that you don't know.

Question 2:

Not at all. It is a confession.

The ashram is not conservative. But you all are conservative, and you make the ashram. The ashram is not mine, it is yours. If it was mine it wouldn't be conservative, but I am alone and I cannot make the ashram. I am a stranger here.

It consists of you, and you are conservative so the ashram becomes conservative.

It cannot go beyond you because you are the constituent parts. It is the total of your conservatisms.

But who bothers about it? If you are really in a state of dance, who bothers? Then you can dance even on the road. Maybe the police will come and take you to prison, but that's okay. What can you do? If you could stop the dance then it was not worth doing. It must have been a mind game, it must have been just an idea, an idea in the mind that you would like to dance.

But you did not really want to dance. When dance happens, it is not an idea in the mind; not at all. It is a tremendous energy in the body. It has its own force.

You are possessed, you cannot do anything about it, You forget the ashram, you forget the society, you forget the world. You are helpless; you are possessed by dance. Then something from the beyond enters.

It must have been just an idea in the mind. That's why you stopped it. Ideas can be stopped, but when you are possessed you cannot do anything about it. It happens; it is not done. And when it happens, it is divine. When you do it, it is human and ordinary.

It is not a question. It is a confession.

And you say that you love Kazantzakis. That, too, may be just an idea in the mind. People love things which they lack in their life. Reading ZORBA THE GREEK you may love Zorba, but if you met Zorba you might not like him. He is such a totally different, altogether different, being than you. Even Kazantzakis was never at ease with Zorba. They were friends, Zorba was a real person, he is not just a fictional character. Even Kazantzakis was very uneasy with him, because he was a totally different type of man. He was an absolute hedonist, absolutely in the moment. Nothing else but happiness mattered.

Of course it looks very selfish. Only sad people look unselfish, happy people always look selfish. And happy people are always condemned. Because the whole society is unhappy, how dare you be happy? When everybody is so unhappy you must be very selfish to be happy. Don't smile when everybody is weeping and crying. And don't laugh. Life is very miserable, and it looks unmannerly.

A man like Zorba will never be accepted in any home. You would not allow him to stay with you because his very presence would be a disturbance. He does not believe in any morality. He knows only one morality: of happiness.

And I say to you, that is the only morality there is. All else is rubbish. Only a happy person can be moral. Only a happy person is not interested in making other persons unhappy; only a happy person creates an atmosphere around him where others can also be happy. But those others will not like the idea of your being happy when they are miserable.

You may love Zorba, but you wouldn't allow Zorba to become a guest in your home. He is unreliable. Such happy persons are dangerous! With sad, dead people you can rely. They will not escape with your wife! Zorba can escape with her. He lives in the moment. He has no future, no past; no heaven, no hell. He is true to the real moment.

But you may have loved him. This happens. This has to be understood.

You always love the opposite, the opposite attracts you. But only in fantasy. In reality it will be troublesome. People who have never loved go on reading poetry about love. Sometimes they even try to write poetry about love. I have come across many poets. This has been my observation: they have missed love in life, so they go on writing poetry about it. That's a substitute. A very pale substitute, useless, but a little satisfying still. At least something is here. Plastic flowers... but they look like flowers. Love is dangerous. To write poetry about love has no danger in it.

Watch! If somebody is reciting a poem on love you may welcome him, but if the man really moves into love then the society will condemn him. You can read the story of Laila and Majanu, or Shiri and Farahad, and you will love it. But the people who were alive in the days of Majanu hated the man. Who loves a lover?

Try to be a lover and you will be condemned by the society. Write poetry about it and maybe the president will give you an award, you may get the Nobel Prize.

No lover ever gets a Nobel Prize - people who write poetry about love get Nobel Prizes.

Man has become afraid of the real, but about the phony - there is no danger in it.

Have you watched this? Sometimes you are sitting in your room or in your house, waiting or doing something, and somebody knocks at the door. You feel very bad: somebody has come to disturb you. You don't even want to answer, you would like to avoid it. You send the servant to the door, you don't go yourself. Or you send your child to tell the visitor that "Daddy is not at home."

But if somebody gives you a call on the phone then you are not disturbed. Then you immediately pick up the phone, because the reality is so far away.

Once it happened that a thief entered somebody's house and was caught - caught because of an old habit. The phone was ringing. He could not resist, he had to answer it. A phone has to be answered! So he picked up the phone and he was caught. When he was asked, "Why did you bother?" he said, "I completely forgot that I was a thief in the house. When the phone rings, one has to answer."

One man was doing some research work on this phenomenon. He called twenty public phones and somebody or the other answered. Then he inquired of the man: "Why did you answer? It was not for you."

The man said, "I was just passing."

"Then why did you answer?"

He said, "But the phone was ringing!"

It has a certain power. When the phone rings you have to answer. It has a certain quality about it, something hypnotic. You are not concerned with the phone, it is certain that it is not ringing for you. It is a public phone; you pass by it while you are going to your office. It is certain that it is not ringing for you. Why do you answer it?

When the reality is far away, it is very easy to answer. When the reality comes nearer, it becomes more and more difficult. The greatest difficulties of life are concerned with the people who are very real to you and very near to you: your wife, your children, your husband. They are very close, they are real. There is the trouble.

You may have liked Zorba. Even Kazantzakis liked the man - when he was not with him! But when they lived together it was really difficult. Sometimes he would come home drunk, and he would start dancing and would dance the whole night. And he was a powerful man - very strong. When you live with such a man it will be very difficult, unless you yourself are such a man.

Don't create substitutes. That's a trick of the mind to deceive you. Love the real, don't love the phony. It is better to love than to write poetry about love. Love will transform you, love will give you insight. Love will give you insight into the human heart - into your own and into the other's. Through love there will be many unhappy moments, anguish, but there will be peaks of joy also. And that's how one grows: through the night of anguish, then through the day of joy. One moves through the duality: it is a dialectical process.

Just reading poetry about love is so convenient, but don't think that you really love. Reading poetry about love is very easy because nothing is at stake.

Leo Tolstoy has written in his memoirs that when he was a small child his mother used to go to the theater. They were very rich people; they belonged to the royal family. In Moscow the snow would be falling - a winter night - and the mother and the child would be in the theater.

Tolstoy remembers that whenever there was a tragedy playing, his mother would weep and cry and sob, and tears would flow down. Tolstoy used to think:

"What deep compassion she has!" But by and by, later on, he became aware that she had no compassion at all. This was a substitute.

When they would come out of the theater the driver, sitting with the buggy and waiting for them, would be dead - frozen to death. He could not leave the buggy, he had to be there - any moment they might come. Frozen stiff, he would be dead. And Tolstoy's mother wouldn't pay even a little attention to him. The man would be thrown out, thrown away, another driver would be called and they would move. The mother would not weep or cry. Tolstoy says, "Then I became aware that her compassion was phony. It was a trick."

It is very easy to cry in the theater because nothing is involved. It is very easy to cry while looking at a movie. Everybody cries at the movies. But to cry in life will be difficult because then something is involved. If you cry for this man who is dead, your driver, then next time you will have to change your style of life. Then, if it is snowing too much, you will not go to the theater. Or you will make arrangements for the driver to sit somewhere, or you will make arrangements for him to have warmer clothing. But that will affect your style of life.

Who bothers for the real man? People cry when they read novels, when they see a movie, when they go to the theater. But in real life their eyes are simply vacant, empty - no tears come.

Remember this: if you really love Zorba, you will become a Zorba; if you love Jesus, you will become Jesus. This is one of the fundamental laws of life: that if you love somebody, if you love something, by and by the object of your love transforms you and you become alike.

Have you observed? Sometimes you come across a couple, a wife and husband, who look alike. They talk in the same way, they walk in the same way, they smile in the same way. There is a deep affinity. What has happened? They are not brother and sister, so why are they so alike?

They love each other and they love deeply. When you love somebody you are vulnerable. The other changes you, and you go on changing the other. By the time life comes to an end, if wives and husbands really love each other, they will be almost alike. It has to be so. Love transforms.

But the theater and movies and novels and poetry - they will not transform you much. In fact, they are ways to avoid the transformation. They are ways not to look at life, but to live in fantasy.

This is not a question; this is a confession. If you really wanted to dance, who could prevent you? And when that type of dance happens, who would WANT to prevent you? When you are possessed and it is not a mind thing....

Next time you are possessed, don't be worried about the ashram. Let them do whatsoever they want to do. It is not your business to be worried about it. Dance!

But remember, this should not be a mind thing. Otherwise you will simply create a disturbance. Be possessed. When you are possessed, the dance is holy.

Question 3:

To reform the reformers. The world is full of reformers - what to do? They have to be reformed. I am training people who can reform the reformers.

The question is not signed. The person who has asked this must be afraid. You should not be afraid. You should sign your question so that I know exactly in whose mind this question is arising. Because I don't answer the question, I answer the questioner. The question is useless if you are so afraid that you cannot even sign it. If you don't want to reveal your identity, your whole heart is not in the question.

Why do you try to deceive? Even if the question is foolish you have to show your identity. Here you are not to hide yourself, here you are to expose yourself - expose yourself to me so that I can change you. If you go on hiding then how can I change you? If you are foolish, it's okay. Be foolish, but let it be exposed. If you are in darkness, don't be afraid. Open the doors, otherwise from where will the light enter?

There is not going to be any argument or discussion here; I am not interested in any discussion or any argument. If I say something to you I do not say it as an argument, I do not say it for the sake of any argument. I am not trying to defend any dogma, any religion, any scripture. I have none: no dogma, no scripture, no religion to defend. I am trying to create a communion between you and me. But if you are hiding, you will miss.

Always reveal your identity. And don't try to polish your question because that, too, I feel. You write the question, you polish it, you try to write it in such a way that it looks very sophisticated, very cultured. The more you polish it, the further away it is from your reality. Let it be raw so that it is close to your heart.

If your question itself has gone very far away from your heart, then how can my answer be close to you? My answer will hit the question and you will be very far away from it. Let it be raw like a wound so I can hit it directly.

It will hurt. That's why you try to push it away *om you. But if you are so afraid of being hurt, then the surgery that I am trying to do will not be possible.

It is a surgery. You have a very ill mind, a cancerous growth in the mind. It has to be operated upon. It will hurt, certainly it will hurt, but that hurt is beneficial, because once it hurts and the cancerous growth is removed, you will be healthy and whole. So don't try to hide. Be true.

Remember, you can move to the other extreme: you can try to look very raw.

That won't help. Just be yourself.

Question 4:

There is none. It only appears to be a contradiction.

Every moment one has to remember death, because any moment it is possible.

That is the meaning of'to carry the cross every day' - that you should not forget death. Once you forget death you relapse into unconsciousness. If you remember death you remain alert, awake.

But when we say'remember death', we don't mean that you should become oppressed by the idea, obsessed by the idea. We don't mean that you should create a deep fear about death and tremble continuously. That will be morbidity, that will be perversion.

In relationship to death, there are two types of perverted people. One: those who have completely forgotten, or try to forget, that death is. They try to avoid it.

They would not even like to talk about death. If you start talking with them about death they will think that you are uncivilized. unmannerly. They will avoid the very topic. They will not go to the cemetery. That's why cemeteries are built outside of the town. Nobody comes across them accidentally. Only when one has to come to the cemetery does one come. Otherwise it can be avoided.

Death is a taboo subject, more tabooed than sex. Nobody talks about it... and everybody knows it is coming. Humanity lives in a great deception. This is one morbidity.

Then there is another morbidity. You can move to the other extreme and you can become obsessed with death. You can constantly tremble and you can lie awake at night, because who knows? - you may not get up in the morning. You cannot eat well, because how can you eat when death is coming? You cannot love, because how can you love anybody when everybody is going to die? That, too, is morbid; that, too, is perversion.

Jesus says, "Carry your cross every day." He says to remember death... and still let every moment be a celebration of life. Death is coming: that is all the more deep a reason to celebrate. Because who knows? - this may be the last moment.

This moment of life is not to be destroyed by the fear of death, but AGAINST death, in contrast to death, this moment has to be celebrated. It has to be celebrated even more deeply, because who knows? - the next moment we may not be here. While the bridegroom is here, celebrate it.

The parable of the bridegroom can have a very inner meaning. Within you, your body is the body of death and your consciousness is life, the source of life. You are both. Your body is going to die: it belongs to the earth - dust unto dust. It will have to go, it will return to its source.

You belong to the sky, you belong to God - your consciousness is separate from your body. This is the meaning of Jesus on the cross. Everybody is on the cross because consciousness lives in the body and the body is death.

If you understand, you know that everybody is on the cross. But that should not become a pessimism. On the contrary, that should be all the more reason to celebrate. The bridegroom is within you and the body is the chamber of the bridegroom. Celebrate it!

Jesus is not contradictory; Jesus is absolutely simple. The contradiction is in life itself: that life exists through death and death exists through life. Life itself is the paradox. But that is the beauty also. All beauty exists in contrast and all of life exists as a tension between opposites. It is a bridge built on two banks: death and life.

Celebrate every moment because this may be the last moment. But while celebrating, don't forget that death is coming. Remember it.

Remembering should not become an obsession; remembrance should become a celebration. Carry the cross but carry it dancing; carry the cross but carry it singing; carry the cross but carry it with a deep celebration within. Then you live both: you live life, you live death. And you live both of them deeply and intensely. When you can live both intensely, they become one. Then you know that life and death are two aspects of the same thing, of the same energy. Life is expression, manifestation. Death is a returning.

Question 5:

In the BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, or the logos. The same cannot be said about consciousness, because in the beginning unconsciousness was also there.

Consciousness is just a part of your reality, the reality of the within.

Unconsciousness is also there. So just consciousness was not there in the beginning. Unconsciousness was also there, as much as consciousness. Or you can say that something was there in the beginning in which both consciousness and unconsciousness were involved.

That is the meaning of'God'. God is not only consciousness: God is consciousness PLUS unconsciousness. God is both the dark night and the bright day, both summer and winter, both life and death. God is the beginning and the end, both.

God is beyond duality and the duality is intrinsic in him. He is both matter and mind; the manifest and the unmanifest.

Consciousness is just a part of the great oceanic unconsciousness. Consciousness is just on the surface; deeply hidden are layers and layers of unconsciousness.

One has to transcend both to know that which was in the beginning - which is God.

"Would you define and discuss the nature of consciousness? How does consciousness relate to ego? " One part of you is conscious, one-tenth. Nine- tenths of you is unconscious. If the conscious part thinks itself to be the whole, it becomes the ego. Then it forgets about the unconscious; then the part imagines itself to be the whole. Then it is the ego.

If the conscious becomes aware of the unconscious also.... That is the whole effort of religion, that is the whole effort of meditation. If the conscious turns back, looks back, and becomes aware of the unconscious also - the dark night within - then the conscious knows that "I am conscious, I am unconscious also. My consciousness is just a wave on the ocean. The unconscious is vast." Then the ego disappears. Ego is the part, thinking itself to be the whole. Non-ego is the part, becoming aware of the whole. Then the ego disappears.

How to define the nature of consciousness? It has never been defined, it never will be defined. Who will define it? To define it you have to be away from it. To define anything you have to stand out of it, you need a distance. Perspective will not be possible if the distance is not there.

You are consciousness, you ARE unconsciousness. There is nobody who can stand outside and define it. You can know it, but you cannot define it. That's why all religion is mysterious, mystical, vague, cloudy - because no term which is very basic to religion can be defined.

The subject cannot be made an object. I cannot put myself in front of me, so I cannot define. Neither has Buddha defined, nor Jesus. Definition as such is debarred by the very nature of the phenomenon.

Everything else can be defined because consciousness is the definer. Everything else is before consciousness. The consciousness can know - it can go around, watch, observe, experiment, define, dissect - but who will define consciousness?

You cannot go away from it: you ARE it. You can know it, but you cannot define it. Knowledge is not possible, only knowing.

I can help you to create a meditative state where you can know what it is, I can give you the method, but I cannot give you the definition. That's why religion always looks a little suspicious. "Why don't you define your terms? Just do as science does. Define! If you cannot define your terms that simply shows you don't know what you are talking about."

A great linguist and positivist philosopher, A.J. Aiyer, says that if we take two terms - 'God' and'dog' - the second is true and the first is false. Nobody can define'God', the word is meaningless.'God' cannot be defined.'Dog' can be defined - 'dog' is more meaningful than'God'.

If you insist on definitions, then only things can be defined; persons cannot be defined. Laws can be defined, love cannot be defined. Gravitation can be defined, but grace - grace cannot be defined. That which is without is definable; that which is within is elusive. One has to understand it... and move into meditation.

Buddha says, "Buddhas can only show you the way. YOU have to move. One day you come upon the goal. Nobody can give you the goal beforehand."

Not even a definition is possible. And it is good that a definition is not possible.

Otherwise you will settle for the definition, you will settle for the information, and you will never travel, you will never journey to the goal. And sometimes it happens that the very map you were thinking to use for the journey becomes the barrier. You become satisfied with the map itself.

I was reading a very rare autobiography by a man who belonged to a very primitive race in the Amazon. He was the son of the chief. His father was a great lover of the Amazon River, and he had moved to the very source of the river.

The boy, the son of the chief, went to America - some missionaries helped him to go there to study. He studied there, graduated, and was on his way back home.

Thinking that "My father loves the Amazon so much. He would be very happy if I brought him a map, a detailed map, of the Amazon," he purchased the best map available and brought it to his father.

He thought that his father would be very happy, but the father looked at the map and was very sad. He threw the map away. The son was very hurt. "I have brought a gift, a present, and my father has thrown it away. Why?"

He asked his father. The father said, "This is absolutely bogus because I don't see the Amazon anywhere. How can the Amazon exist on paper? You are a fool, and you are deceiving me. I have moved on the Amazon, I know what it is. "Don't be deceived by this map. Only lines are there."

Definitions of God are maps: lines on paper. Definitions of consciousness are maps. And sometimes people get too obsessed with maps.

The best way to be lost is to have a map. You cannot fail: if you have a really detailed map, you will get lost in it. And the mind will think, "Now I know everything." The living Amazon is beautiful, dangerous, terrible. At any moment life may be at stake. With a map - conveniently sitting in your easy chair - you can study it, and you can think that you know all about the Amazon.

In the world outside you, maps have a little relevance, but in the inside world they are absolutely irrelevant. If you have any maps, throw them away. All the religions have given you maps. Throw them away! Enough of the maps. Now let there be a real journey!

When you will attain to consciousness, you will laugh at the stupidity of the mapmakers. Then you will know that they have never been to the innermost source of life. They have been copying other mapmakers. For centuries they have been copying, and they go on adding their own fantasy and their own ideas.

They go on changing and decorating. All maps are false, because the innermost remains indefinable.

But there is no need to define. Consciousness is there within you. Return, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Why be bothered by the definition? When the real thing is so close, why not taste it?

When the river is flowing, you ask me about the definition of water. I know you are thirsty, and I know that a definition cannot quench the thirst. But you say, "Unless water is defined, how can I drink the water? I can't see the point."

If people had waited for the definition - only then would they quench their thirst - humanity would have disappeared long ago, because water is still indefinable.

Don't be befooled by what scientists say. They may say that water is H20 - -two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen - but when a scientist is thirsty, if you give him oxygen and hydrogen to drink, he will say, "What are you doing? Have you gone mad? Water quenches thirst, not two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen."

Mulla Nasruddin's son came back from the university. He was studying logic there and he had become a great philosopher - as everybody is prone to become in youth. Youth is foolish, and to become a philosopher is easy.

The son was very interested in showing off his knowledge. Fresh from the university, everybody is. They were sitting at the dining table and the mother brought in two apples. Seeing an opportunity, Mulla Nasruddin's son said, "Mummy, I will show you something which I have learned. What do you see on this plate?"

The mother said, "Two apples."

He said, "No, logic says something else. There are three apples, not two."

The poor mother looked again, but there were two apples. She said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "Look. Watch. This apple is one, this apple is two. How many are one plus two?"

The mother said, "Of course, one plus two is three." The son was very happy.

Mulla Nasruddin was watching. He said, "Good, very good. I will eat the first and your mother will eat the second. You eat the third!"

You cannot eat logic, you cannot eat science, you cannot eat philosophy. Religion is concerned with how to quench your thirst, religion is concerned with your hunger - not definitions, maps.

Question 6:

When I said, "We are not doing anything here," I meant I am not doing anything here. Because I love you. When you love, the doing is not a doing at all.

If you love me, then you will also not think that you are doing very much. In fact you will not think that you are doing anything. Love is not a duty. In love, work becomes worship.

You work in the ashram. The whole quality of the work, and your attitude, will be different if you love me. If you don't love me, of course it is work. Then your mind will hanker for praise. Then in many ways you will try to avoid the work - as many of you are doing! You go on finding ways and means: how to avoid it, how not to do it.

I never avoid, because I love you. The more I can do. the better I feel. But you avoid - as if work is something that you are dragging: a burden. If work is a burden, only then it looks like work.

If work comes out of love, it becomes worship. Then there is no need for any other meditation. It is enough. The work itself becomes the meditation. You are so deeply in it that the mind stops.

Energy needs work otherwise the energy will become restlessness. Energy needs expression, energy needs to be creative. Otherwise the same energy, coiled up within you, will become diseased, an illness. You have energy. The energy has to be creative. There is no happiness except in creativity.

But creativity is work, with love. A painter paints. He is not working; he is loving. He is completely absorbed in it - the doer is not there. A singer sings or a dancer dances. If the dancer is just a professional then it is work. Then he will be tired. But if a dancer really loves dancing, then the more he moves into it, the more energy he gets to move further on.

It is said about Nijinsky - one of the greatest dancers that has ever walked on earth - that even scientists were surprised: they couldn't believe his jumping.

When he would dance he would take jumps that were so big they were against gravitation. They were not possible: one cannot jump that much. And the way he would jump - so gracefully! And when he would be coming down he would come like a dove - so slowly, as if gravitation was not functioning. Many times Nijinsky was asked, "What is the secret?"

He said, "I don't know. Except that I love dancing." And once he said, "When you love dancing, then you don't function under the law of gravitation. You function under the law of grace."

That is the difference between Moses and Jesus. Moses brings the law of gravitation into the world - all those Ten Commandments are laws, just like gravitation - and Jesus brings the law of grace, which is not a law at all.

When you love deeply, you function in a totally different dimension. If you loved me, this question would not have arisen. You would not think of it as work.

Watch a mother - how much she does for the child. But if you ask her, she will say, "I have not been doing anything. In fact many more things were needed to be done and I have not done them. I always feel that my child has not received as much care as was needed." Then go to the secretary of a club or an institute and ask him. He will give you a long list of everything that he has been doing there.

Even things which he has not done will be included in the list! He is a doer; a mother is a lover.

I was reading the biography of a Hindu sannyasin who lived in South Africa. He came to the Himalayas on a pilgrimage. He was going uphill and it was hot. He was perspiring and gasping for breath; the journey was hard.

Just in front of him was a girl, not more than ten years of age, carrying a very heavy, fat child on her shoulders. She was perspiring. The sannyasin spoke to the girl and said, "My daughter, the child seems to be very heavy."

The girl looked at the sannyasin and said, "Swamiji, he is not a burden. He is my brother. He is not a burden at all, he has no weight - he is my brother." When you love, weight disappears; when you love, you function in a different world.

Question 7:

This is from Dharmateerth Bodhisattva. Yes....