The fear of happiness

Question 1:

YOU WILL FACE ME; knowledge will come later on. Not the otherwise - not that knowledge will come first and then you will face me. Knowledge will not precede; reality will precede. Knowledge is a shadow: it follows. Once you start thinking that knowledge precedes, you are in a mess. I will tell you one story:

One evening a monk knocked at the doors of a Zen monastery. He wanted to stay over for the night. He was tired, hungry. I he host opened the door, but rather than greeting him by a hello or good evening, he encountered him with a Zen koan - very famous. He said: "What is your original face, the face that you had before your father and mother were born? " The monk took off his sandal from his foot and hit the host hard on the face. The host stepped back, bowed down and said, "Welcome, you are welcome. Your understanding is tremendous."

Then they had dinner. In the cold night they were sitting by the fireplace chitchatting, and the guest asked, "Have you got the answer yourself or not? The koan that you asked me - have you got the answer of it yourself or not?"

The host said, "I am not that fortunate. No, I have not got the answer. But I recognized it when you gave me the answer. Because I have read so much about Zen, and heard so much about Zen, I could recognize the immediacy of your answer. You didn't hesitate for a single moment, you didn't think it. It came out of your totality. It was not from the head - that much I could recognize."

The guest didn't answer. He continued sipping his tea. But then the host became a little suspicious. He looked again at the face of the guest and he found there was something he didn't like. So he asked again, "Please, tell me: do you really know the answer? Have you got the answer? " The guest started laughing, he starting rolling on the mat in deep mirth. He said, "No, sir. I have also read too much about Zen and heard too much about Zen."

If knowledge becomes too much, that becomes the barrier. You can know without knowing. That is the danger of knowledge. You can know, not knowing at all. Deep inside you remain ignorant, but on the surface you know everything that can be known.

You can deceive others, but the greater danger is that someday you may be deceived by yourself, you may deceive yourself. Then all possibility for growth stops.

Never be bothered about knowledge. The whole quest should be for reality, for that which is. You should not be worried about it. That is the difference between theology and religion: theology goes on talking about God; religion TALKS God, not about. The'about' is the realm of theology. The priests, the preachers, they go on talking about and about. Religion is not talking about reality. Religion TALKS reality.

You ask me, "Will I know when I am ready to face you?" You will face me first; then you will know. Knowledge always follows. It is a recognition when the real thing has happened. You will not know God before knowing Him. You will know Him first and then, as a shadow, knowledge will follow. You will recognize later on what has happened. The happening is first; recognition is later.

Sometimes it may take much time to recognize, because mind is stupid.

Sometimes it may take much time to recognize. It may happen many times in your life - you may have attained a few moments of tremendous reality, authenticity, but you couldn't recognize them. They are lost in the desert. Before you could recognize them they were gone, and then there were other things: the mind became engaged. You missed.

This is my observation: that you cannot find a single human being on the whole of the earth who has not had some moments of reality. In spite of yourself, sometimes the glimpse comes to you, because it is not only you who is seeking reality - the reality is also seeking you. It is not only that you need God: God is in tremendous need of man. You cannot be without Him; He cannot be without you.

You can forget Him, but He cannot ever forget you. You may be standing with your back towards Him, but He goes on trying to reach you. Your hands may be very small; His hands are not small. He can reach you wherever you are, even in the seventh hell. And He goes on groping for you, remember this.

That's why many times - not because of you, in spite of you - a glimpse happens. But you cannot recognize it. Many people have religious experiences but they cannot recognize them as religious. Sometimes they are aesthetic experiences. No true aesthetic experience can be other than religious.

When you see a beautiful face of a man or a woman or a child, if really you are struck by the beauty, the experience is not only aesthetic; it is religious. In that moment of beauty, God has looked at you through that face; God has revealed himself to you through that face. Through those eyes, the depth of existence has tried to communicate with the depth of your being. Depth has talked to depth, there has been a dialogue. It has not only been aesthetic.

Suddenly one morning you are light and graceful. You are fresh and unburdened. The past is no more haunting you and the future has not yet started. You look at the sky, a vast emptiness, and everything stops within you.

You also become a vast emptiness. It is not just an aesthetic experience; it is religious. Beauty is truth... and truth is beautiful!

Sometimes you hear music and the mind stops. The music surrounds you, you are drowned in it. You are no more there. Just a transparent presence: the music goes through and through. In that moment, it is not only music that is happening; it is religion. But you don't recognize it.

You think religion happens only in the church, where dead priests go on beating around the bush? In fact, the church is the last place for religion to happen. It is a graveyard; God is not alive there. A church is full of dead gods. They were alive once, somewhere in the past. They are just histories now.

When Jesus walked on earth, around him religious experiences were happening.

But now Jesus is a dead myth. He's worshipped in churches, preached about and about, but he's not there.

The church, the temple, is the last place for religion to happen, for God to penetrate you. He comes to you in more alive ways. He comes through the wife, through the child, through the husband, through the friend. Sometimes, even through the enemy. Flowers and ocean and sand and the mountains and the stars and the birds: He comes in a thousand and one ways, but always alive.

He's life; you can forget the name'God'. The word has become very dirty - drop it! Just call Him life, that will do; call Him existence or being, that will do. If truth seems too harsh, call Him love, that will do. If truth has been too much monopolized by philosophers, drop it. Love is perfectly beautiful.

Wherever you have had any poetic experience, wherever your heart has become a.small poem - something throbbed within you, something unknown - there is religion. Recognition may take time. Sometimes for lives you may not be able to recognize. And when you recognize you will simply laugh, you will go mad with Laughter, because in that recognition many other things which were left unrecognized will also be recognized.

I have heard about a Zen monk - the story is simply unbelievable! He worked hard. His master had given him a koan, a Zen puzzle to work out. The koan was:

if one hand claps, what will be the sound? Not two hands clapping with each other; just one hand clapping in emptiness. What will be the sound? Try to hear it.

He tried and tried, but he couldn't hear it. Years passed. He would go to the master, he would always bring something that he had heard, and the master would reject it immediately. Even before he had said anything, the master would say, "No! Don't bring any.stupidity here. Go back. Work hard."

It is said that twelve years passed and the master never even gave an appreciative look. He was harsh and the disciple lost his heart, he lost his nerve.

He escaped from the monastery.

Where to go? - he had no home. And the people at home wouldn't accept him, because once you become a monk and you live in a monastery for twelve years, coming back home is failing. It is not respectable. The whole town would laugh at him, that he had failed, and his family would feel bad. Better not to go to them.

Then where to go? He was just standing in the town, an unknown city, not knowing whore to go, what to do. A woman looked from the window. I he monk was standing there... he was a beautiful man. The woman called him. Not knowing who she was.... And even if he had known, there was no problem now.

The woman, who was a prostitute, called him, and he went to live with her.

The prostitute fell in love with him. She danced and she played music. She was a great singer, a great musician, a great dancer, and he forgot everything that he had learned for twelve years with his master, the Zen koan and all, completely forgot - as if everything was erased, as if he had never been to the monastery.

He was making love that night to the woman - I have never come across as beautiful a story as this - and when he came to the climax, suddenly he heard one hand clapping! In deep love there comes a moment where two become one.

The two energies meet: yin and yang, man and woman. The man disappears and the woman disappears; there is no yin and no yang. A circle, a non-duality.

Suddenly, the koan was solved! He HEARD the sound of one hand clapping. It is said that he jumped out of bed, jumped out of the window.

The woman couldn't believe it: "What are you doing? Have you gone mad? " He said, "Let me go to my master first. It has happened!"

He went to the master and, wonder of wonders, the master was waiting outside the temple for the disciple. He said, "So it has happened? This is no time to come and see me. Two o'clock - in the middle of the night!"

The master was waiting for him. Before it happens to the disciple, the master knows. If you are tuned with the master, if you have really surrendered to the master, when it happens to you it will happen to your master also. The master lives, many times, many satoris through his disciples. His own satori is complete:

he has arrived. But many times through his disciples.... Whenever a disciple arrives again, he again arrives through him. Again, the same dance.

Life is God, love is God. Remember this much, and don't be worried about knowledge.

"Will I know when I am ready to face you?" You will face me. You will jump out of the bed, you will jump out of the window and you will rush. And you will not know what is happening. That happening is greater than you. How can you know it? It is vaster than you. How can you comprehend it? You are just a drop in it; it is oceanic. But later on, when everything is settled again and you are at home with this ecstasy, this satori, SAMADHI, then the mind comes back.

Recognition starts, thinking starts.

Recognition is of the mind; the realization is not of the mind. In the deep moment of realization, the mind stops. The phenomenon is such, and so unknown, that the mind cannot function, cannot cope with it. When it has gone, then the mind comes back. Then it starts looking and watching and thinking and brooding.

Then suddenly a recognition arises: so it has happened?

So it has happened? The mind cannot believe in it because the mind is a doubter.

But it has to believe it. Believe it or not, it has happened.

Recognition will follow realization. you will know when it has happened, but you will not know beforehand. And there is no need. If you know beforehand, your knowledge will become the barrier. So please don't be concerned about

Question 2:

Just be yourself. There is no other service to me.

Just be yourself; that's how you can serve me. That's how you have already served me - if you are yourself. My whole effort is to help you to be yourself. If you are centered, rooted, grounded, if you have come to a point where you are not worried to become somebody else, where the ambition to become somebody else has dropped - when there is no desire to move into the future, when the present is enough unto itself; when you are deeply contented as you are; when you can thank God, when you can be grateful and there arises no complaint; when your whole heart is simply full of gratitude - you have served me. There is no other way.

Of course it would have been easier if I had given you some other ways to serve me, because those things you can do. You can come and massage my feet. That won't help; that is not of much use. That is not going to lead you anywhere. You may feel happy, but that happiness is not bliss.

My whole effort is: fall back on yourself. Don't move into the future and don't be motivated by the future. If THIS moment becomes your total reality, you have come close to me, the closest that one being can come to another. By being yourself, you will be near me; by trying to be something else, you will go far away.

Don't be imitators. The mind is an imitator, because it is easier to play the game of imitation than to become authentically true. Many ideas have been given to you: become like a Buddha, become like Jesus. become like Krishna - as if you have to become everybody else EXCEPT yourself. As if God is only against you.

He's for Krishna, for Christ, for Mahavir, for Buddha - only against you. Then why does He create you? Then He seems simply foolish. Why does He go on creating you? If He's interested in Buddha, Hc can create Buddhas. Why you?

It would be simpler. He can go on creating Buddhas... like Ford cars. They go on coming through the assembly line: one car after another: one Buddha after another. That will be good. But God is not interested in it. He never creates Buddha again, have you observed? He never creates, He never bothers to create, a Jesus again. Why?

There is no need to repeat. All repetition is dead. He goes on creating the new, the novel. He creates you! He's more interested in you than in creating more Buddhas or more Christs. And remember, He will not repeat you either, so while you are here, be true and authentic. Be your.self.

I have heard one story. One American made a beautiful teacup and then he wanted to mass-produce it. But to mass-produce it in the States would have been very expensive, so he sent it to Japan to be mass-produced.

In transit, the cup handle was broken. The Japanese, as you know, are perfect imitators. They mass-produced it exactly as it was: with a broken handle. They repeated it exactly as it was!

This has been going on. God goes on creating the new, God goes on creating the novel, God goes on creating you, and the imitators in the churches and temples go on saying, "Be like Jesus. be like Buddha, be like this." And in transit, everybody's handle is broken!

The transit: two thousand years. Even if Jesus comes back, he will not be able to recognize the Jesus that is worshipped in the churches. Impossible. Jesus was totally a different man - alive! Churches go on worshipping somebody who was never there. It is their invention.

Why do I go on speaking on Jesus, Buddha or Krishna, or Zarathustra or Lao Tzu? This is the reason: I would like to bring you Jesus as he was before the transit: unbroken, complete - before the priests entered.

In one of my friends' house, there's a very valuable painting: a seventeenth- century painting of a great master - very precious. He loves it so much that he's always afraid to even clean it. Something may be destroyed; it is old and very fragile.

But much dust had gathered on it and an expert had to be called. When the expert started cleaning it, a new problem arose: the paint started peeling off. The expert was very worried. He said, "Should I stop? " I was staying with the friend. I said, "Don't stop. You go ahead." The friend was not there, otherwise he would have stopped the man.

But he said, "It may be destroyed."

I said, "Don't be worried. You just go ahead, because I can see something else behind the painting."

And it was so. When the paint peeled off, it was discovered that the real painting was hidden behind. Some other painter had just tried to improve on the master.

There were two paintings, and the real came out only when the imposed painting and the paint peeled off. Then everybody was happy. But the risk was there!

When I talk on jesus, I am trying to peel off the paint with which Christianity has tried to improve upon the original face of the master. But it is natural in transit.

Things change.

You be true to yourself. Never try to be anybody else. That is the only sin I call sin. Accept yourself! Whatsoever you are, you are beautiful. God accepts you; you also accept yourself. He created you in His own image. He trusts; He has committed himself in your being. Don't betray Him, don't become imitators.

That is the only way you can serve me: by being yourself. Be thyself! Suddenly you will be close to me, the closest that is possible. By being imitators, by trying to be somebody else, you falsify your being; you become a traitor. All ideals are treacherous and all ideals are betrayals.

I don't teach you any ideal, and I don't want you to become anything that is not intrinsic to you. You don't know who you are; that is the difficulty in being oneself. One has to remain content with the unknown.

I have heard: When the apostle, Paul, reached Athens, he told the people of Athens, "You are good, you are great in your thinking, you have given the greatest philosophies to the world. But one thing I have observed: I have seen one temple in your city which is devoted to the unknown God. Inside there is no statue - just inscribed on a marble:'This temple is devoted to the unknown God.'" Paul said, "This is not enough: an unknown God. This is not sufficient. Your foundation is incomplete. I give you the known God, because only with the known God is a foundation possible. Your culture, your civilization, lacks foundation."

But I tell you, only the unknown God IS the God. Once you are devoted to a known God you have started falsifying already, because the known will be knowledge, the known will be part of your mind. Buddha is known - easy to imitate. Jesus is known - easy to imitate. YOU are unknown. And I teach you to remain true to the unknown God.

The known is easy. You can tackle it; you can cope with it. To move into the unknown needs much courage, needs daring. And religion is the greatest adventure. It is not a consolation, it is not a convenience, it is not respectability. It is to move into the unknown, the uncharted, and to risk life.

What Paul said to the Greeks is dangerous. This man Paul talks sense but is very dangerous. You will also feel that a known God is better than an unknown God, because with the known we can relate easily; with a map we can move easily.

But I tell you again and again, there is no better way to be lost than to have a map.

In the world of truth, all maps are false, because the truth is undefined and remains indefinable. Defined, it becomes untrue. That's what Lao Tzu means when he says: "The truth cannot be said. Once said, it is no more the truth."

God IS unknown. Or, it would be even better to say, the unknown is God. And that unknown resides in you, abides in you. If you want to serve me and to be close to me, be close to your unknown God which is within you. Serve that unknown God which is within you, help that unknown God to be: to expand, to become, to flow, to flower.

Question 3:

This is from Sambuddha. Now, Sambuddha, please don't try to create new problems.

This is how the mind functions. Even if you are happy, you feel uneasy. You, and happy? - impossible. Something must have gone wrong; it doesn't fit with the idea that you have of yourself. You, and happy? You must have gone mad, or you must be imagining, or this man, Rajneesh, has hypnotized you. You, and happy? - impossible.

Now, Sambuddha, don't try to create new problems. Forget all that I say about dying, because in the happiest moments one dies. The death I am talking about is not the death of misery; the death I am talking about is not the death of suffering, is not the death of agony. The death I am talking about is the death of ecstasy, the death of pure bliss, the death when you are so happy that you explode and simply disappear.

But don't be worried about it. It will come by itself; it is already on the way. If you become worried and you become concerned about'why I am so happy'....

"The strangest thing has happened: I feel happy! " If you become worried about it. soon the happiness will disappear and you will fall back to your old state of mind.

Enjoy it. Move deeply into it. Dare! The mind has become so miserly and so miserable that when happiness happens. then too it clings to its old past. It is afraid to move. How to be happy? How to laugh? Even if it laughs, it laughs halfheartedly. Even if it moves, it moves ready to withdraw any moment if something goes wrong. And happiness wants you to be totally in it. It claims you totally!

Enjoy it, move into it, be possessed by it, and in that possession will be death.

Totally possessed by happiness, the ego dies.

I don't teach suffering. I don't teach sacrifice, I don't teach renunciation. I teach the death that comes out of bliss; the death that comes at the highest peak of happiness; the death that comes when you are dancing, singing, loving; the death that comes when you are possessed by the whole and the ocean drops into the drop. Of course, the drop dies. Such a tremendous phenomenon: the ocean dropping in the drop. How can the drop live now? But what is the point of living? It the drop tries to live, that wi]l be a real death. If the drop disappears in the ocean.... This is what Jesus calls'life, and more abundant life'.

Allow it! Very difficult. People go on seeking happiness but when it comes, they close their doors. People go on seeking love, but when it knock.s at the door, they hide somewhere in the closet. People go on seeking friendship and when somebody comes near, they become panicky; they become afraid.

What is the fear of happiness? The fear of death. What is the fear in love? The fear of death. What is the fear of freedom? The fear of death. The ego is afraid.

The ego can remain in misery., it can remain even in the seventh hell, but even a slight breeze of happiness and the house of the ego starts falling, collapsing.

Nothing kills like happiness, nothing kills like ecstasy; but that risk is worth taking because only after that death does real life arise. You disappear. Then God lives in you.

Question 4:

Religion HAS become a dirty word. It has been used too much and abused too much. It has passed through thousands and thousands of hands. It is just like an old coin or an old currency note which has been passing through many hands and has become dirty. Everything used too much becomes dirty - not only religion.

All beautiful words have become dirty.'God','love','ecstasy' - all have become dirty. The reason is natural, obvious. Because the words are so beautiful, humanity tends to use them too much. Just look at advertisements and you will find all the beautiful words - used for cigarettes, soaps, cars, furniture. All beautiful words. The advertisement for a cigarette can even say that the cigarette is ecstatic. Now, a beautiful word is being dirtied.

Every film, every movie, is thought to be'marvelous','fabulous'. If everything is fabulous, and every movie is fabulous, then nothing is fabulous. The word does not mean much now. If you say something is fabulous, it doesn't mean anything.

It simply means that you have been listening to TV too much!

All beautiful words become dirty because the mind tends to use them more and more, for every and any thing. Religion has become dirty....

It is the oldest thing in the world. There is a controversy about which profession is the oldest. Prostitutes and priests are the two competitors. I have also been thinking about it and I cannot conceive of how prostitutes can come before priests. Impossible! Unless the priest is there, how is prostitution imaginable?

Impossible. The priest must have come first. He must have condemned sex; then prostitution follows. He must have condemned it so much that the whole thing becomes very attractive.

Religion HAS become a dirty word. but remember well: when a word is dirty, that does not mean that the thing that is denoted by the word is dirty. Religion, the word, may have become dirty, but religion, the thing, is still fresh and will always remain fresh.

You can use another word for it. Any word will do; that is not a problem.

Remember, just because a word has become dirty, don't throw away the thing itself. That will be throwing out the baby with the bath water. The bath water has become dirty - true, throw it! - but at least save the baby. If you can save the baby, there is no trouble.

Churches have made it dirty. They have made a profession out of it, they have corrupted it. They made it so low because they had to bring it to the masses.

They made it very cheap, as if there is no need on your part to do anything. They come and give you the Bible free; they go on throwing religion on you, they go on imposing. They don't ask even your permission. They are intruders, pretenders. They have corrupted it.

But they have not corrupted religion as such. They have corrupted only the word. Forget the word, but don't forget the reality that is indicated by it.

That may be the cause: "... and why does it threaten me more here in Poona?"

Because I am not concerned about the word; I am concerned about religion itself.

It threatens more. If you go to a church you will come back intact. As you had gone in, you will come out: the same. But if you come to me, you cannot go back the same.

If you really come close to me, in that very coming you will be transformed and changed. You may escape, you may get afraid, scared, but you will never be the same again. I will go on haunting you wherever you are. I will come in your dreams, I will follow you like a shadow.

The fear is real, the threat is real. When you go to a church, the priest is a false threat. He may thunder, but the threat is false. He may shout at you in the name of God, but the threat is false.

I have heard: it happened in a Zen temple. One morning there was a great earthquake - as it happens in Japan. Half the temple collapsed. The priest, who had been pretending that he was a real Zen man, immediately gathered his disciples and said, "Look. Now you must have observed what is the real quality of a real Zen man. The earthquake was there, but there was not even an iota of fear in me. Have you observed? I remained as if nothing had happened. Not only that, you must have seen that after the earthquake stopped, I went to the kitchen because I was thirsty, and I drank a big glass of water. Did you observe that my hand was not trembling at all while I was holding the glass?"

One disciple smiled. The priest felt annoyed. He said, "What is funny in it? Why are you smiling? " The disciple said, "Reverend sir, it was not a glass of water. It was a big glass of soy sauce that you drank!"

When you want to show off, from somewhere or other the reality is bound to leak.

Go to a priest. His talk is okay - never more than okay, just okay - but if you look into the reality of the man, there is no fear. He is just like you. He may pretend... and you may even pretend that whatsoever he is pretending is true.

That's how it goes on. Pretensions need mutual cooperation. Hc pretends that he is a great master, you pretend that you are a great disciple. He accepts your pretension; you accept his pretension. That's how both are satisfied mutually.

And things remain the same.

When you are here, you are really near a danger point. I AM a dangerous man.

You should be alert about it. Come close to me with full awareness - there IS danger. I am not a priest. I'm not teaching religion here; I'm ready to give it to you. It is not a teaching, it is a transmission.

In churches you have learned that the words'religion','God' - they have all become dirty. Then you come to me and you start realizing that those words may have become dirty, but something is hidden behind them which is ever fresh, ever green, ever alive and capable of changing you totally. Then the fear arises.

Just the other day, Atmada wrote me a letter, a beautiful letter, saying, "Why are you so worried about this Jesus being crucified? It is good that this idiot was crucified! Why are you worried about it? " In fact, this is all that the priests have done. Trying to force Jesus on you, trying to be aggressive, intruders on your being, somehow trying to convert you to Jesus, they have dirtied the very name of this beautiful man. Trying to prove that he is the greatest wise man in the world, they have only been able to magnify his defects and nothing else.

That's why Atmada writes to me that he was an idiot. I know that he was, but that is how a wise man always is.

That point has to be understood. A really wise man is a synthesis of whatever you call wisdom, and idiocy. He is as simple as an idiot and as complex as any wise man can be.

You can look at him from both sides. If you look at him from one side. he will look like an idiot. You can find in Jesus all the things that you can find in idiots.

Read Feodor Dostoevski's book, THE IDIOT. It is about an idiot, but in that idiot you will find all the beautiful qualities that Jesus has: the innocence, the quality of no-mind, the quality of trust. Never a doubt arises. These are all idiotic qualities. You call a man an idiot if he trusts everybody and anybody; you call a man an idiot if you go on deceiving him and he still goes on trusting you. You go on deceiving him and he goes on trusting you. You cannot create doubt in him because he has no mind.

A man like Jesus is also like an idiot. Not because he has the same state of idiocy; he has come to the same state from a very different dimension. the circle is complete: he has again become a child.

The idiot is below mind, Jesus is above mind - both are no-minds. The idiot has got no mind. Jesus and Buddha also have got no minds, but there is a difference.

They HAD, and they found out that to have a mind is foolish. They dropped it:

they have become idiots voluntarily. They are not stupid. They are idiots because they are wise.

Yes, I know: Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha, look like idiots. In India we have a word for the idiot which comes from Buddha. It is BUDDHU. The word is derived from Buddha himself. Buddha: BUDDHU. BUDDHU means'idiot' and BUDDHA means'the awakened man'. How can both these words be together?

When Buddha died, his impact was tremendous. Thousands and thousands of people became followers. Thousands and thousands of people were sitting under Bodhi trees with closed eyes, meditating. People would call to them:

"BUDDHUS, go home! What are you doing? Don't be a BUDDHU. Do something, go home. Your wife is suffering, your children are hungry. Don't be an idiot! Don't be a BUDDHU!"

I know, Jesus is so innocent that he looks foolish. But that foolishness is tremendously precious.

I am also idiotic, Atmada. And whatsoever I am teaching is teaching you to be so simple and trusting that you also become idiots in a sense. But that idiocy is the supreme awareness, that idiocy is supreme wisdom. Polarities meet: dualities disappear.

In a Jesus, you will always find a paradox: he's opposites together. You will find in him qualities which are feminine, you will find in him qualities which are absolutely male. They meet and mingle, and they have become one. In him, the feminine and the male have become one; the wise man and the fool have become one. The polarities have disappeared. The contradiction is no more a contradiction; it is a synthesis.

Difficult for the mind to understand. The mind is a doubter the mind is skeptical.

And the mind thinks that it is very intelligent. Mind is stupid, mind is mediocre.

It has nothing to do with intelligence. Intelligence is a totally different flowering of your being; it has nothing to do with mind. Mind is just a mechanism; it is a computer, a bio-computer. Very complex, but still a mechanism. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

Intelligence comes within you only when you have become so unidentified with the mind that you can see that mind is separate and you are separate. In that state, intelligence happens. That intelligence will be both wise and foolish.

That is the mystery of a Jesus. That is the paradox, the poetry.

Question 5:

There is no need to do anything. You are not to find balance, balance will find you. You simply move. When the valley comes, you go into the valley. When darkness surrounds you, enjoy it, feel blissful in the velvety touch of it. Move into it, into the infinite magnificence of it. Darkness has a soothing quality which no light can have. The valley is a rest: like the night, like death.

No need to try to find balance. The balance will find you. You simply move into the valley. When the valley comes, you accept it. You not only accept it, you welcome it. You enjoy it, you delight in it - darkness is beautiful. And when the valley goes and you move towards the peak, that too is perfectly beautiful. That is beautiful: the light, the morning, the sun.

But don't cling to either. Clinging creates trouble; through clinging, anguish comes. If you cling to the peak and you say, "I would not like to go to the valley again," then you will be in trouble. Then at the very peak you have created the valley. Then, already, the suffering has started. You are afraid: fear has entered, the agony is already there. You are no longer happy. You have destroyed the peak.

When you are in the valley you will suffer that "now the valley has come." You will suffer the valley, and you will not be able to enjoy the peak. This is the ordinary situation.

When you are happy, you become afraid. Is this happiness going to stay or will it be gone? Now fear eats away at your happiness like a worm and poisons it. You are happy and yet you are not happy. Something is already dead: you have become apprehensive of the future. When you are unhappy, of course, you are unhappy. When you are happy you cannot be happy, so how can you be happy when you are unhappy? The whole life becomes a vicious circle of unhappiness.

Now, listen! When you are at the peak, dance. I know, and you know, that the peak is not going to last forever. There is no need. If it lasts forever, it will be such a tension that you will not be able to tolerate it. It will be such an excitement that you will not find any rest in it. It will be dangerous, it will kill you. No need for it to last forever. But while it lasts, dance, enjoy, sing - knowing well that it is going to he lost again. Knowing it, one has to enjoy it even more before it is lost.

And remember, this is the miracle: when you enjoy it more it lasts longer. When you are happy in it and dancing, it forgets to go away from you. It lingers with you. When YOU don't cling to it, it clings to you. This is the whole secret.

And when it is gone, then too it is not gone. It has given you such a deep blissfulness that now you go into the valley and you can rest in darkness. Then the valley becomes relaxation and the peak becomes enjoyment. Then the peak becomes the day and the valley becomes the night: then the peak becomes activity and the valley becomes passivity.

One has to enjoy the night also. That is the only way to enjoy the day. And if you enjoy the day, a great night comes with great rest. It refreshes you, rejuvenates you.

Always remember: the greater the peak, the greater will be the valley. Otherwise how can the peak be greater? If you go to the Himalayas you will find that the greater the peak the greater the valley. If you are afraid of the valley, then don't ask for the peaks. Then move on plain ground. There will be no peak and no valley.

That is the most miserable life: where there is no peak, no valley. One simply vegetates. It is not a life. One simply drags. It is a monotony. It is not a dialogue; it is a monologue. A dialogue needs duality, a dialogue needs contradiction, a dialogue needs polarity, a dialogue needs paradox. And within the paradox, you move from one pole to another.

Don't be worried about balance. Balance will seek you; I will see that balance seeks you. You simply do this much: while on the peak, dance; while in the valley, rest. Accept the valley; accept the peak. Both are parts of the one whole and you cannot deny one part. They are two aspects of the same coin.

Remember, one who enjoys more is bound to suffer more because he becomes very sensitive. But suffering is not bad. If you understand it rightly, suffering is a cleansing. If you understand it rightly, sadness has a depth to it which no happiness can ever have. A person who is simply happy is always superficial. A person who has not known sorrow and has not known sadness, has not known the depths. He has not touched the bottom of his being; he has remained just on the periphery. One has to move within these two banks. Within these two banks flows the river.

And I tell you, balance will seek you if you accept both and you live both.

Whatsoever happens, you welcome it. Suddenly. one day you will see that balance has come. And when balance comes to you, it is something totally different than that balance which you can force upon yourself.

If you force the balance, it will be a.sort of control. A control is always artificial, a control is always ugly. Control has a violence in it. It is forced, artificial. When balance comes to you, it is a happening. Suddenly it descends on you. Heavens open and the spirit of God, like a dove, descends in you.

All that is great always comes. All that YOU make is always small, petty. It is never great. All that you do is going to be lesser than you. All that is great - you have to allow it. Balance will find you. God will find you. You just be ready.

And this is readiness: to accept whatsoever comes, to accept it with gratefulness.

Even sorrow, even sadness. even the valley... dark.

Question 6:

This is from Chaitanya Sagar. Good that he says this is the last question that he is asking not about himself!

I can understand your worry, your concern. The fact is simple. After the age of thirty-five life starts declining. Thirty-five is the peak: if you are going to live for seventy years, thirty-five is the peak. After thirty-five you start declining. It is now downhill.

If somebody becomes enlightened after thirty-five - as Buddha became at forty, Mahavir became at forty - then he can live a little longer, because he was already downhill. Enlightenment will not disturb the body more than it was already disturbed.

If you become enlightened before the age of thirty-five then there is danger.

Shankara became enlightened before the age of thirty-five. He died at thirty- three. When you are going uphill and life is moving strong - and you become enlightened - the connection between you and the body is disrupted. It has almost always happened that people who have become enlightened before thirty-five have not survived up to thirty-five. Difficult. The body and you become so separate that the uphill task becomes very difficult.

It is just like: you were going uphill and suddenly you see that there is no more petrol in the tank of the car. The uphill task becomes almost impossible. Now you get out and you have to push the car uphill. Very difficult. But if you become aware when the car is going downhill that there is no more petrol, there is no trouble. In fact. there is no need for petrol. The car can go without petrol.

Shankara died at thirty-three. Buddha lived up to eighty; Mahavir also lived up to eighty. It has to be understood. I should have died before thirty-five in fact.

Somehow I have been pulling. That'somehow' can be understood.

I have dropped out of life by and by; I have dropped all activity. Whatsoever energy my body has, I am using for you, that's all. Otherwise I have dropped all activity: stopped moving, stopped travelling - I have almost stopped everything.

I come out just to see you in the morning and in the evening. Otherwise I have become completely inactive. absolutely passive. Whatsoever small energy is there, I am using it as economically as possible.

So every day my body is going to become more and more fragile, more and more sensitive. My ship is ready - any moment I can depart. I am lingering on the bank for you a little while more. That's why I'm in a hurry. You have time to ask useless questions. I don't have time to answer them.

You have time to waste. My time is finished. So if you really want to use this opportunity, don't miss a single moment. Don't hesitate, and don't put your half- heart in the effort. When I am gone, you will repent and you will be very sorry, but then nothing can be done. While I am still here, use every opportunity that I am giving to you and don't waste a single moment. I HAVE what you are seeking. I can pour it into you, but your cup is not ready.

The thing is like this: you come to me and I have a full kettle of tea. And you are thirsty. I would like to give it to you, but I cannot pour it in your hands. It will burn you. I have to wait, because you will have to produce your cup. And that cup can be produced only from your innermost core of being.

Only your innermost being can become the cup. Only then can I pour whatsoever I have got. I am waiting for you so that you can produce the cup.

You are thirsty I know, and I have that which can quench your thirst, but the cup is not ready.

So don't ask such questions. Rather, look at me and try to understand.

Just the other night one sannyasin was saying, "How can you help us when you yourself are not well in the body?" True. If I am not well in the body, how can I help you? Looks absolutely logical. But do you know: was Buddha well in the body?

No enlightened person has ever been well in the body - cannot be! - because the being with the body is disrupted, the bridge is broken. The body goes on moving on its own, and the being goes on residing in it, but the energy that was given by the identification is not given.

You live as one with your body. I live as two. My body is just like my clothes - absolutely separate. It is a miracle that it is functioning.

Buddha had to keep a physician continuously with him because every moment was danger. The physician was not for HIM. His work was done; he had achieved. The physician was for those who were still thirsty. He had something which could quench their thirst. The physician was for them.

If the doctor comes to see me, it is not for me. It is for you. If I see that there is no point and I cannot help you, this very moment I can disappear.

But many of you are working hard. I have the largest number of sannyasins that is possible in this twentieth-century world: almost fifteen thousand all around the world. They are all working hard. If they can succeed, we will release one of the greatest energies. spiritual energies, in the world.

I have to wait, and I have to linger on - whatsoever the body says. The body says: "It is time, the ship is ready. You can go." The house is ready to collapse, but I am holding it.

Don't waste my time in anything. Use it if you can. This is the trouble: that you may not understand now, but later on, when you understand, I will not be there.

Then that understanding will not be of much help. It will simply give you deep anguish. and sorrow, and agony.

While I am here, it you understand me, it can become your ecstasy. When I am gone, it will be just an agony.