A man who is enlightened has no masks, has

Question 1:

REMAIN WITH THE QUESTION. Don t do anything, and don t go anywhere; and don't start believing in any answer. Remain with the question. That is one of the most difficult things to do - to remain with a question, and not to seek the answer; because the mind is very cunning, it can supply a false answer. It can console you; it can give you something to cling to; and then the question is not answered but suppressed. Then you go on believing in the answer, and the question remains deep down in your unconsciousness like a wound. The healing has not happened.

If you remain with the question, I'm not saying that you will receive the answer.

Nobody has ever received any answer. If you remain with the question, by and by the question disappears. Not that the answer is received; there is no answer.

There cannot be, because life is a mystery. If there is any answer, then life will not be a mystery.

It has no answer to it, it cannot be solved. It is not a puzzle, it is a mystery. And that is the difference between a puzzle and a mystery. A puzzle can be solved, howsoever difficult it is to solve. A mystery cannot be solved - not that it is difficult. It is very simple, but its nature is such that it cannot be solved.

Remain with the question - alert, aware, not seeking, not trying to find an answer. Very arduous it is, but if you can do that... it can be done. I have done it.

And all those who have dissolved their questions have done it. The very awareness, the fire of awareness, burns the question. The sun of awareness melts the question; it disappears, it evaporates. One day, suddenly, you find you are there, and the question is not there. Not that the question is replaced by an answer. There is none. But the question has simply disappeared. You are there and without a question. That is the answer.

YOU, without a question, is The answer. Not that you will be able to say who you are - you will laugh at the very question. The question has become absurd.

In the first place, the very asking was wrong. But right now you cannot understand that; you have to ask. You have to ask very intensely. Ask the question, but don't ask for The answer.

That is the difference between theology and religion. Theology gives you the answer; religion gives you awareness. Theology supplies you answers - ready- made, manufactured, polished, perfect. Religion doesn't give you any answer; it simply helps you to penetrate deep into the question. The deeper you go into the question, the more you find it is melting, it is disappearing. And when the question has disappeared, a tremendous energy is released within you. You ARE there, with no question.

And when there is no question, of course, there is no mind. Mind is the questioner. When there is no questioning, the mind has also disappeared - pure consciousness - just the sky without any clouds, the flame without any smoke.

That's what God is. That's what a Buddha is; that's what a Christ is. Remember, I repeat it again and again, Buddha has not found the answer; that's why Buddha never answers. You ask him, "God exists?" He will avoid, he will not answer.

You ask him, "What happens when a Buddha dies?" He will avoid, he will start talking about other things. He will not answer.

He is not a metaphysician. He is not a philosopher. He has come to face the question, and the question has disappeared. The question disappears as darkness disappears when you kindle a light, when you bring a lamp. Bring more awareness to the question.

You ask me: OSHO, I MYSELF AM A QUESTION. Beautiful - that's how it should be - reduce all questions to the basic question and that is: Who am I?

Don't go on moving on the periphery, like - "Who made the world? Why did he make The world?" - all nonsense questions. Come to the basic question, the most fundamental question: Who am I?

WHO? Let your consciousness penetrate into it, like a deep arrow going deeper and deeper and deeper. And don't be in a hurry to find the answer - because the mind is cunning. If you are in a hurry, impatient, the mind can supply you with it; the mind can quote scriptures; it is the devil. It can say, "Yes, you are god, you are BRAHMA, you are pure consciousness, SATCHITANANDA, you are The ultimate truth, the eternal soul, the deathless being." Those answers can destroy your very search.

A seeker has to be aware of ready-made answers. They are available; from every side they are being supplied to you. In fact, your mind has already been conditioned: the answers have been given to you before you had even asked the question.

A small child - he has not asked who God is, and he is being supplied with the answer; he is being conditioned. He has not asked - the question is still not there, and the answer is being given. Many people go on believing in these answers, and they never ask the question themselves.

If you have not asked the question, whatsoever you know is. just rubbish. Throw it on the rubbish heap, all your knowledge - because there is no knowledge; there is only knowing. There is no answer, only a state of consciousness where the questioning disappears; only a clarity, a clarity of vision and perception, a clarity of eyes, you can see through and through; not that you find an answer somewhere. Existence is so vast, so mysterious.

And it is good that it is so. Just think of the misfortune if you could have found the answer. Then life would not be worth living; then it would not have any meaning. Because you cannot find the answer, the life goes on having infinite meaning. God is not the answer. God is the state of being where the question has disappeared. God is the state of no-mind.

Remain with the question. I am here to help you to remain with the question. I am not going to give you any answer; you already have too many. I am not going to burden you any more. I am to teach you how to unlearn the answers that you have learned, so that the question becomes crystal pure; so the question becomes authentic and yours; so the question arises from your innermost being.

And remain with it. Don't go here and there; don't be in a hurry. Be patient. Let this question become your constant companion. This is the only discipline I teach you: the discipline of questioning, and without being in any hurry for the answer.

And it is beautiful to remain with the question because answers corrupt. They destroy your innocence; they destroy your pure ignorance. They fill your mind with words, theories, dogmas; then you are no more a virgin. They corrupt you.

The question is pure; it does not corrupt you. In fact, it intensifies your purity; it makes you more and more clear.

Become aware of the question. Not that you have to continuously ask, "Who am I?" Not that you have to verbalize it. Let the question be there without any verbalization. Let it be like your breathing; let it be like your being. Let it be there, silent, but continuously, as if you are pregnant with it. One day, if you have lived enough with the question, it starts disappearing. It evaporates, just as when the morning comes and the sun rises, and the dewdrops start disappearing. When the consciousness has become a fire, an intense light, the question starts disappearing.

And when the question has disappeared, you cannot say who you are, but you know. It is not a knowledge; it is a knowing. You cannot answer, but you know.

You can dance it; you cannot answer it. You can smile it; you cannot answer it.

You will live it, but you cannot answer it.

Question 2:

The first thing to be understood you cannot surrender; it is not something you can do. If YOU are there, then how is the surrender possible? If the doer is there, then how can the surrender happen? It is not an act. When YOU are not there, then the surrender IS. So you cannot surrender - one thing is absolutely certain.

YOU cannot surrender, because YOU is the barrier. And this is what you have been trying, trying to surrender. It is like trying to go to sleep: try hard, and then failure is absolute. Sleep comes when you are not there and the effort has ceased.

When you are trying no more to go to sleep - you have completely forgotten about it, because any activity is against sleep - if you are trying to go to sleep....

That's what so many people who suffer from sleeplessness, insomnia, are doing all over the world. They try: they do many tricks; they count sheep, they do transcendental meditation, they do MANTRAS, and a thousand and one things they do to get to sleep, because they don't know that the DOER is the barrier.

Sleep comes when you are not.

Sometimes those mantras may appear to help, because by doing a MANTRA, you by and by get fed up with it; you are bored. That is the whole mechanism of a MANTRA, that it bores you. You become so bored that the mantra drops; and in your boredom the very effort to get to sleep also drops. Suddenly the sleep is there. Sleep comes when you are not. The truth comes when you are not. The God comes when you are not. Surrender is not something that you can do. You can only be receptive for it to happen; it is a happening.

You ask: MY ANGER HAS LESSENED - good! MY SEXUAL DESIRE IS NOT MY MASTER - very good! MY MIND IS MORE STILL - beautiful! The situation is building itself. Now don't be in a hurry to surrender. Everything happens only in its own time. Ripeness is all; just don't be in a hurry; the fruit is ripening every day. The moment is coming closer and closer when suddenly, without any previous notice, the fruit falls from the tree.

Just like that, surrender happens. You will not be notified, remember. There is nobody going to say to you, "Now, surrender is going to happen!" There is not going to be any announcement of it. In fact when it happens, in that moment, you are surprised, taken unawares; you were not expecting it.

Remember this, while you are expecting it, it is not going to happen, because when you are expecting, you are there. It happens only when you are not expecting at all; in fact, you have forgotten about it. Suddenly it is there.

Have you observed? - sometimes it happens you have forgotten the name of someone. And you know that you know. And you say, "It is just on the tip of my tongue." And still, you cannot recall it. Try hard. The more you try, the more it will be frustrating. The more you try hard, the more you will be in a weird situation. You know it - it is right on the tip of the tongue - and it is not coming.

One feels at a loss; one cannot think what is happening.

Then you try, and try, and try, and it doesn't come. You are fed up with the whole effort. You go out of the house; you start digging in the garden, and suddenly it is there. It bubbles up to the surface.

What happened? Try to understand the mechanism. It was there, but the very effort made you tense. And a tense mind is a narrow mind, the tenser the narrower. The mind became so narrow and so tense, so one-pointed that the name could not pass through it. Your mind became like a needle's eye, and the camel could not pass through it. You knew it was there, but the very effort narrowed you, because effort means concentration.

Remember, I don't teach concentration; I teach meditation. And the difference is this: concentration is a narrowing of the mind. And I tell you, that even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but one who is concentrating cannot pass through the gates of God - because the mind becomes narrower and narrower.

That is the whole meaning of concentration. Meditation is not concentration.

Meditation is simple awareness - widening of the mind, widening of consciousness - expansion, not narrowing.

Meditation is all-inclusive. You listen to me... if you are listening to me, and at the same time the crowing of the crows is not reaching your consciousness, it is concentration. Then you may remember what I am saying, but you will never understand - because a narrow mind cannot understand much. But while I'm speaking and the crow is crowing and the birds are singing - and you are not narrowed; you are flowing in all directions, aware of all - in this moment, your consciousness is open to every possibility that is happening. Then I am talking and the crow is crowing and there is no conflict, because the conflict arises only when you are concentrating.

There is no conflict. In the same moment, simultaneously, all is happening. Each moment is multi-dimensional. If you are simply aware, you listen to me and you listen to the crow also. And you are not disturbed. Only people who concentrate are disturbed and distracted. A man who meditates is never distracted, because nothing can distract him. He's not narrowing his mind; he's not excluding anything - he's all-including. He's simply here and now. And whatsoever happens - if God feels like crowing through the crow perfectly good. And if he thinks of singing a song through a bird - perfectly beautiful. Then everything is accepted; then the total is allowed.

When you are trying to remember a name or a word, the more you try, the less possibility there is of succeeding - because the mind is becoming narrower and narrower and narrower. Then you drop the whole effort; you relax in your chair and start smoking - and suddenly it is there. The mind is narrow no more; the tension is gone - effort is no more there; you have become effortless. Then you have become meditative.

Meditation is effortless awareness; concentration is a narrowing of the mind with much effort. I teach meditation; I teach expansion of consciousness, an ability to flow in all directions simultaneously.

Open up all the doors of your being. Why be narrow? Let the sky enter from all the doors; let the light come from all the windows; let the breeze blow from all the directions. Why be narrow? Accept -total, meditative. Then one day, suddenly, you are surprised: surrender has happened. You were not trying to do it, and it has happened. It has always been so. You cannot surrender. One day when you are in a relaxed mood....

Remember, when you are in a relaxed mood, you are not. You are, only when you are in a tense mood. When you are relaxed you are part of the whole; you are not. Then boundaries are blurred; then the whole and the part are no more separate. They meet, they merge... surrender happens.

So, good that anger is lessened; sexual desire is no more the master; the mind is getting still. Now please, don't make any effort to surrender. Otherwise the mind will again become tense, and the stillness will be lost. And again you will become angry - because when you cannot surrender, you will find the sex has again become the master.

When the mind is angry - it doesn't matter, angry against others or against yourself, it doesn't matter - when the mind is angry and when the mind is tense, sex becomes the master, because then sex is the only release. Then you are so much tense that you have to throw some energy out some way. Then sex becomes the outlet.

It is a safety valve, a natural safety valve. The nature has given you an opening: if you cannot cope with your energy and you cannot remain relaxed, then the energy goes on accumulating, and there comes the point when it has to be released; otherwise you will go mad. Mad people all over the world are somehow or other mad, because they suppressed their sex energy. Either transform it, or don't suppress it.

Sex becomes the master because you are so tense. You need it; you need its help.

When you are relaxed, sex disappears. The more you are relaxed, the more sex disappears. If you are totally relaxed, sex disappears completely; and the energy that was involved in sex becomes love, becomes compassion, becomes awareness, becomes freedom.

And the last thing: WHAT WILL IT TAKE - A THUNDERBOLT? You go on thinking about ego as if it is a very big and strong thing. It is not. It is just a water bubble, a soap bubble. It does not need a thunderbolt; just a small prick and it is gone - and the bigger it is; the weaker; the stronger it is, the weaker.

This paradox has to be understood. It's just as if you make a soap bubble, and go on making it bigger and bigger and bigger. The bigger the bubble, the more the emptiness in it; the bigger The bubble, the weaker - sooner or later it is going to explode. If it was small, it was stronger.

That's why I say that the ego has to be strengthened, so that it becomes weak and bursts. The bigger the balloon, the more emptiness it carries. Just a prick.... That's why it was so easy for a Buddha to attain to truth, because he was the son of an emperor. A big balloon he must have carried within, a big ego - he was no ordinary man. It must have been more difficult for Jesus than it was for Buddha.

He was just a son of a carpenter, a poor man's son. It must have been very difficult for him to drop it. For Buddha it was simple; in fact it dropped of its own accord, it was so big, so empty.

So don't wait for a thunderbolt. Just a small breeze.... Your ego is nothing but a dewdrop on a grass leaf. A small breeze and it slips and is gone. It happens very easily. But I am saying: it happens. You cannot do. If you do, then even thunderbolts won't help. It happens. You just go on becoming more and more still, silent, peaceful, loving; and one day, when the time has come, when the right moment has arrived, when the ego is ripe, it slips. And when it slips, it is beautiful, because it doesn't leave a trace behind.

If you drop it, it never drops. First, you were thinking you were somebody; then you start thinking you are nobody. First, it was hiding behind 'somebodiness'; now it will hide behind 'nobodiness'. First, you were thinking you were something extraordinary, a rare gem, a kohinoor; now you will think, "I am the most humble man in The world" - but the MOST humble - remember. "There is nobody who is more humble than me - I am the humblest." Now it is hiding in your humbleness. The wound has not disappeared; only the label has changed.

You are the same; you have moved from one extreme to another, but nothing is transformed.

A man whose ego has disappeared is not humble at all. Because how can you be humble without an ego? A man whose ego has disappeared - his ego has disappeared, that's all; and with the ego, all humbleness also - because humbleness is a quality of the ego; it is a function of the ego. A man who is egoless is not humble at all. He is neither humble nor arrogant; he simply is.

Question 3:

An enlightened man is all emptiness. What constitutes an emptiness? It has no 'constitutes' in it; hence it is empty. A man who is enlightened has no character.

Let me repeat it: an enlightened man has no character at all. He lives from moment to moment. He has no character to follow; he has no structure around him. A character is a structure, a character is an armour. An enlightened man has no character. Let me say he is characterless.

But try to understand me - because he has no structured consciousness. He HAS consciousness but the structure has been dropped. He's neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He is neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral, neither this nor that. He simply is. All duality has disappeared. You cannot evaluate him; you cannot categorize him; you cannot put him into any pigeon-holes of your logic. He exists like an emptiness - nothingness he is. And out of that nothing, every moment the miracle - that he goes on functioning without any armour around him, without any structure. He goes on flowing.

It is difficult for you to understand, because you cannot think how you would function without a structure. If you don't have any morality conditioned on you, how will you behave morally? - it seems difficult for you. It is just like saying to a blind man that we walk without groping. The blind man says, "I cannot believe you. How can one walk without groping? Groping is a must." The blind man has his stick; he goes on groping with his stick - "Where is the door?" - and if you say that we don't carry any sticks, he will laugh: "You must have gone mad, or you must be joking." And he will say to you, "Don't be funny. Don't try to be funny. Because if you don't grope with a stick, how can you walk?"

Our character is like the blind man's staff. We grope in darkness; we somehow manage to be good; we somehow manage to be moral. And inside, the immorality goes on and on, ready to explode any moment - a great turmoil within. And we go on managing somehow on the surface. That's what we call character.

A man who is enlightened - who has come to know who he is, who has faced himself - has no masks, has no character, has no rules to follow. There is no need, because each moment his consciousness is there, and out of his consciousness arises his act.

You act out of your conscience; he acts out of his consciousness. Conscience is given by the society; consciousness is your nature. You act 'good', because you have been told to act 'good'. Not that you are good. You ACT'good' because you know it pays to be good; you know honesty is the best policy. Just see: it is policy, it is politics. It is cunningness, because it pays. And if dishonesty pays - if dishonesty is the best policy - then you move to dishonesty.

That's how the hypocrite is born. He goes on pretending to be honest, and he goes on doing whatsoever pays. Sometimes honesty pays - then he is honest; sometimes dishonesty pays - more often dishonesty pays - then he goes on being dishonest. Whatsoever pays, whatsoever fulfils your greed....

A man who is enlightened lives out of his consciousness. He has no conscience.

He has thrown out all that structure, that conditioned mind. Now he lives out of his purity, innocence. His act is here and now; your act is mind-manipulated.

You do something, but either it comes from the past, because you have been conditioned to do it that way, or it comes from the future, because you have been told about awards in heaven and somewhere in the future. Either it comes out of fear, or it comes out of greed - it never comes out of your consciousness. The enlightened man lives out of his consciousness.

Let me say it in a different way: you react, he acts. Somebody insults you:

immediately you react. There is no time gap. You become angry, you retaliate. If you insult a Buddha, there is a time gap. He does not react. He looks at you; he watches you; he observes you: "Why are you behaving in this way?" And out of that observation he responds. It is not a reaction; it is not a push-button thing.

Somebody insults you; he has pushed a button. You react; you go mad. You cannot push any button in a Buddha; he has no buttons. That's what I mean: he has no character around him. You cannot push any button. He has dropped the whole mechanism. You can be angry; you can insult him; but you cannot decide his reaction, because he has none.

Once it happened: A few people insulted him very badly... abused him. He listened, listened very silently - you cannot find a greater listener than Buddha.

Those people started feeling a little awkward, because they were waiting for him to react; and he was listening so silently, so meditatively, as if they were reciting the Vedas; and they were just abusing him. They started feeling awkward, because the expected reaction was not coming.

One of them asked, "Are you listening or not to what we are saying? Your face has not changed even a little bit. You don't seem to be angry."

Buddha said, "Because I am listening to you, I feel much compassion. Poor fellows - why are you in such a rage, and why are you in such an anger? Why are you poisoning your systems?" Buddha is thinking about them.

They said, "Forget about us. We have not come to ask for any advice. What about you?"

Buddha said, "If you had come ten years before, then I would have reacted. You came a little late. Now you can insult me, but it never reaches me, because I never accept it. And unless I accept it - unless at my end I receive it - you cannot give me anything. You can give; but I don't take it."

Buddha told them a parable. He said, "Just in The other village people had come with many sweets, but I told them that I didn't need sweets - 'Please take them back.' I ask you, what should they have done about those sweets?"

Those people gathered there said, "They must have distributed them in the town."

Buddha laughed and said, "Now what will you do? You have brought abuses, insults, anger, hatred, and I say to you,'I don't take them.' Now you will have to take them back and distribute them in the village. I feel sorry for you."

This is action. And remember, reaction binds; action is freedom, action has no bondage. If you act, you are free; if you react, you are in The bondage to it. Act means total - out of your total consciousness a response comes - not out of conscience, not out of concepts, not out of The mind, but out of your being, the innermost being, which is beyond you. Your nature is beyond you - it comes from there.

An enlightened man is a miracle every moment. He remains in absolute silence, and acts out of that silence, responds out of that silence. He has no ideas about good and bad, but whatsoever happens through him is good. Whatsoever happens through him is love, whatsoever happens through him is compassion, because it is not possible otherwise. Not that he decides, "I should love you." He has no 'shoulds', no ideals. Not that he decides, "I should not be bad; I should not sin" - he has no ideas about 'bad' or' sin'.

Out of awareness is virtue born. Whatsoever comes out of awareness is virtue, and whatsoever comes out of your sleep is sin. If you ask my definition of sin, I will say, "An unconscious act, which is a reaction, is sin. A conscious act which is not a reaction - which is a response - is virtue."

The fourth and The fifth question... but before I take them, I will tell you a parable; before I even read the questions to you, I will tell you The parable.

It happened Once: There was a small village of artists in Tibet. For centuries they had developed one art. The art was of twisting wires, metals, into beautiful forms: of man, animals, birds, gods, angels. And they had become tremendously efficient in it. All over Tibet they were known as 'the expert twisters'. And by and by they also became very rich, because their goods were sold all over the country. Their goods had even started to be sold in India and China, and beyond the borders.

The village became very very rich and affluent. And as it happens always:

whenever a society, a village, a family, a man, becomes very affluent, the awareness dawns that this whole success has been a failure. Because riches are there, but the poverty is not destroyed by them. In fact, only a rich man knows how poor he is. A poor man is never so poor; he cannot compare, he has nothing to compare his poverty against. And a poor man is never hopeless; he goes on hoping. Some day or other, he will attain to happiness, he will attain to riches and success. But a rich man a man who has succeeded - fails utterly, because suddenly he becomes hopeless; now there is no hope. Whatsoever could be attained, he has attained - and nothing has been attained. For the first time, the inner poverty erupts into consciousness.

In that village it happened - as it is happening in America today - in that village it happened: people had become affluent, very rich. Their goods were sold all over Asia. And by and by they became aware that this whole life seemed to be pointless... just continuously twisting wires, metals, and bringing more and more money into the homes. But for what? There seemed to be no meaning in it.

So they decided to invite a sage who used to live in the hills, to tell them the secret of life. Because all that this world could give, they had, but everything seemed to be pointless.

The sage came. Before he even uttered a single sentence, he knew what was going to happen. But still he spoke. He said, "Unless you die, you will not attain to the meaning you are asking for. Unless you lose yourself, you will not gain yourself." He talked about surrender, egolessness.

One man stood up and he said, "Wait. This is impossible. I am; how can I surrender my am-ness? Who will surrender it? It is impossible. You are talking nonsense."

Another man said, "If I lose myself, what is the guarantee that I will gain my self about which you are talking?"

Another said, "You are just talking absurdities. We have asked you to come to teach us life, and you are teaching death. What you are saying to us means:

should we commit suicide?"

The sage laughed and he said, "I knew beforehand what was going to happen. I know your disease. For centuries, and for generations and generations, you have been twisting wires and metals; you have become expert twisters. So I knew it beforehand: whatsoever I would say, you would immediately twist it."

It seems that from that village, one man has come here.

Now I will read the two questions. He has asked many, but there is no need of them - two will give you the vision of how things can be twisted.

First question:

Question 4:

My love is not the opposite of hate; it is the absence of hate. So I cannot hate you.

Your love is just the opposite of hate, not the absence of hate; so in fact, when you say to somebody, "I love you," at the same time hate is present in you. The very moment you say to somebody, "I love you," go and search within yourself, and you will find that you also hate the same person. That is what is going on between each and every lover. They fight, they love, they hate. They are continuously shifting from love to hate, from hate to love.

My love is not the opposite of hate. So please don't challenge me: that I cannot do. There comes my limitation. That's why I say God cannot be omnipotent, because he cannot hate; it is impossible.

But what is the point? - I am here to teach you love, and you are challenging me to hate you. Twisters! And for what have you come here? And what is the point of such stupid questions? But you must be thinking in your mind that you are asking great questions.

Second question:

Question 5:

Have you come to find your capacities or have you come to find my capacities?

Are you your problem, or am I your problem? Leave me to myself; you at least solve yourself. And you don't know what you are asking. What is sannyas? It is just a gesture, a gesture that you are receptive towards me, a gesture that you welcome me in your heart, a gesture that if I come you will not reject me, a gesture that you are ready to come with me, to walk with me, to follow me - a gesture, I say.

And you ask me, "Do, you think that you will be unable to work upon me if I do not take your sannyas?" You are asking the sunlight, "Will you be able to come to my house if I don't open my doors?" If you don't open your doors, how can the sunlight come in?

To be a sannyasin is just to open your doors for me. I cannot force my way into you; that would be violence, that wouldn't be love. I cannot force any change in you. That would be violence; and through violence how can God be born? How can you be reborn out of violence?

The sun will stand outside the door. It will not even knock, because you may be fast asleep and dreaming beautiful dreams; and who knows, you may be disturbed, and who am I to disturb you.? If you have decided to be fast asleep and dreaming, who am I to change your decision?

I am not violent; I am not a mahatma?. You have become accustomed to know mahatmas. Mahatmas are violent people who are chasing you, chasing after you.

Anyhow they have to change you - obsessed with YOUR change. But why should I be obsessed with your change?. It is for you to decide; it is up to you to make it or not make it.

I am like a river flowing by. If you feel thirsty, come. You challenge the river, "If I don't bend, and if I don't make a cup out of my hands, are you capable of quenching my thirst?. But why should I?. Thirst is yours. Who am I to quench it?

If you have decided to remain thirsty, it is up to you - I bless your thirst. Remain thirsty. If you have decided to remain a desert, who am I to change you, and why.? And how is it possible if you have decided to remain a desert, to make a garden out of you? Impossible... because you are alive, you are energy, cosmic energy. You will resist; you will fight; and whatsoever I will do, you will destroy.

Sannyas is just a gesture - a gesture from your side, a signal that you are ready.

Just a signal from your heart that you are welcoming, that you will receive me. I cannot make love to you, but I cannot rape you. And you are asking for rape.

Whatsoever I say, you will twist it. I am not asking these things for the person who has asked the question. He comes from that village; he will twist. I am saying these things for those who don't come from that village. They must understand.

Question 6:

Life is a paradox; paradox in its nature. It is not strange. But you are so much addicted to logic that whenever life reveals itself to you, it looks strange. Logic has been continuously taught to you - that contradictory things cannot exist together. Logic has been teaching you that either it is day or it is night; either it is life or it is death, either it is happiness or it is unhappiness. The whole mechanism of logic is of 'either-or'.

And life is both together. Life is all together. Whenever you reach to the deepest sadness, suddenly you will see it is turning into happiness. Or, you reach to the deepest happiness and you will see that it is turning into sadness. At the centre they meet; only on the periphery are they separate.

It is just as if you make a circle, and from the centre you can draw many lines towards the periphery. On the periphery, the circumference, the lines are very far away. Move towards the centre and by and by they come closer and closer, and exactly on the centre they become one point.

All paradoxes meet within you; all paradoxes meet in existence. Only on the periphery of the mind are they separate. Deep in you, life and death are both one. Deep in you, happiness and unhappiness are both one. Deep in you, God and the devil are both you. Deep in you, this world and the other are both one, this shore and the other shore are both one.

But whenever you come for the first time to that point of realization, it looks strange, unfamiliar. But I tell you, if you are really happy, tears will come. It is impossible if the happiness has gone really deep - it cannot be without tears. Of course, the quality of those tears is absolutely different. It is not of sadness; it is of overflow.

And remember, if you have not known sadness together with happiness you have not known anything yet. Then your happiness is superficial; your sadness is also superficial. Then you have been living on the surface; then you have known only the waves; you have not known the depth of the ocean that you are.

Life is contradictory, paradoxical. It has to be so, because only then can it be so rich. If your happiness cannot cry and weep, it will be shallow, it cannot be rich.

And if your tears cannot laugh, and if your sadness cannot dance, then it is superficial. In the depth, the sadness becomes a song - a tremendous beauty of silence surrounds you, and a song is born out of the depth.

If you look into it, you will find you are not sad. The sadness is there, the happiness is there, and you are neither. This is the innermost triangle of existence; this is the point of transcendence where opposites meet. You immediately transcend. You become the third, immediately. When you see happiness and sadness meeting, suddenly you are separate from both; all identity is broken. Then you know you are a witness. Now it is for you to be identified - either, if you want, you can be identified with sadness or you can be identified with happiness. When you are identified with happiness, sadness is suppressed; when you are identified with sadness, happiness is suppressed - but both are two aspects of the same coin; and you are the master. The coin is in your hand; you are not the coin at all.

When opposites meet, you transcend. So don't be worried about the strange experience. Allow it! Because if you become worried, you will stop allowing it - because you will start feeling it is something like madness. You have known only mad people who can both smile and cry together. The East knows better. In the West, if you cry and laugh together immediately you will be taken to the psychiatrist. Something has gone wrong. You are contradictory. You are mad. In the East we know better.

Madmen and mystics have something in common: the mystic has transcended beyond the duality, and the madman has fallen below it; but they are both out of the duality; they have a similarity. A mystic can laugh and weep, and sometimes there have been rare mystics: for example, Gurdjieff, He could weep from one eye and laugh from another. He could deceive people - one sitting on the left side, the other on the right. And when they would both go out they would both report different things about him. And they would both start quarrelling and saying, "You are wrong. That man was very sad; I have even seen a tear drop from his eye."

And the other would contradict. He would say, "You must have gone mad, because I have seen his eyes so sparkling with happiness." Only later on, people became aware that he was playing games.

A mystic has transcended. He has become the master through his transcendence.

A madman has fallen below. But both have one thing in common - the madman has something of the mystic, and the mystic has something of the madman. So sometimes in the West, mystics have been forced to live in madhouses; and sometimes in the East, madmen have been worshipped as mystics.

The boundaries are a little blurred. But don't be afraid. The fear comes because you see something like madness inside; you become afraid. Don't be afraid - otherwise what am I here for? Don't be afraid. Whenever something like this happens and you get scared, remember me, and go on and on. Never escape from the innermost core; because if you once escape from it, that will become a block. Then again and again you will go to the same point, and the fear will grip you and you will fall back.

Don't create such blocks. Go on and on. That is the meaning of sannyas: so you can trust me when the need arises. When you feel too much alone, and when you feel paradoxical things happening in you - where life looks like death and you are scared - you can lean on my shoulder, you can remember me. You can gather courage and you can go on. Once you go on, you know that it was nothing. That phase has passed; but that you will know only when you have gone on and on and on.

Spiritual growth has many hazards, many danger points. If you escape from those points once, you become afraid forever. So trust me, and trust yourself, and go on. There is nothing to fear, because the closer you are coming to yourself, the closer you are coming to real sanity. The further away you are from your centre, the further away you are from sanity. The world may call you sane, but you know that you are not.

Question 7:

This is from Amitabh. I can only say, "Thank you, Amitabh." If you can understand that it is your own mind projecting things, nothing need be said. You have understood the right thing. Always remember, the whole world acts like a screen, and you go on projecting yourself. Whatsoever you say about others, says more about you. It docs not say anything about others; because how can you know others? - you don't even know yourself.

If this awareness has come to you, that this is your own projection - beautiful.

Keep it; hold it fast so it does not slip away. And not only about this ashram:

about the whole world. Always remember, that you go on seeing your own face.

The world acts like a mirror.

And that should never be your worry - how the world is - because nothing can be done about that. All that can be done has to be done by you, with you, upon yourself. Once you change, your projections will disappear. Once YOU change, the world will remain the same, but it will not be the same at all.

Because you are your world. It comes out of you, and spreads outwards. Always remember, whenever you see something in somebody, first look within: the other may have functioned as a mirror. And try to change your inner being.

It has always happened that when you become silent the whole world becomes silent; when you become loving the whole world becomes loving. It reflects you, it echoes you; it is you, magnified a million-fold. But it is you: you are your world; there is no other world. This is the meaning of the Hindu concept, MAYA - illusion.

The whole world is illusory because it is just your projection. once your projections disappear, then suddenly you become aware that world has disappeared, and another world has arisen, the real. When you don't have anything to project then the real arises, that which is. Call it God, call it truth, or whatsoever you like; but the only way to know that truth, is to become aware of your projections. And in awareness they start dropping by and by.

The day is not far off when projections will disappear, if you can remain aware.

Awareness is a tremendous fire: it burns all, root and all. It burns the very seeds.

And only then, the truth is realized.