I am the See You are Seeking

The first question:

Question 1:

THIS is from a new seeker, Virginia. Because she is new, she cannot understand what is happening here.

The first thing to remember: you can help others only when you have helped yourself, not before it. You can help others only when you have disappeared, not before it. You cannot lose your ego by helping others. You can lose your ego, and THEN YOU can help others. In fact, if you have the ego already there and you help others, you will attain to a very cultivated, subtle, pious ego - that's all.

Egolessness won't come through it. The ego will become religious,'and when a poison becomes religious, it becomes more dangerous.

I am helping you because I am not. You are here to help yourself in the first place. When you disappear, then in |fact there is no need to help others; it happens of its own accord.

Let me tell you an anecdote: A woman always attended church, and after each sermon would remark,'My, they certainly did need the message this morning.'

One snowy Sunday morning, she was the only one in the congregation. The minister delivered his message anyway. He walked with her to the door, where she said,'My, they certainly would have needed it if they had been here.' The message is for you. Don't play tricks with yourself; don't start a new ego-trip. It is not for them, it is for you. I am talking to each individual directly; I am not talking to a crowd. When I say something, I am saying it exactly to you, not to the neighbors.

And the only way you can be of any help to the world is that you disappear, become an emptiness. Out of that emptiness arises the flame of love and compassion. Out of that emptiness arises a fragrance of divineness. And then you help millions, but you never come to know that you are helping them. You become a vehicle of God, you become an incarnation. Before that you can become a missionary, which is a dirty word. Before that you can become a do-gooder, which is very dangerous. Before that you can become a very pious egoist:

helping others one Feels oneself on top of them.'Holier than thou' becomes your attitude. In your very look there is condemnation and you cannot help anybody through condemnation, only through compassion.

But how is compassion possible with the ego? With the ego, violence is possible, condemnation is possible. Love and compassion? no, they are not possible. So please be alert. It always happens when you come near a Master and you hear the message, that your mind starts spinning things. It says,'THEY need it.' The whole world needs it except you. Be aware: YOU need it. You are they.

The world is not separate from you, the world is you multiplied.

And let me say to you that I teach selfishness. I don't teach that you should go and serve others. I teach: love yourself, serve yourself, so that that which is hidden within you becomes manifest. The very flow of it will help others.

Wherever you walk, whatsoever you do, will become a help. It is not that you are trying to help; your very being will become helpful.

The second question:

Question 2:

Yes, I call India not a country, but an inner space. I call India not something that exists there in geography, on the maps. I call India that which exists hidden within you, and that which you have not yet discovered. India is your innermost space. India is not a nation, it is a state of mind.

The questioner asks,'Having attained the peaceful state of mind which you call India, how can one sustain it in the pressures of the West? For me, it has been impossible.'

Once you attain it, you cannot lose it. Even if you want to lose it, you cannot lose it. No real attainment is ever lost. Then, you must have imagined that you had attained to the innermost peace. Then, you must have deceived yourself. Then, something must have given you the idea that you had attained to it.

For example, if you go to the Himalayas, it is peaceful and silent. Eternal silence reigns there. In that silence you start feeling silent you reflect silence. Don't think that you have become silent; it is the Himalayas being reflected in you. The silence belongs to the Himalayas, not to you. When you come down to the plains, that silence is gone. Again you are in the turmoil, again you ARE the turmoil, again the anguish and the anxiety. And you think you have lost something which you had gained? No, in the first place you had never gained it. It belonged to the Himalayas; it still belongs there. You entered a certain situation, but you didn't enter a certain state. The situation is something outside you, the state is something within you. And you deceived yourself. It is so easy to deceive oneself. One wants to feel that one has attained, because that also gives a very deep nourishment to the ego: I have attained.

Many people come to India. Coming from the West, India looks silent, peaceful, poor but contented. India is, in a way, almost two thousand years behind. When you come from New York to India, or from London to the Himalayas, you are moving backwards in time. You are moving in the times of Jesus, two thousand years back. Everything is primitive, wild, untamed. One feels good; one feels again a certain freedom. The noise, the anxiety, the tension, the constant hurry, the 'always going somewhere not knowing where one is going' of the West, is not here. Things move slowly. Everything seems to be moving nowhere, very silently. A certain music is still present. Indians may not feel it because they have been born to it, just as a fish never feels the ocean. But when people from the West come, they are shocked into a certain awareness. Their sleep is broken, and they start feeling and thinking that they have attained to a certain state. To attain a certain state is not so easy. It is not a plane trip: you cannot fly from one state of mind to another state of mind. It is not a journey, it is a pilgrimage.

And this is the distinction between a journey and a pilgrimage: a journey is going from one point to another point in space, a pilgrimage is going from without to within, from space to no-space. You can be easily deceived here, not by anybody else, but by yourself.

Then you go back, and that freedom, that silence, that meditation, that prayerfulness, is lost. Hence the question:'Having attained the peaceful state of mind which you call India, how can one sustain it?' There is no need to sustain it.

It is so alive, it is so vital that it sustains itself. It has tremendous energy. It needs nobody's help. In fact, you are not needed to sustain it; it sustains you. It is greater than you, higher than you, deeper than you, bigger than you: it is your original nature. It is you in your ultimate glory. Nothing is needed to sustain it, and nothing can distract you from it. Once attained, it is attained forever. You cannot lose it. If you lose it, then know well that you deceived yourself.

'How can one sustain it in the pressures of the West?' If it cannot be sustained in the pressures, it is not of worth. Any meditation that is of worth will be alive even in the marketplace. Because a marketplace is nothing once you attain to the meditative state. No market can disturb it, no market can distract you away from it. It becomes like breathing. In fact, you will feel it more in the marketplace than in the Himalayas, because in the Himalayas the contrast will be missing. If you have really tasted what aloneness is, you will feel it more in the crowd than on a Himalayan peak, because in the crowd, the contrast.... If you have listened to the inner music, you will hear it more in traffic noise because of the contrast. In the night you can see the stars in the sky, not in the day - because the contrast is missing. The night is so dark; in that velvety darkness you can see those stars, beautiful stars In the day they did appear. They are still there where they are, they have not gone anywhere, they remain in the sky - but the contrast is missing because of the sunlight. Now there is no background to them.

This, is my understanding, this is my experience: that whatsoever you attain, you will always taste it more, feel it more; it will surface in your being more clearly, crystal clear, whenever you move to the contrary. If the meditation is true, in New York it will be more clear to you, in London you will feel it more.

Surrounding yourself with the opposite, it will throb more clearly. If it is not happening, you come to the East, you feel good, and then you go to the West and it is gone. It has been a journey, not a pilgrimage. You travelled from one point to another in space, you have not travelled from space to no-space. Meditation means a pilgrimage from the out to the in, from the without to the within. Once attained, even if you want to lose it you cannot lose it.

The third question:

Question 3:

This is from Pankaja; she is a novelist. I have gone through her novels, and they are beautiful. She has the knack of it: how to tell a story beautifully, how to weave a story. And this experience is not only hers, it is of almost everybody who is in any way creative. But still, the interpretation is wrong, and much depends on the interpretation.

When a woman carries a child, she is full. Of course, when the child is born, she will feel empty. She will miss the new life that was throbbing and kicking in her womb. The child has gone out; she will feel empty for a few days. But she can love the child, and she can forget her emptiness in loving the child and helping the child to grow. For an artist, even that is not possible. You paint, or you write a poem or a novel; once it is finished you feel deep emptiness. And what can you do with the book now? So the artist is in an even more difficult situation than a mother. Once a book is finished, it is finished. Now it needs no help, no love; it is not going to grow. It is perfect, it is born grown-up. A painting is finished, it is finished. an artist feels very empty. But, one has to look into this emptiness.

Don't say that you are exhausted; rather, say that you are spent. Don't say that you are empty, because each emptiness also has a fullness in it. You are looking from the wrong end.

You come into a room: there is furniture, pictures on the walls and things. Then those things and the pictures are removed and you come into the room: now what will you say? Will you call it empty, or will you call it a full room?'Room'

means emptiness;'room' means space. With the furniture removed, the room is full. When furniture was there the room was not full; much of it was missing because of the furniture. Now the room is complete, the emptiness is total.

You can look from two ends. If you are too furniture-oriented, so that you can only look at the chairs and tables and the sofa and you cannot see the roominess of the room, then it will feel empty. But if you know, and you can see emptiness directly, you will feel a tremendous freedom which was not there before because the room was missing; you could not move in it. Go on filling it with furniture, and there will come a point when you cannot move because the whole room is gone.

Once I stayed in a very rich man's house. He was very rich, but had no taste. His house was so full that it was not a house at all. You could not move, and you were always afraid to move because he had precious antiques. He himself was afraid to move. The servants were constantly worried. He gave me the best, the most beautiful room in his house. And I told him,'This is not a room, it is a museum. Please give me something where I can move, then it will be a room.

This is not a room. The room has almost disappeared.' The room means: the freedom that space gives you.

When you are working, creating, your mind is full of many things. The mind is occupied. Writing a novel the mind is occupied; writing a poem the mind is occupied; there is too much furniture in it - the furniture of the mind: thoughts, feelings, characters. Then the book is finished. Suddenly, the furniture is gone.

You feel empty. But there is no need to become sad. If you look at it rightly - this is what Buddha called right-vision, SAMYAK DRASTHI - if you look rightly, you will feel freed of an obsession, of an occupation. You will feel clean again, unburdened. Those characters of the novel are no longer moving there. Those guests are gone and the host is totally at ease. Enjoy it. Your wrong interpretation is creating sadness for you, and fear. Enjoy it. Have you never observed that when a guest comes you feel good; when he goes you feel even better? He leaves you alone, and now you have your own space.

To write a novel is maddening because so many characters become guests, and each character has his own way. It is not always that he listens to the writer, not always. Sometimes he has his own way, and he forces the writer in a certain direction. The writer starts the novel, but never ends it. Then those characters end it by themselves.

It is just like giving birth to a child. You can give birth to a child, but then the child starts moving on his own. The mother may have been thinking that the child would become a doctor, and he becomes a hobo. What can you do? You try-hard, but he becomes a hobo.

The same happens when you write a novel: you start with & character - you were going to make a saint out of him, and he becomes a sinner. And I tell you, it is exactly as it happens to a child: the mother is worried; the novelist is worried.

He wanted him to become a saint and he is becoming a sinner, and nothing can be done. He feels almost helpless, almost used by these characters. They are his fantasies, but once you cooperate with them they become almost real. And unless you get rid of them, you will never be at peace. If you have a book in your mind, it has to be written to get rid of it. It is a catharsis, it is unburdening yourself.

That's why creative people almost always go mad. Mediocrities never go mad - they have nothing to go mad over, they have nothing maddening in their lives.

Creators almost always go mad. A Van Gogh will go mad, a Nijinsky will go mad, a Nietsche will go mad. Why does it happen that they go mad? - because they are so occupied; so many things are happening in the mind. They don't have a space of their own within themselves. So many people are staying there, coming and going. It is almost as if they are sitting on a road and the traffic continues. Each artist has to pay for it.

Remember, when a book is finished and a child is born, feel happy, enjoy that space, because sooner or later a new book will arise. As leaves come out of trees, as flowers come out of trees - exactly like that, poems come out of a poet, novels come out of a novelist, paintings come out of a painter, songs are born out of a singer. Nothing can be done; they are natural.

So sometimes in the fall when the leaves have fallen and the tree stands alone without leaves against the sky, enjoy it. Don't call it emptiness, call it a new type of fullness - full with yourself. There is nobody to interfere; you are resting in yourself. That period of rest is needed for every artist; it is a natural process.

Each mother's body needs a little rest. One child is born and another is conceived it used to happen, it used to happen in the East, and in India it still continues: a woman is almost old by the age of thirty, continuously giving birth to children with no gap to recuperate, to rejuvenate her being, to be alone. She is exhausted, tired. Her youth, her freshness, her beauty, are gone. A rest period is needed when you give birth to a child. You need a rest period. And if the child is going to be a lion, then a long rest period is needed. And a lion only gives birth to one child, because the whole being is involved in it. And then there is a rest period, a long rest period to recupe, to regain the energy that you have given to the child, to regain yourself again so that something can be born out of you.

When you write a novel, if it has been really a great piece of art, then you will feel empty. If it has been just a sort of journalism that you have made for money because some publisher has made a contract with you, then, then it is not very deep. You will not feel empty after it, you will remain the same. The deeper your creation, the greater will be your emptiness afterwards, The greater the storm, the greater will be the silence that comes in its wake. Enjoy it. The storm is good, enjoy it; and the silence that follows it is also good. The day is beautiful, full of activity; night is also very beautiful, full of inactivity, passivity, emptiness. One sleeps. In the morning you are again back in the world with full energy to work, to act.

Don't be afraid of the night. Many people are. There is one sannyasin, I have given her the name Nisha.'Nisha' means: the night. She comes to me again and again, and she says,'Please change my name.''Why?' She says,'I am afraid of night. Why have you given me, out of so many names, just this name? Change it.'

But I am not going to change it. I have given it to her knowingly, because of her fear - her fear of darkness, her fear of passivity, her fear of relaxation, her fear of surrender. That is all indicated in the word'night', nisha.

One has to accept the night part also. Only then do you become complete, full, whole.

So Pankaja, don't take it amiss. That emptiness is beautiful, more beautiful than the days of creativity, because that creativity comes out of emptiness, those flowers come out of emptiness. enjoy that emptiness, feel blissful and blessed.

Accept it, welcome it like a benediction, and soon you will see that you are again full of activity, and a greater book is going to be born again. Don't be worried about it. There is no need to worry. It is just a misinterpretation of a beautiful phenomenon.

But man lives in words. Once you call a thing by a wrong name, you start becoming afraid of it. Be very, very exact. Always remember what you say, because saying is not just saying; it has deep associations in your being. Once you call a thing emptiness, you become afraid - the very word.

In India, we have better words for emptiness. We call it SHUNYA. The very word is positive; it has nothing of negativity in it. It is beautiful. It simply means space, with no boundaries: SHUNYA. And we have called the ultimate goal shunya. Buddha says when you become shunya, when you become absolutely nothing, a nothingness, then you have attained.

A poet, an artist, a painter, is on the way to becoming a mystic. All artistic activity is on the way towards becoming religious. When you are active, writing a poem, you are in the mind. When the poem is born you are spent, and the mind takes rest. Use these moments to fall into your being. Don't call it emptiness; call it wholeness, call it being, call it truth, call it God. And then you will be able to feel the benediction of it.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

I don't see the problem. Can you find a more open space than me? And can you find a more wild sea than me?

I am absolute lawlessness.

There is no problem. Don't try to create a problem where none exists. Just look into my eyes: I am the sea you are seeking, and I am the vast empty space you have always been searching for through many of your Lives. Now by chance, just coincidentally you are close to me. Don't miss this opportunity. There are many ways to miss it, there is only one way not to miss it. There are a thousand and one ways to go away from me, there is only one way to come near me. So it is almost impossible that you will be able to come near me, because the possibility to go astray is more - one thousand and one. You can find so many reasons to go away from me, and you can justify them, you can rationalize and you can feel perfectly right in going away from me. But to come close to me is going to be arduous and difficult, because everybody wants freedom. At least, everybody THINKS that they want freedom. But I rarely come across a man who really wants freedom; he thinks he wants freedom. Because to be free means to be nobody. If you are somebody, that 'somebodiness' will be your imprisonment.

To find infinite space means that you will have to dissolve. Because you create, you go on creating your boundaries around you. To move to the wild sea, uncharted, you will have to throw all your maps, all your scriptures, all your religions, all your concepts and ideologies. To move into space which has no boundaries to it, is to die: to die to the known and to trust the unknown, which is the most difficult thing in the world.

I will tell you one story. It is a very ancient story, and one of the most beautiful I have ever come across.

There was a very wise king. His own prime minister committed a betrayal: he delivered some secrets to the neighboring country, to the enemy. The prime minister was caught red-handed. There was only one punishment for it, and that was death. But the old king had always loved this man. He was sentenced to death, but the old man gave him an opportunity. The last day, he called his whole court. On one side there was a gun ready to kill the man, on the other side there was a black door. And the king said,'You can choose, either to die - you have to die - or you can choose this black door. It is up to you.' The prime minister asked,'What is behind that black door?' The king said,'That is not allowed. Nobody knows, because nobody has chosen it before. In the times of my father, in the times of my grandfather, many times the opportunity had been given, but nobody has chosen and nobody knows. And nobody is allowed; even I don't know. I have the key, but when my father died he said to me,'I will open the door and you can go in and I will close it. Don't look into it.' But you can see because - you can choose. You can discover what is there. It is up to you.'

The prime minister brooded and brooded, and then he chose the gun. He said,'Kill me with the gun. I don't want to go behind that black door.' The prime minister was killed. The queen was very curious. She persuaded the king somehow to see what was behind it. The king laughed. He said,'I know - there is nothing behind it. It's simple freedom; there is not even a room. This door opens to the wide world. There is nothing, but nobody has chosen it yet.'

People even choose death before choosing the unknown. People even choose to be miserable before choosing the unknown. The unknown seems to be more dangerous than death itself. And freedom is the door unknown. Freedom means moving into the unknown, not knowing where one is going, not knowing what is going to happen the next moment. It is a black door. Rarely, sometimes a Jesus or a Buddha choose the door; all else choose the gun.

You are dying every day, but you still cling to this life which gives you nothing except death. You choose death, you don't choose real life. Real life is hazardous, insecure. You talk about wild seas, you talk about infinite spaces: look into me, and you will get scared. Look deeply into me, and you will become afraid. There is only one way to come near me, and that is to love. To love me is to die to the past. To love means to trust, to surrender. And there is no problem. If you really love open spaces and the wild sea, I invite you.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

I am the black door - and there is no other way to know me except by entering me. You say you have never loved. Unless you love, how will you know? You say you have never been in any deep, intimate relationship. Unless you are, how you are going to know it?

Love, surrender, trust, are like swimming. You have to go to the river. You cannot make it a condition that you will not get into the river unless you know swimming. If you make that condition you will never learn, because there is no other way to learn it. You have to go, cautiously of course, slowly of course; there is no need to go to the deepest part. But enter - find a spot where you can learn swimming and where you are not afraid to die.

Don't enter into me, just give your hand to me. That's what sannyas is. It is just a beginning, the beginning of the beginning. It is just a gesture on your part that you are ready to come with me. When you go swimming, you have to trust the Master who teaches you. It is dangerous, because who knows? But if you trust, by and by, you become capable, capable of going to the deeper parts of the river.

Once you know swimming, then there iB no fear. Whether it is Six feet deep, or six thousand feet deep makes no difference once you know swimming.

I don't say take the jump. I simply say, slowly enter the river. Remain near the bank where you can feel that any time, if there is danger, you can get back to the bank. Just give your hand to me, just trust. And there is no other way.

To know what trust is, one haB to trust. To know what love is, one has to love.

You have been missing your whole life because you have never allowed the unknown to enter into your life. You wanted first to make it known.

Again you are doing the same. You want to become a sannyasin: it is natural that in the beginning it is going to be a decision on your mind's part. Your mind will have to decide. And naturally, it will only be part of your mind. It cannot be total. By and by, it will become total. Sometimes it may not even be the major part, it may be the minor part. Ten percent - of you would like to become a sannyasin, and ninety percent of you is afraid, but the ninety percent that is afraid is already dead. You have lived that ninety percent, and you have found nothing.

This is the quality of courage: to be always ready to search the unknown, the yet undiscovered. Because that which you have discovered has been found futile.

Move, be courageous. There are treasures to be discovered; you are carrying them. I am not going to give you anything that you do not already have. You have it. You have the treasure, you have the key. At the most, I can show you how to unlock, how to use the key. At the most, I can show you where the Lock iB and where the key is within you. I can bring together the key part and the lock part? that's all. The treasure is yours, it is already there. But you will have to do something.

In the beginning, you will do it hesitantly. In the beginning you may even feel that it is hypocritical, because you are not total. Good - this is a good indication, that you are afraid of being hypocritical. It is a good indication that you would like to take sannyas, and yet you know that only part of you does, and that too you are not certain about whether it is real, imaginary, illusory, or deceptive.

One has to move in spite of all the doubts: that's what courage is. To be a courageous man does not mean that you have no fears. A man who has courage, and a cowards are not different basically. The coward has idea to move into the dark, into the unknown, and the brave man also has the fear. But the brave man is one who listens to the call of the unknown in spite of the barriers of the known, and the coward is one who listens to the known in spite of the call of the unknown. He listens to the known, and the courageous man listens to the unknown; that is the only dirference.

Both parts exist in every person. Every brave man has his coward behind him, but he does not listen to it. And every coward has his brave qualities hidden within him, but he has not listened to them. And to whatsoever part you listen, you become that.

So take courage. Always take the invitation of the. unknown and your life will become an adventure.

A sannyasin is one who has accepted life as an adventure, as a pilgrimage, as a river flowing to the ocean.

The sixth question:

Question 6:

Yes, you ARE in a school. This is a school. We are learning to be ourselves here; we are trying the greatest adventure there is - of discovering oneself, of reaching to one's own innermost core. It is a learning place, it is a school. But the whole point is, the whole teaching of THIS school is not to be worried about right and wrong, not to be worried about good and bad, not to be worried about morality and difference, not to be worried about lower and higher.

The whole point of this school is to become choiceless.

Now I will read the question again:'I sometimes feel such a fear of missing, as if I were in a school, and if I didn't do the right thing I would flunk out.'

This is the right thing here: not to be worried about right and wrong. To accept oneself is the right thing here, to accept yourself, whatsoever you are, howsoever you are; to accept in totality and in deep humbleness that this is the way you are, that this is the way God intended you to be.

We are not trying to change you, we are not trying to improve you, we are not trying any ego-trip. We are simply trying to help you discover who you are. So the right thing here is not to be worried about right and wrong, not to be worried about this and that. We are not going to choose a character, a morality, a code of conduct. No, we are trying to find out who we are. Once you know who you are, no code of conduct is needed, no conceptions of right and wrong are needed.

Once you know who you are, all that you do is right. And, if you don't know who you are, all that you do is wrong.

So, we are not worried about right and wrong.

The seventh question:

Question 7:

This is from Madhuri.

I am killing you Madhuri. I am a murderer, and you are trapped. You cannot escape me now because once you have tasted a little death, you cannot escape.

Because now you know much more is going to come. Once you have tasted a little death of the ego, you know, you can imagine now, you can dream of what a beautiful space is going to be there when the whole ego disappears: when you look within yourself and you don't find anybody there, just emptiness, vast emptiness. If you have found a little empty corner in your being, then you cannot move away now. You have tasted.

Now, you cannot go back to the ordinary world. Unless you die, there is no going back. Once you die, I will send you back to the ordinary world, because then nothing can corrupt you. Who can corrupt an emptiness? How can an emptiness be corrupted? It is open, absolutely vulnerable, and yet invulnerable, because nobody can corrupt it. It is incorruptible, it is virgin.

The eighth question:

Question 8:

That's what I am calling emptiness, SHUNYA, poor in spirit: those who are nobodies, who cannot claim anything, who have no claims to make - who are just nobodies.

Let me tell you one anecdote: A Sufi sage once asked his disciples to tell him what their vanities had been before they began to study with him. The first said,'I imagined that I was the most handsome man in the world.' The second said,'I believed that, since I was religious, I was one of the elect, the chosen few.' The third said,'I believed I knew, and I also believed that I could teach.' And the fourth said,'My vanity was greater than all these, for I believed that I could learn.'

The sage remarked,'And the fourth disciple's vanity still remains the greatest, for his vanity is to show that he once had the greatest vanity. It still remains the greatest.'

You can become egoistic about your humbleness also. To be poor in spirit means simply to be nobody, not even humble. A humble man is not poor in spirit, a humble man is ego, upside-down, ego in a see saw, a head stand. A humble man is not REALLY humble. A humble man is not humble at all, because humility is also a function of the ego. When the ego disappears, humbleness also disappears.

When you are gone, where can the shadow fall? When you are gone, there is not even shadow. When the ego is gone, humbleness also disappears; it is a shadow of the same disease.

The poor in spirit is one who has come to understand that he is not. To know that one is not is to know that one is part of the whole:'The whole is, I am not.' The ocean is, the drop is not. And the poor in spirit is the richest man there is, the richest that is possible. The poor in spirit is the richest, because the emptiest is the fullest. Here, death means life.

And when I say I am a murderer, I simply mean that I am a midwife. Here, destroying you means giving you rebirth - a new being, a being without any ego.

The ninth question:

Question 9:

This is from Vishnu Chaitanya.

Vishnu Chaitanya, something is eating you: some deep worry is inside that creates hurry; some deep tension which does not allow you to relax.

So, the next time you are eating something, watch what is eating you. When you are hurrying, just watch. Are you escaping from somewhere? Are you trying to avoid some situation? Are you trying not to see something which is there inside you? Are you trying to suppress something? Is there some worry and you don't even want to accept that it is there? Is there some wound which you are hiding in flowers? Watch deep down. All people who are in a hurry simply show that they are carrying some deep worry, and they are not even courageous enough to face it. Bring it up, let it surface. Encounter it, and you will be simply surprised. If you can encounter any problem face to face, directly, it disappears. In the inner world, to know that a problem is, to know exactly what it is, to diagnose, is to treat. There is no other medicine in the inner world. A problem only exists if you go on suppressing it. If you don't allow it to be confronted, it exists. And people go on piling many problems, and then they are always in a hurry. In their hurry they are trying to evade; because if they rest, silently sit, they Will have to face.

So they are CONSTANTLY in a hurry, running, doing this and that. Only when they fall asleep, then apparently are they at rest; but deep down not even then.

Then, in their dreams and in their nightmares, they are travelling, and hurrying, and running.

Many people come to me and they say that a certain dream occurs continuously.

And this is one of the most common dreams: that one is hurrying in the dream towards the station, and by the time one reaches the platform, the train leaves.

This is a very common dream. What does it mean? It means that you are always and always missing the point, missing the target. And the whole point of worry is that it needs to be recognized, it needs to be paid attention to, it needs to be brought into the consciousness.

All the group therapies that we are doing here are nothing but to bring out all that is repressed, to help it to surface so that it comes into the consciousness.

Once any problem comes into the consciousness, it disappears. It is just as if you watch, sit near a river and watch. If the water is clean you can see bubbles coming up. A few bubbles, just on the bottom, go on clinging; they will remain. If any bubble comes up, the closer it comes to the surface the bigger it becomes; because with less pressure of the water, it becomes bigger. When it comes to the surface, it is the biggest. It may have been just a small bubble at the bottom, but on the surface it is a big bubble. But then within seconds it erupts, it is gone.

The same, exactly the same happens whenever you are suppressing something. It may be a very small thing, and you are afraid to bring it to consciousness because when it comes towards the conscious it starts becoming bigger and bigger; the repression is less and less, and the pressure is less. It becomes bigger, you become afraid. You force it back again. Many people who start meditating here come to me and they say,'We were never so worried as we are now.' Or they say?'We were never so sad,' or,'We were never so miserable,' or,'We were never so much in anguish and anxiety.' Their bubbles are becoming bigger because they are coming nearer to the surface. This is a good sign, a healthy sign that something is happening I tell them: Be happy, feel grateful that something is happening. The bubbles are leaving the bottom of your being and coming to the surface. Once they come to the surface, they explode, because then there is no pressure on them and they cannot exist.

A problem can exist only through pressure. No problem can exist without pressure; it disappears. The whole point of all the therapies here is to bring all your problems to the surface. Know, watch, become aware, and the problem disappears. Knowledge - rather, knowing - is transformation. Don't ask,'Once we know the problem is there, what has to be done?' If you really know it, it is no more there.

This is the beauty of the inner world: once you know a thing, it is no longer there.

It remains only if you go on forcing it, repressing it, avoiding knowledge, avoiding recognition.

Problems exist through your ignorance, through your unconsciousness.

Consciousness is the solution. Remember, I call it the SOLUTION. It has nothing to do with any particular problem. Every and all problems disappear through it - - it is THE SOLUTION.

The tenth question:

Question 10:

If your question is authentic, then there is a limit. But if your questions are borrowed, borrowed from the books, borrowed from others, borrowed from knowledge and information, then there is no limit. If your question is true, relevant to your being, then there is a limit. Sooner or later you will come to it; they are finished. But if they are scholarly, then there is no limit to it.

Let me tell you one anecdote.

It happened: The lady of the house was out when her new maid called at her home and rang the bell. The pet parrot answered by calling,'Who is that?'

'It is the new maid,' was the reply. There was a pause. Then the girl rang the bell again, and the parrot answered,'Who is that?'

'It is the new maid,' came the reply once more. She was a little annoyed. This went on until the exasperated girl fell on the ground and fainted, because she would say,'It is the new maid,' and the parrot would ask again,'Who is that?'

because that was the only question he could ask. That was a borrowed question; it was not his question. He didn't even know what it meant.

Returning home, the householder stumbled across the body, and exclaimed,'Who is that!'

'It is the new maid,' answered the parrot, because by now he had learned it.

The eleventh question:

Question 11:

In fact, they always happen together, they cannot happen separately. It is impossible to separate them, because they are two aspects of the same coin:

commitment and unattachment. If you are attached, then it is not a commitment.

Then you are using the other for yourself because it is an attachment.

You love a person and you say,'I am committed and attached.' What does attachment mean? It means that you are using the other person for yourself, you are using the other person as a means. How can one be committed to a means?

Commitment is possible only towards an end, not towards a means. You cannot be committed to a car, you cannot be committed to a house. They are means; they have to be used. You can only Be committed to an alive person, because each person is the goal.

Love is not using the person for your own pleasure. Much pleasure comes through it, but that is a by-product. You love the person as an end; you are committed. You can give your very life to the person, but there is no attachment, because attachment means that you are using the person for yourself.

Commitment with nonattachment means that now the other has become the goal, the end, the very end. They always happen together, and if they cannot happen together then you are missing something. If commitment is with attachment, then you are just deceiving yourself that it is a commitment. Sooner or later, if the person dies, you will find another person - because you were using the person. Now that he is not available, you will find another person.

A commitment is eternal. Your wife dies: on that day, all women disappear from the world for you. You loved her as a goal. Now it is even impossible to conceive that you can love another. It was so total that nothing is left behind. And it was so total that only the body can die, not the soul of that being. Death cannot part two lovers. If they really loved, they had conquered death already. Love is immortal. But if there was only an attachment, then after a few weeks or a few days the wound is healed. You loved the person because of you, for your own pleasure. Now you will find another person. In fact, you love your husband, you say that you love, and he's dying - or your wife - and when the wife is dying, on the deathbed, if somebody could open a window in your head and look, you are already planning and trying to find a new woman.

The mind, at the most, exploits. It can never become a deep commitment. Deep commitment is of being. It knows no time, it knows no death. I am not saying that it is permanent, because permanence is part of time. It is eternal. It has the fragrance of divineness.

Let me tell you one anecdote: A politician named Strange lay dying. A friend asked him what he would like inscribed on his tombstone,'Just put,' said the politician: Here lies an honest politician.

'But,' said the friend,'that doesn't tell who it is.'

'Oh yes, replied the politician,'the passer-by will say,'That is strange - a politician, and honest?' - no need to say the name. Passers-by will by themselves say,'That is strange.'

Attachment and love never go together; commitment and attachment never go together. Love goes with unattachment. Then love has a purity of the other world. Then love is absolute essence, absolute pureness, innocence. And then there is a commitment. That commitment is eternal.

The twelfth question:

Question 12:

You have got the point exactly, precisely. That is the whole point: be spontaneous.

And whatsoever I am saying is not contradictory. You can get confused because you are already confused. And in your confusion, when my words enter they create even more confusion - because a confused mind can only create more confusion, nothing else.

What I am saying is not contradictory at all. It may appear so sometimes, but it is not.

Let me tell you a Sufi story.

An interchange between a Sufi and an enquirer:'Which statement should one choose if two Sufi sayings contradict each other?'

'They only contradict one another if viewed separately. If you clap your hands and observe only the movement of the hands, they appear to oppose one another. You have not seen what is happening. The purpose of the opposition of the palms was, of course, to produce the hand clap. If I clap my hands they are opposing each other, but there is a synthesis in the sound; the opposition is creating a synthesis.'

I go on talking of so many different things to create a certain sound in you. That sound is spontaneity. If you have understood that, you have understood rightly.

The last question:

Question 13:

I will tell you an anecdote.

A persistent man said that he would teach a parrot to say 'hello' in an hour. He went close to the parrot's cage, and started saying,'Hello, hello.' This went on for a full thirty minutes without the parrot giving the slightest attention. At last the bird turned his head slowly, blinked at the man, and said,'Number engaged.'

I will not say anything else about it.

You say 'hello'? You don't know; it can be said to me only through your being.

Otherwise, the number is engaged. Words won't reach me. You will have to say them through your total being; otherwise, the number is engaged.