True or false

Truth is. It needs no effort on your part to invent it. Truth has to be discovered, not invented. And what is hindering us from discovering it? We have been taught many lies, mountains of lies. Those are the barriers which go on falsifying the truth, which do not allow our hearts to reflect that which is.

Truth is not a logical conclusion. Truth is existence, reality. It is already here - it has always been here. Only truth exists. Then why cannot we find it? How do we manage not to find it? Because from the very childhood we are taught falsities, prejudices, ideologies, religions, philosophies...all lead you astray.

Truth is not an idea. You need not be a Hindu to know it, or a Mohammedan, or a Christian. If you are a Hindu you will never know it; your very being a Hindu will keep you blind. What do we mean when we say, "I am a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, or a Jew"? We mean, "I have already got ideas about truth - ideas from the Bible or the Koran or the Gita, but I have got ideas already. I don't know the truth, but I know much about it." And that knowing much about it is the only problem that has to be solved.

Once you drop your ideas about truth you will be confronting it, within and without both. You will be facing it - because there is nothing else!

But the parents, the society, the state, the church, the educational system, they all depend on lies. As the child is born they start trapping it into lies. And the child is helpless. He cannot escape his parents, he is utterly dependent. You can exploit his dependence...and it has been exploited down the ages.

Nobody has been exploited so much as children - neither the proletariat nor women, nobody has been exploited so much and so deeply and so destructively as the innocent children. Because they are helpless and dependent they have to learn whatsoever you teach them. They have to imbibe all the falsehoods that you go on forcing upon them. It is a question of survival for them - they cannot survive without you. It is a question of life and death! They have to be Hindus, they have to be Mohammedans, they have to be Jainas, they have to be Buddhists, they have to be communists. Whatsoever you are interested in putting into their minds, you go on putting it in.

Instead of making them more alert, more aware, more alive, more reflective, instead of making them more mirrorlike, pure, you make them full of ideas...layers and layers of dust. And then it becomes impossible for them to see that which is. They start seeing that which is not and they stop seeing that which is.

Hence, to be really religious means a rebirth: again becoming like a child, dropping all that the society has given to you.

Religion is a rebellion - a rebellion against all that has been forced upon you, a rebellion against being reduced to a computer. Just look inside! Whatsoever you know, you have been told; it is not your knowing, it is not authentic. How can it be authentic if it is not yours? You are not a witness to it, you are just a victim - a victim of circumstances.

It is just an accident to be born in India or to be born in England. It is just an accident to be born in a Hindu family or in a Christian family. Because of these accidents your essential nature has been lost - you have been forced to lose it. If you want to regain it you will have to be reborn.

That's precisely what the meaning is when Jesus says to Nicodemus, "Unless you are born again you will not enter into the Kingdom of God." He does not mean that you actually have to die, commit suicide, and then be born again. That won't help, because again you will be born to some parents in a certain society, within a certain church, and again the same stupidity is going to be done to you.

Jesus means by 'rebirth' that deliberately, consciously, now you are capable of dropping all that has been taught to you. Drop your knowledge and become innocent. And that is the only way to become innocent. Knowledge is a contamination. To be in a state of not- knowing is innocence, and to function from that state is the only way to know the truth.

Meditate over these tremendously significant sutras of Gautama the Buddha. He says:

Mind is nothing but desire. The heart knows no desire. You will be surprised to hear it, that all desires belong to the head. The heart lives in the present; it pulsates, beats, in the herenow. It knows nothing of the past and it knows nothing of the future. It is always now, here.

And I am not talking about a certain philosophy. I am simply stating a fact so simple you can observe it within yourself: your heart is beating now. It cannot beat in the past, it cannot beat in the future. The heart only knows the present, hence it is utterly pure. It is not polluted by the past memories, by knowledge, by experience, by all that you have been told and taught, by the scriptures, by the traditions. It knows nothing of all that nonsense! And it knows nothing of the future, of the morrow. For it, past exists no more, the future not yet. It is utterly here. It is immediate.

But the mind is just the opposite of the heart: the mind is never now, here. Either it thinks of beautiful experiences of the past or it desires the same beautiful experiences in the future. It goes on shuttling between past and future, it never stops at the present. It is utterly unaware of the present. For the mind, the present exists not. See the point: the present is the only thing that exists, but for the mind the present is the only thing that exists not. Past is nonexistential, future is nonexistential, but those are the things which are existential for the mind.

The head is the problem...and the heart is the solution. The child functions from the heart. As you start growing, you start moving from the heart to the head. When you graduate from the university you have completely forgotten about the heart. You are hung up in the head, your whole energy has moved to the head. Now you don't know anything of reality. You are full of garbage - scholarly garbage, academic nonsense.

You may be a Ph.D., a D.Litt. You know much, knowing nothing at all! - because real knowing happens in the heart, not in the head. And the universities exist to distract your energies from the heart to the head.

All the universities in the world up to now have been enemies of humanity. Their whole function is to serve the state and the church. They are agents of the status quo, they are agents of the vested interests. They don't serve you, they serve the powers, the masters, the oppressors, the exploiters. Whosoever happens to be in power the universities serve. They are not in the service of humanity yet.

If they were really in the service of humanity, then the university would be the place to learn rebellion. The university would create revolutionaries. The university would not create conventionalists, conformists; the university would create nonconformists, nonconventional people. It would create rebels - adventurous, ready to risk their lives for truth. That has not happened yet.

It is a sad fact that in the name of education something ugly is continued, something very ugly. Behind a facade, something very criminal continues. And this is the crime:

that they divert your energies from the heart to the head, they destroy your capacity to love and they force you to learn logic. Logic is more important than love for them, thinking is more important than sensitivity. This is just putting the bullocks behind the cart. It is totally topsy-turvy.

That's why humanity is in such a mess: the untrue seems to be true and the true seems to be untrue. They have succeeded in distorting your vision. The buddhas have been fighting against all these vested interests.

Buddha says: MISTAKING THE FALSE FOR THE TRUE AND THE TRUE FOR THE FALSE, YOU OVERLOOK THE HEART AND FILL YOURSELF WITH DESIRE.

Mind is desire, and you go on filling yourself with more and more desire, more and more ambition, more and more longing for power, prestige, wealth. And you completely forget that there is a heart beating within you which already lives in God, which is already part of the ultimate law - aes dhammo sanantano - which is already part of the inexhaustible, eternal law. You are joined from the heart to God. Your hearts are the roots in the soil of God.

Your hearts are still being nourished by God, by truth, but you are not there. You have vacated the place. You live in your head. Day in, day out, you live in your head; you never descend from there. Even in the night while asleep you go on rumbling in the head...dreams, and dreams upon dreams. In the day thoughts, in the night dreams.

They are not different.

The dream is only a translation of thinking in the language of sleep, and vice versa:

thinking is nothing but a translation of dreaming in the language of the day. You go on moving between these two: dreaming and thinking. Both are desiring. What do you think? What is there to think except desire? And what do you dream except desire?

Buddha says the false appears to be true because you have become false to your own truth, to your own heart. Come back to the heart, and then you will be able to know the truth as the truth and the false as the false. That is enlightenment, that is coming home.

But from where to begin? Begin from seeing the false as the false. That's why all the buddhas appear to be negative, all buddhas appear to be destructive. They negate. Jesus negates. He says again and again: It has been told to you in the past, but I say to you....

And he changes the whole standpoint.

For example, he says: It has been told to you in the past that tit for tat is the law. If somebody throws a brick at you, react by throwing a rock. But I say unto you, if somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other cheek too. And if somebody takes away your coat, give him your shirt too. And if somebody forces you to go one mile with him, go two miles.

Mohammed is against all kinds of images of God, because his people were worshipping for centuries; they had three hundred and sixty-five gods - one god for every day of the year. The Kaaba of Mohammed's days was one of the greatest temples on the earth - dedicated to three hundred and sixty-five gods! Mohammed destroyed all those idols. It looks negative....

Buddha says: There is no truth in the Vedas, in the Upanishads. Beware of beautiful words, beware of philosophic speculation. Don't waste your time with hairsplitting, with logic. Be silent! Throw the Vedas out of your head, only then can you be silent. He looks negative, he looks nihilistic, he look dangerous - but that is the only way you can be helped.

You have to be told the false is false. You have to begin with this: neti, neti - neither this nor that. The master has to say to you, "This is false, that is false." He has to go on pointing out to you whatsoever is false first, because when you have known all that is false, suddenly a transformation happens in your consciousness. When you have become aware of the false, you start becoming aware of the true.

You cannot be taught what is truth, but you can certainly be taught what is not truth.

You have been conditioned, you can be unconditioned. You have been hypnotized - as Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Jainas.... The function of a master is to dehypnotize you. Once you are dehypnotized, suddenly you will be able to see the truth. The truth need not be taught.

One of the most significant statements ever: LOOK INTO YOUR HEART. FOLLOW YOUR NATURE. He is not saying follow scriptures. He is not saying follow me. He is not saying follow certain rules of conduct. He is not teaching you any morality. He is not trying to create a certain character around you, because all characters are beautiful prison cells. He is not giving you a certain way of life. Rather he is giving you courage, encouragement, to follow your own nature. He wants you to be brave enough to listen to your own heart and go accordingly.

"Follow your nature" means flow with yourself. You are the scripture...and hidden deep down within you is a still, small voice. If you become silent you will be guided from there.

The master has only to make you aware of your inner master. Then his function is fulfilled. Then he can leave you to yourself; he can throw you back upon yourself. A master is not to enslave the disciple; a master is to free him, to give him total freedom.

And this is the only possibility of attaining total freedom: FOLLOW YOUR NATURE.

By "nature" Buddha means dhamma. Just as it is the nature of water to flow downwards and it is the nature of fire to rise upwards, so there is a certain nature hidden in you. If all the conditionings that have been put around you by the society are removed, suddenly you will discover your nature. Your nature has become God. Aes dhammo sanantano - this is the eternal, inexhaustible law: your nature is to become God.

Man is a potential god - a bodhisattva. Man is meant to become a god. Less than that won't satisfy you, less than that is of no use. You can have all the money in the world, all the power, all the prestige possible, and still you will remain empty - unless your divine nature flowers, opens its buds, unless you become a lotus, a one-thousand- petaled lotus, unless your divinity is revealed to you, you can never be contented.

The ordinary religious person is told to remain satisfied, contented, with whatsoever is the case. The so-called religious saints go on teaching people: Be satisfied. Satisfaction is one of their fundamental teachings. That is not the way of the true masters.

The true master creates discontent in you - and such a discontent that nothing of this world can ever satisfy it. He creates such a longing in you, that unless you attain to the ultimate you will remain aflame, afire. He creates pain in your heart, he creates anguish...because life is slipping by every moment, and each moment gone is gone forever, and you have not attained to God yet, and one day is over.

He creates such a deep longing in you, such pain in the heart! He creates tears in your eyes, because only through such divine discontent will you move, will you take the quantum leap, the ultimate jump into the unknown. It is only through such divine discontent that you will gather together all your energies, and you will risk, and you will go on the ultimate adventure of finding who you are.

Follow your own nature. Your nature is consciousness. But you have been told by the priests: follow certain rules of conduct, the ten commandments, follow certain principles - not your nature. Priests are very much afraid of your nature, because if you follow your nature you will get out of their grip, you will be a slave no more. You won't go to the churches and the temples and the mosques, and you won't listen to your stupid priests, politicians, the so-called leaders. I call them "so-called leaders" because what is actually happening is that blind people are leading other blind people.

You won't listen to them anymore if you listen to your own nature. If you know your own inner voice you will become free. Your inner voice has to be crushed, destroyed, utterly destroyed - at least distorted so much that even if you hear it you can't understand it. And they have succeeded. Unless you struggle hard against them there is no possibility of succeeding. Their exploitation is so old, their oppression is so ancient, their strategies are so cunning...and they have infinite power in their hands. And what are you against them as an individual?

But if you go in, if you listen to your heart, you will attain to such power that no power on the earth can enslave you again.

FOLLOW YOUR NATURE.... But how to follow your nature if you don't know what it is? And you are not allowed to know it! You are given precise instructions as to what to do: what to eat, when to get up in the morning, when to go to bed. You have been given precise instructions. Those instructions, if followed, make you a slave. If not followed, they make you a criminal. If followed, you become a saint - but a slave. People will worship you, respect you, but all that respect is a mutual understanding: "If you follow our instructions, we will respect you. If you don't follow, you will be thrown into jail."

Either you are made a slave spiritually or a prisoner physically: these are the two alternatives the society gives to you. And it never lets you become aware that there is a source of infinite guidance within you, from where God speaks.

God still speaks, he has not stopped speaking. He is not partial - it is not that he spoke to Mohammed and to Moses and he does not speak to you. He is speaking to you as much as he was speaking to Mohammed. The only difference is, Mohammed was ready to listen and you are not ready to listen. Mohammed was available and you are not available.

To become available to your inner nature is what I call meditation.

Remember these two words. 'Character' is an invention of the politicians and the priests; it is a conspiracy against you. Consciousness is your nature. Yes, a man of consciousness has a certain character, but that character follows his consciousness. It is not imposed by anybody else on him; it is his own decision. And he is not encaged in it; he is totally free to change it any moment. As circumstances change, his consciousness gives him different directions and he changes his character.

The man of character - the so-called man of character - is encaged. Even if circumstances change he goes on repeating the same character, although it is no longer relevant, it does not fit. The context in which it was meaningful has disappeared, but he goes on repeating the same nonsense. He is like a parrot. He is a machine: he does not respond, he only reacts.

A man of consciousness responds, and his responses are spontaneous. He is mirrorlike:

he reflects whatsoever confronts him. And out of this spontaneity, out of this consciousness, a new kind of action is born. That action never creates any bondage, any karma. That action frees you. You remain a freedom if you listen to your nature.

But this simple advice seems to be very difficult for people. It should be the simplest thing in the world. Each child is born following his nature, but as you grow up, slowly you lose contact with it - you are forced to lose contact with it. The contact can be regained, it can be rediscovered. Later on, when you become very knowledgeable, encaged in a certain character, utterly blind to your own heart and nature, you start asking such questions.

Just the other day Prem Vijen asked:

"Beloved Master, what do you mean when you say 'Go in'?" Such a simple statement - "Go in" - and you ask me, "What do you mean?" Can't you understand these simple words, 'go in'? I know you understand the words, but going in has become so difficult because you have been taught only how to go out. You can only go out, you only know how to go out. Your consciousness has been turned towards others; it has forgotten the way to itself. You go on knocking on others' doors, and whenever it is said to you, "Go home," you say, "What do you mean by 'going home'?" You know only others' houses, but you don't know your own home. And you are carrying it within yourself. You have been forced to become extroverts. One has to learn again ways of inwardness.

Soren Kierkegaard has said: Religion means inwardness - going into your own interiority. But the simple words, 'go in', have become so difficult to understand. Mind only knows how to go out; it has no reverse gear in it.

I have heard that when Ford made his first cars they had no reverse gear. It was a later addition. Without a reverse gear it was really a problem: whenever you wanted to come back you had to go miles unnecessarily, you had to go round. Even if you wanted to go a few feet back, you might have to take a journey of miles. Then Ford became aware that a reverse gear was needed.

I am teaching you here that the reverse gear is there, built in, you have just forgotten about it. You know how to go out. Nobody asks, "What does it mean when you say 'Go out'?" But everybody wants to ask, "What do you mean when you say 'Go in'?" Simple words!

Thinking is going out: nonthinking is going in. Think, and you have started moving away from yourself. Thought is the way leading you farther away. Thought is a project.

No-thought...and suddenly you are in. Without thought you cannot go out, without desire you cannot go out. You need the fuel of desire and the vehicle of thought to go out.

Sitting silently, doing nothing...not even thinking, not even desiring...and where will you be?

Going in is not really going in. It is simply stopping going out...and suddenly you find yourself in.

Prem Vijen, you need not go in because if you go you will always go out. Going means going out. Stop going! Stop going anywhere! Can't you sit silently without going anywhere? Yes, physically you can sit, that is not very difficult. You can learn a yoga posture and you can make your body almost a statue, but the problem is - what are you doing inside? Desires, thoughts, memories, imagination, all kinds of projects? - stop them too.

How to stop them? Just become indifferent to them, unconcerned. Even if they are there, don't pay attention to them. Even if they are there, don't give them any importance. Even if they are there, let them be. You sit silently inside - watching.

Remember that word 'watching' - witnessing, just being alert.

And as watching grows, becomes deeper, the same energy that was becoming desires and thoughts and memories and imagination - the same energy is absorbed in the new depth. The same energy is used by this deepening inwardness. And you will know what it means when I say "Go in."

Don't start looking in the dictionaries or in the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. It is not a question of words! Words are simple to understand; when I say "Go in," that's exactly what I mean - go in! Don't start asking about the words - listen to the hidden message; otherwise you will miss the train. What do I mean by 'missing the train'?

Let me tell you a story:

A naive farmer's wife arrived at Paddington Station to catch a train, and having some time to spare before the train arrived, she thought she would check out her weight on a nearby weighing machine.

She got on, put in a penny and out popped a card which read, "You weigh one hundred and fifty pounds and in five minutes from now you will fart." Red with embarrassment and feeling a little outraged, she got off the scale and hurried away. Five minutes later, to her total amazement, she farted loud and long.

Very embarrassed, but intrigued, she made her way back to the machine to see what it had to say this time. In went the penny - out came the card: "You still weigh one hundred and fifty pounds and in five minutes from now you will be raped." She jumped off the machine in disgust and walked firmly away.

A newspaper salesman, who was having a particularly slack morning, saw this country bumpkin and thought to have some fun, so before she knew what was happening, she was pulled behind the counter and raped. Emerging a few minutes later in a terrible state, with her hat on one side, the heel of her shoe broken, and in a total state of shock, she staggered back to the machine and blindly put in a penny. Out came the card: "You still weigh one hundred and fifty pounds, and with all this farting and fucking, you've missed the train!"

If you become too much interested in words - "What does it mean to go in? What does it mean, verbally, linguistically?" - Vijen, you are going to miss the train. Don't waste time with words!

And it is a particularly new kind of disease that has gripped the intellectuals of the world. For at least fifty years the philosophical world has become too much interested in words, linguistic analysis. They don't ask anymore what God is. They don't ask anymore whether God exists or not. The contemporary philosophers ask, "What does it mean when you use the word 'God'?" It is not a question of whether God exists or not. It is not a question of what God is. It is not a question of how to attain God. Now the question has taken a very new turn: "What do you mean when you use the word 'God'?"

What do you mean when you use the word 'rose'? Now it is easy: you can take hold of the philosopher, force him to go to the garden, and you can show him the rose: "This is what I mean when I use the word 'rose'." But this cannot be done with the word 'God' - and this cannot be done with the word 'meditation' and this cannot be done with the words 'going in'. These are subtle phenomena. Don't become linguistically interested. I am not here to teach you linguistic analysis.

My whole approach is existential. If you really want to know what it means to go in, go in! And the way is: watch your thoughts and don't get identified with them. Just remain a watcher, utterly indifferent, neither for nor against. Don't judge, because every judgment brings identification. Don't say, "These thoughts are wrong," and don't say, "These thoughts are good." Don't comment on the thoughts. Just let them pass as if it is just traffic passing by, and you are standing by the side of the road unconcerned, looking at the traffic.

It does not matter what is passing by - a bus, a truck, a bicycle. If you can watch the thought process of your mind with such unconcern, with such detachment, that moment is not very far away when one day the whole traffic disappears...because the traffic can exist only if you go on giving energy to it. If you stop giving energy to it....

And that's what watching is: stopping giving energy to it, stopping energy moving into the traffic. It is your energy that makes those thoughts move. When your energy is not coming they start falling; they cannot stand on their own.

And when the road of the mind is utterly empty, you are in. That's what I mean, Vijen, when I say "Go in." And that's what Buddha means when he says: FOLLOW YOUR NATURE.

AN UNREFLECTING MIND.... Buddha does not mean by "reflection" thinking, mind you. By "reflection" he simply means reflection, not thinking - reflection in the sense that a mirror reflects. When you come before a mirror, the mirror is not thinking about you. The mirror simply mirrors! That mirroring is what Buddha means.

AN UNREFLECTING MIND - a mind that has forgotten how to mirror - IS A POOR ROOF. And we have forgotten how to mirror. We know how to think, we don't know how to reflect.

Just think of a child: a child is born, for the first time a child opens his eyes - he will see the trees, but he will not be able to say to himself, "These are trees." He will see light, but he will not be able to say within himself, "This is electric light." He will see the redness of the rose, but he will not be able to say, "This is a roseflower and the color is red." He will see everything, but he will not say anything inside. That is mirroring: he will simply mirror. The trees will still be green, in fact far greener than they will ever be again, because the mirror is completely pure, crystalline. The mirror has no dust...thoughts gather dust.

When you go into the garden and you say, "The rose is beautiful," you may not even be seeing the rose. You may be simply repeating a cliche. Because you have heard it said that the roses are beautiful you are saying it. Seeing a beautiful sunset, you may not be seeing it, you may not be attentive, you may not be aware...but unconsciously, automatically, you simply assert, "It is a beautiful sunset." You don't mean it at all; you are simply saying it because you have been told. You are repeating somebody else's statement. If you watch deeply, you may even be able to find whose statement this is - your mother's, your father's, your teacher's, your friend's. If you watch closely you may be able to hear the exact voice of who had said for the first time that the sunset is beautiful...and you are simply repeating it. You have not seen this sunset. You have not seen the thisness, the present, the immediate beauty of it.

Buddha says: AN UNREFLECTING MIND IS A POOR ROOF. PASSION, LIKE THE RAIN, FLOODS THE HOUSE.

A mind that has forgotten how to mirror the truth is always a victim of desire - a victim of the head, a victim of the future, a victim of constant longing for this and for that. And no desire can ever be fulfilled. By the time one desire is fulfilled it has created ten more desires.

And this goes on and on...and life is short, and death may knock you down any moment.

You come into the world to be fulfilled, but you go empty-handed, you go unfulfilled.

Hence you will have to come again. Unless you learn the lesson you will have to be thrown back again and again into some womb, you will have to be reborn. You will be sent back to the school. Millions of times you have been sent, and if you don't pay attention, this life also you are going to miss the train.

Be aware! Start cleansing your mirror so that you can reflect.

PASSION, LIKE THE RAIN, FLOODS THE HOUSE. BUT IF THE ROOF IS STRONG, THERE IS SHELTER. If you know how to reflect reality there is shelter. You are secure because you are in God, because you are part of truth.

All thoughts are impure. A thought cannot be pure. So let me remind you again:

whenever Buddha says "impure thoughts" he means thoughts. He uses the adjective 'impure' to emphasize it, because if he simply says "thoughts" you may not understand rightly. So he says "impure thoughts," but he always means thoughts. All thoughts are impure, because a thought means you are thinking of the other, a desire has arisen. And whenever he says "a pure thought" he means a no-thought.

Only a no-thought is pure, because then you are utterly yourself, alone, nothing interfering.

Jean-Paul Sartre says: The other is hell. And he is right in a way, because whenever you are thinking of the other you are in hell. And all thoughts are addressed to others.

When you are in a state of no-thought you are alone, and aloneness is purity. And in that aloneness happens all that is worth happening.

Retrospectively, when you see that you have created a hell for yourself - nobody else is responsible but you - when you see this you will suffer very much, terribly. There is not even an excuse, you cannot throw the responsibility on somebody else's shoulders:

it is your responsibility.

Suffering will be there and more so, more intensely so, because you will feel also, "I have been foolish. Nobody has made me suffer. It is because of my thoughts. It is because of my becoming more and more extrovert, becoming more and more interested in things of the outside, that I have suffered. I am solely responsible."

This will give you great anguish - and vice versa. If you follow the law, dhamma, tao, if you follow your innermost core, your nature, you will be joyful here and there.

Buddha is not much concerned with the "there." But he says if you are joyful here you are bound to be joyful there. If this moment you are rejoicing, the next moment you will be rejoicing more, because the next moment is going to be born out of this moment.

And your bliss gathers momentum, it is accumulative. If this moment you are suffering, the next moment you will be suffering more, because you are learning the ways of suffering, you are becoming habituated to suffering. You will create more suffering the next moment because you are becoming more efficient in creating it. So whatsoever the nature of this moment is, it is going to be strengthened more, deepened, in the next.

But Buddha is not concerned with the next moment at all. He is simply stating a fact.

Don't be bothered with the next moment, or the next life, or the next world. Make this moment rejoicing, make this moment a moment of bliss, and the next will follow it, and the next life, and the next world. And everything that you are this moment is going to become deepened more and more. And when you see that you are responsible for your bliss, your bliss will be far more. When you see that nobody has given it to you, that you have not been a beggar, that it is not a gift from somebody else - because nobody has given it to you, nobody can take it away - when you see this you will be far happier.

But the whole thing depends on action. It is not a question of just thinking beautiful thoughts. It is not just a question of beautiful desires - of God, of paradise, of moksha.

It is not a question of thinking of meditation, but acting, doing something about it.

Action and only action can help. You have to become involved, you have to become committed.

Many people come to me and say, "We love your discourses, but we don't want to meditate and we don't want to become sannyasins. Isn't it enough," they ask, "just to listen to your beautiful discourses?" It is utterly futile!

Just to listen to my discourses is very stupid. If you are not going to act, don't waste time - it is an exercise in futility! If you just go on listening to me and never act, my words may be soothing, my words may be consoling, my words may be convincing, you may enjoy what I am saying intellectually, you may enjoy the space that is created by my presence, but this alone is not going to help. Action is absolutely needed.

If you are convinced of some truth, act upon it, and act immediately! - because mind is very cunning, and the greatest cunningness of the mind is postponement. It says, "Tomorrow..." and tomorrow never comes. It says, "Yes, we are going to meditate one day. Let us first understand what meditation is." And then you can go on understanding what meditation is your whole life, and you will never act. And unless you act nothing is ever going to happen, no transformation is going to happen.

Sannyas is a commitment. It is actively showing your love towards me. It is getting involved with my destiny. It is entering into my boat. It is dangerous - it is safer to stand on the bank and listen. Then it is a kind of entertainment - a spiritual entertainment! - but utterly useless, just killing time.

And that's what people go on doing in the so-called spiritual gatherings - satsangs.

They go to the Sunday sermon and they listen very attentively and very seriously, but out of the church it has no effect on their lives. In fact, even the preacher is not affected by what he is saying. It is his business to say these things, he is paid for it. He is a professional. And it is a formality for the listeners - just to have a good reputation in the community, that they are religious, that they go to the church every Sunday. And it is a beautiful social gathering too - meeting people, talking to people, gossiping. It gives a good opportunity - in the name of religion. A social gathering! It is an old kind of Rotary Club, Lions Club, etcetera. It does not matter, it does not change their lives.

Once I used to live in the neighborhood of a Christian priest, a very eloquent speaker.

One day he was showing his garden to me, and we started talking about this and that.

And he said, "Can you help my son?"

I said, "What is the matter with your son?"

He said, "He has started taking my sermons too seriously. I have to preach and I have to talk about great things. He comes to listen and he has started to take them too seriously.

Now he does not want to get married; he wants to become a holy man. Can't you help him?"

"I can - that's my business! I can help - I help holy people to become unholy again. You send him to me. I will pull him down."

"But listen," the priest said, "he is taking my words too seriously." Even the priest does not mean that anybody should take his words too seriously - and nobody ever does except a few foolish people.

But when you are around a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna, a Mohammed, it is not a question of taking their words seriously. It is a question of seeing the authenticity of their words and then acting upon it. If it stirs your heart, if a bell starts ringing in your heart, then don't stop it. Then follow, then go deeper into it, because that is the only way to be transformed. That is the only way to know the eternal - aes dhammo sanantano. That is the only way to know the eternal harmony of existence.

And to know the eternal harmony is to know bliss, is to know God, is to go beyond time, is to go beyond death, is to go beyond misery.

Two women are talking in a tea room at four o'clock, over large gooey ice-cream sundaes and little sugary cakes. They have not seen each other since high-school days, and one is bragging about her very advantageous marriage.

"My husband buys me whole new sets of diamonds when the ones I have get dirty," she says. "I never even bother to clean them."

"Fantastic!" says the other women.

"Yes," says the first, "we get a new car every two months. None of this hire-purchase stuff! My husband buys them outright, and we give them to the Negro gardener and houseman and like that for presents."

"Fantastic!" says the other.

"And our house," pursues the first, "well, what's the use of talking about it? It's just...."

"Fantastic!" finishes the other.

"Yes, and tell me, what are you doing nowadays?" says the first woman.

"I go to Charm School," says the other.

"Charm School? Why, how quaint! What do you learn there?"

"Well, we learn to say 'Fantastic' instead of 'Bullshit'!"

You can start calling bullshit "fantastic," but it makes no difference. You can learn religious, spiritual garbage....

There are many people here too who are very expert in so-called esoteric jargon. They always talk of so many planes, so many bodies, so many centers...and they talk so seriously that it seems they know what they are talking about. Avoid esoteric garbage!

Avoid esoteric knowledge! It is not knowledge, it is just to befool people. If you are interested in such things you should read the great literature that has been created by theosophists.

Anything goes, you just have to talk in such a way that it seems otherworldly. It can neither be proved nor disproved. Now how can you prove how many planes there are?

Seven or thirteen?

One man came to me. His religious sect believes in fourteen planes, and he had a chart, he had brought the chart. Mahavira has attained only to the fifth plane, Buddha to the sixth, Kabir, Nanak, to the ninth - because he was a Punjabi he had been a little generous with Nanak and Kabir. But his own Radhaswami guru, he has attained to the fourteenth! Even Buddha is just hanging around the sixth! And Mohammed, do you know where Mohammed is? - just the third! A Hindu and a Punjabi, how can you allow Mohammed to go beyond the third? He keeps him third-rate. Jesus he is a little more generous with - on the fourth; he places Jesus on the fourth. But his own guru - nobody knows about his guru - he has reached the fourteenth! The fourteenth is called satch-khand - the plane of truth.

So I asked him, "What about the other thirteen?"

He said, "They are just coming closer and closer to truth, only approximately true."

Now, can there be an approximate truth? Either something is true or something is not true. Either I am here in the chair or I am not in the chair - I cannot be approximately in the chair. So "approximate truth" is a beautiful name for a lie.

He had come to ask me what my opinion is about the fourteen planes. I said, "I have reached the fifteenth. And just as you are asking about the planes, your Radhaswami guru asks me again and again how to enter into the fifteenth."

He was very angry. He said, "Never heard about the fifteenth plane!"

I said, "How can you hear? Your guru has only reached the fourteenth, so you have heard about fourteen. But I have reached the fifteenth!"

Just nonsense! But it can be presented in such a way that it looks very spiritual. Avoid!

Buddha says: HOWEVER MANY HOLY WORDS YOU READ, HOWEVER MANY YOU SPEAK, WHAT GOOD WILL THEY DO YOU IF YOU DO NOT ACT UPON THEM?

Belief remains in the world of words. It is trust, it is deep trust, that takes you into action. Action is risky. To talk about the other shore is simple, but to swim to the other shore is dangerous, because no map exists. In fact nobody can be certain about the other shore, whether it exists or not.

Just ordinary belief won't do. Unless you have a tremendous trust in life, unless you have a tremendous trust in your own inner voice, you can't go on the journey of the uncharted sea.

But only action will prove that you trust, and only action can transform you.

Buddha used to say it again and again: that there are foolish people who go on counting other people's cows - that this man has fifteen cows, this man has thirteen cows - and they themselves don't have a single one! What is the point of counting other people's cows or sheep? It is not going to feed you, it is not going to nourish you. It is a sheer wastage of time!

But this is what happens in the name of religion. What the Vedas say...people waste their whole lives in trying to decipher the meaning of the Vedas. There are people who have wasted their whole lives in finding out the true meaning of the Bible. This is counting other people's sheep!

You can go in and you can hear the Bible arising there - as Jesus heard it. Jesus has no privilege over you. Nobody is privileged! Before the eternal law, before dhamma, everybody is equal. In this world everybody is unequal and can never be equal. In this world communism is impossible.

But in the inner world everybody is equal - only communism is possible. Communism is an inner phenomenon. The efforts that are being made to make the outer world a communist world are futile; it cannot happen in the very nature of things.

In Soviet Russia now the old classes are not there, but new classes have come up. Old classes are replaced by new classes. First there were the proletariat and the bourgeoisie; now there are the people who rule, the rulers, the Communist Party members, and the people who are ruled. It is the same game played in different names.

In the outer world communism is impossible. Inequality is the law; everybody is unequal in the outer world. Somebody is stronger than you, somebody is more intelligent, somebody is more beautiful, somebody is talented, somebody is a genius....

People are different, and they cannot be forced to be equal; that will be destroying humanity. They will remain unequal.

But in the inner, as you move inwards, inequality starts disappearing. At the innermost core there is absolute equality. Communism is an inner phenomenon.

That's why I am going to call my new ashram a commune. Communism comes from the word 'commune'. It is going to be an inner equality. People will remain different, as much as possible; in fact, as far as the outside world is concerned, everybody should have his unique individuality, his own flavor, his own signature. On the outside everybody should be allowed absolute freedom to be himself. In the inner, the ego disappears, the personality disappears, there is only pure consciousness. And two consciousnesses are not higher or lower. There is no hierarchy.

Don't go on counting other people's sheep. Go in! Don't go on reading scriptures. Go in!

Don't go on listening to others' words. Share the way! If you come across a buddha you are fortunate. If you fall in love with a buddha you are blessed. Don't just go on listening to his words. Follow the way, share the way! Look where he is pointing, don't start worshipping his finger. Look at the moon!

Let me remind you again, because the word 'law' in English has wrong associations. It is a translation for dhamma: the eternal law, the cosmic law, logos. ACT UPON THE LAW does not mean act according to the Indian Penal Code. Act according to the law means act according to your inner nature.

GIVE UP THE OLD WAYS.... You have to become discontinuous from the past. You have to exist in a new way. You have to simply cut yourself from your past with a single stroke. And that's what sannyas is all about: cutting yourself from your past with a single stroke of the sword.

What are the old ways? - the way of desire, the way of hate, and the way of stupidity.

Don't function out of hatred and don't desire things, possessions. And don't be superstitious, foolish. If you can do this much, if you can take this leap into the unknown...because the past is known and you are accustomed to doing things in a certain way. When you drop the past you will be at a loss for a few days, disoriented, not knowing what to do, how to do it. You will be in a vacuum. That vacuum has to be passed through. It is painful - that is the price we have to pay for truth.

Once you have passed that vacuum: KNOW THE TRUTH AND FIND PEACE. Then truth is known and truth follows peace like a shadow.

SHARE THE WAY, Buddha insists again. But this can't happen just by listening, just by reading the works of the masters.

SHARE THE WAY.

AES DHAMMO SANANTANO.

Enough for today.