The fool is his own enemy

Man is born intelligent, but the society does not allow intelligence to flower; it destroys it. In a thousand and one ways it makes every effort to make every intelligent being unintelligent. The unintelligent person seems to be more obedient - obedient to the state, to the church, to the society. He is less rebellious - he CANNOT rebel. Rebellion needs intelligence. The greater the intelligence, the greater the rebellion. The unintelligent person seeks security and safety with the crowd. He cannot be an individual. He is always hankering to become part of a crowd - Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. These are all crowds. They depend on those people who have become victims of the social strategy of destroying intelligence.

An intelligent person will not go to the church in search of God, or to the temple. An intelligent person will go within. He will not go to Kaaba or to Kashi, because if God is not here he cannot be anywhere else - and if he is ANYWHERE else, why not here? If God is not in me, he cannot be anywhere else; and if he is anywhere else, he is bound to be in me too.

The intelligent person is an individual; he is not part of a crowd, mob psychology. He is not a sheep, he is a man. And all the vested interests are against the individual - against the man. They want machines. They don't like people who are intelligent, who decide on their own. They want people who depend on others, on authoritative figures - on the leaders, on the priests, on the saints, but always on others, never on themselves.

The society has lived up to now in a very destructive way. It destroys the very possibility of your ever being a buddha or a christ. It has always been against the wise; it respects the fool. The fool fits with the society perfectly. The fool is cut out to fit with the society.

No child is born foolish, and every child, sooner or later, turns out to be idiotic. The powers are so big, so great, that it is almost impossible for the child to resist. The child cannot survive if he resists too much. It is really a miracle that a few people have escaped from being machines. These few people are the salt of the earth; they are the only flowers. Because of them, humanity has a little perfume, a little fragrance; otherwise, all others are walking dead, corpses, somehow dragging towards the grave.

The way of the fool has to be understood because only if you understand it you can go beyond it. The fool also has a way of life. His way of life is the way of the crowd.

Whatsoever others say, he repeats. The way others live, he imitates. He is always looking around for clues how to be, how to behave, what is right, what is wrong. He has no insight into anything. He depends on commandments from others. For thousands of years he goes on following commandments that were given in different situations, to a different kind of people, for different purposes, but he goes on following.

He is never spontaneous; that is the first thing to be remembered about the fool. He is repetitive: he repeats the past, but he is never spontaneous. He is never responsible - he never responds to the situation. He has ready-made answers. He never listens to the question; he is not concerned with the question at all. The question simply triggers in him a process of memory, and a ready-made answer comes up. He is like a computer.

To be responsible means to be aware. Unless you are aware you will not be able to see the situation that is confronting you. And the situation is changing every moment, it is never the same - not even for two consecutive moments is it the same. Hence one has to be very aware, then only can one respond to reality. And to respond to reality is to commune with God.

The fool knows nothing of God; he never comes across anything divine. He remains part of the stupid collectivity. Remember, the society, the collective has no soul; the soul belongs to the individual. Hence, those who belong to the collective are destroying every possibility of being souls.

George Gurdjieff used to say that it is very rare to find a person who has a soul - and he was right. To have a soul means to have awareness, to have individuality, to have freedom, to be able to respond - and to be able to respond on your own accord, not following dictums from others, directions from others.

The fool is never spontaneous; that is the first thing to be understood about the fool. If you become spontaneous you start becoming intelligent. The fool never learns; he is very stubborn about learning. He thinks he already knows.

The fool is not necessarily the ignorant person, mind you. The fool may be a great scholar; the fool may be a famous pundit; the fool may be a well-known professor; the fool may have a Ph.D., a D.Litt. In fact, who else bothers about Ph.D.s? The fool can be very well-informed, but that makes no difference to his foolishness.

Information does not transform you. Transformation is a totally different phenomenon than information. Transformation comes through awareness, through being open: open to life, open to people, open to everything possible. The fool lives in a closed world; he is dumb and deaf.

That's exactly the meaning of the English word 'idiot': closed. He lives in his own private world. He knows nothing of the reality. He lives in his own dreams - and he thinks that's what reality is. He lives in beliefs. He lives what tradition, what convention has taught him - whatsoever he has been conditioned for.

In a Catholic country he will be a Catholic. In a communist country he will be a communist - the same person; there is no difference at all. Whether he quotes from the Bible or from DAS KAPITAL, it is all the same: he quotes mechanically. He cannot understand because he is not ready to learn.

He remains utterly closed. He is afraid of opening his windows, his doors. He is afraid to be open to the wind, to the sun, to the rain, because who knows? - if he opens to life, his ready-made answers may not be adequate. He is very much afraid to lose his ready- made answers; he depends on them. They may be right or wrong, that is not important for him. As long as he believes they are right, they are right for him.

Hence the second characteristic of the foolish man: he is dumb and deaf. He is unlearning. He never listens. He may be able to hear, but he is not able to listen.

Hearing is a physiological phenomenon; listening is something deeper. You hear through the ears; when your heart is also joined with your ears, listening happens. And the fool's heart is never joined with his ears. He is not able to see; he goes on seeing whatsoever HE wants to see. He never allows the reality to be reflected in him; he is incapable of reflection. He is not a mirror.

After a day at the seaside, a bus full of deaf and dumb people stopped at a country pub.

The bus driver went in to explain to the barman: "You see those people over there? They are all deaf and dumb. They have a special sign language. Two fingers means a pint of bitter. Three fingers means a lager; four, a light ale; five, a guinness; a shake of the head, a whisky; a nod to the left, a brandy; and a nod to the right, a vodka."

The barman, having taken in all this information, agreed he could handle the situation.

Things went well for the first hour or so, and then the barman noticed three of the party standing at the bar, opening and shutting their mouths. He tried to figure out what they wanted, then gave up and forgot all about them.

But ten minutes later, a dozen of the deaf and dumb people were at the bar, opening and shutting their mouths like goldfish in a bowl. He started to feel a bit uneasy and pretended not to notice. But soon the whole crowd from the bus was at the bar, all of them opening and shutting their mouths.

Not knowing what to do, he rushed outside, ran over to where the bus was parked and hammered on the window.

"Hey, what's up?" asked the driver.

"Well, you know all those people in there? Well, it was okay for the first hour or so - three fingers, two fingers, shake of the head, nod to the left - but now the whole crowd of them is up at the bar, all opening and shutting their mouths!"

"Ah, no," said the driver, "they are not singing again! Now we will never get them home!"

The fool lives in a totally closed world. Neither is he available to reality, nor is he capable of expressing anything. He is uncreative because he cannot express.

Hence the third characteristic: the fool is uncreative. Imitative he is, but absolutely uncreative. He may be able to compose a few things, he may be able to put a few things together, but it is never creativity. Never is a new thing born through his being - he himself is still unborn. He can become a great technician, but he is never a great artist.

He can know how to paint - and he can know perfectly well how to paint - but he will not be able to paint anything genuinely new, authentically novel, original. He is absolutely unoriginal. He lives like a robot; he has been reduced to a machine.

If man is reduced to his lowest, he becomes a machine; if he is raised to his highest, he becomes a god. Man is a ladder: at the lowest rung, he is a machine; at the highest rung, he is a god. Either you can be a machine or you can be a god. If you remain unintelligent, unaware, you will remain a machine.

Conscience cannot change you. You have been told, "This is right and that is wrong," but that has not changed you. Nobody can change you from the outside. Any change from the outside is going to be only superficial; deep down you will remain the same - and you will persist in your foolishness.

I have seen sinners who are foolish, I have seen saints who are foolish in the same way.

There is a great difference between the sinner and the saint from the outside, but both may be fools. The sinner may have fallen in a wrong company, that's all, and the saint has fallen in a right company; that is the only difference. The sinner is following the wrong crowd; it is accidental. And the saint is following the right crowd, but that too is accidental. Deep down, both are the same.

Foolishness has a quality of persisting. It persists because for lives together you have lived through it, you have remained identified with it. It has been safe to be a fool. It has been safe to pretend that you know without knowing, because you know perfectly well that the world has not behaved well with the knowers. It has not poisoned any fool, but it has poisoned Socrates - one of the most wise men ever born. It has not crucified any fool, but it has crucified Jesus.

Two hippies, short of cash, hit on a way of making money. With their long hair and beards, a couple of nightshirts and a makeshift cross, they headed one Sunday morning for the local Baptist church, arriving in the middle of the service. The first hippie entered, proclaiming aloud, "Make way for the Lord!"

The second staggered behind, wielding the cross.

The worshippers cried out aloud. Some fell flat on their faces. Coins and bills were showered on them as they paraded up the aisle and back out again into the street. That Sunday they made over forty dollars.

The following week they hit the local Catholic church. "Make way for the Lord!" The parishioners tore out their hair and shrieked up to heaven in paroxysms of divine ecstasy. That morning they made over a hundred dollars.

The following week, just for a laugh, they tried the synagogue. The first hippie entered crying, "Make way for the Lord!" and the second lumbered in with his load.

The old rabbi turned to his neighbor and whispered, "Moishe, get the hammer and nails out. He is back!"

To be a fool is safer. To be a Jesus is dangerous. To be a buddha is to live in insecurity. It is going against the crowd, and the crowd is vast; it is going against the current. Hence your experience of centuries tells you, "Remain a fool. Pretend that you are not foolish."

That is part of foolishness. The moment a person stops pretending, he starts becoming wise.

The beginning of wisdom is to know that you are a fool - and then you are not a fool at all; you have stopped being a fool. It is very rare to accept the fact that "I am a fool."

They say that if a madman knows that he is mad, he is no longer mad; sanity has come back. But no madman ever agrees that he is mad; he thinks he is the sanest man in the world. Everybody else may be mad, HE is not. That is also part of remaining foolish.

The foolish person pretends in every possible way. He will pretend that he knows what he knows not. He will pretend he is somebody he is not. His life becomes an acting. His life becomes a superficial show. He is always in a kind of exhibition; he becomes a showcase. He has many faces. He wears masks and he forgets his original face completely.

Hence, the Zen Buddhists say: Unless you discover your original face you will not know who you are and you will not know what this reality is all about, and you will not know the blessing and the benediction of being alive.

Discover the original face. Your original face is lost in so many masks. You have been pretending to others and, slowly slowly, you have become convinced of your own pretensions.

Now that Jack and Irma were rich they decided to add a little culture to their hitherto shallow lives. At their first opportunity they went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and took a guided tour of the exhibits.

"Say, this is a fine bust of Michelangelo," said Jack admiringly.

"That is not Michelangelo," explained the guide. "That is Leonardo da Vinci."

"Jack," she hissed, "why do you have to open your big mouth when you don't know a single thing about the New Testament?"

You will find these pretenders everywhere. You will find these pretenders inside you, outside you. You are living with them - you are one of them. Recognize that "I am a pretender," and that is a great beginning.

The fool may try to be good, but he cannot be good because there is nothing like mechanical goodness. Goodness can only be out of consciousness. All that is mechanical is bad. In my definition and in the definition of Gautama the Buddha, to do anything unconsciously is bad, is evil, and to do anything consciously is good, is virtuous. It is not a question of what you are doing, it is not a question about your actions in particular; everything depends on what source it is coming from. If it is coming from your deep awareness, then whatsoever it is....

For example, Mohammed fought in many wars with a sword in his hand, but I will not call his wars evil. No, his wars are not evil because they are coming out of a deep awareness, a deep meditativeness. He is simply responding to the situation. Of course, what he is doing is violence - but violence, too, in the hands of a conscious, alert person, transforms its quality.

Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, but his vegetarianism was not good. His vegetarianism was evil, because it was coming out of a totally unconscious mind. He never smoked, he never drank alcohol, he lived the life of a celibate. He was almost a monk - a Jaina monk. If you look at his life, he lived it in a very disciplined way. He was not in any way an evil person - never gambled, never even played cards. But he was not good, he was not virtuous. All that was coming out of an unconscious mind.

If you find Jesus drinking... yes, he used to drink, he enjoyed drinking. And I don't think there is anything wrong in drinking if you can drink the way Jesus drank, with absolute awareness; then there is nothing wrong in drinking. Then drinking, too, is good. But you may be a nondrinker like Adolf Hitler, and it is not good. So the question is not WHAT you do, but HOW you do it, from where comes the action.

Molly O'Brien went to visit the parish priest. "Father," she said, "I feel so bad! Last night I called a man a bastard."

"Now, why," said the priest, "would you want to do a thing like that?"

"Well, Father, you see... he put his arm around me."

"What - like this?"

"Yes, just like that."

"Well, that is no reason to call him a bastard."

"Yes, but then, Father, he kissed me!"

"What - like this?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's no reason to call him a bastard."

"I know, but then you see, he put me down on the sofa and lifted my dress up."

"You mean... like this?"

"Yes, Father."

"Well, still that is no reason to call him a bastard."

"Yes, but then he pulled his trousers down."

"Like this?"

"Yes."

"Well, that is still no reason to call him a bastard."

"But Father... then he made love to me."

"Like this?"

"Yes."

"And you called him a bastard just for that?"

"But Father - you see - then he told me he had the clap."

"Why, the dirty bastard!"

The fool can be found in the sinners, in the priests, in the saints. The fool is a very subtle phenomenon; it is not so gross as you think. You cannot judge from the outside whether a man is wise or foolish because sometimes their acts may be the same.

Krishna says in the Gita to Arjuna, "Fight, but fight with absolute surrender to God.

Become a vehicle." Now, to surrender means absolute awareness, otherwise you cannot surrender. Surrender means dropping the ego, and ego IS your unconsciousness.

Krishna says, "Drop the ego and then leave it to God. Then let his will be done. Then whatsoever happens is good."

Arjuna argues. Again and again he brings new arguments and he says, "But to kill these people - innocent people, they have not done anything wrong - just for the kingdom to kill so many people, so much violence, so much murder, so much bloodshed... how can it be right? Rather than killing these people for the kingdom I would like to renounce and go to the forest and become a monk."

Now, if you just look from the outside, Arjuna seems to be more religious than Krishna.

Arjuna seems to be more a Gandhian than Krishna. Krishna seems to be very dangerous. He is saying, "Drop all this nonsense of being a monk and escaping to the Himalayan caves. That is not for you. You leave everything to God. You don't decide, you drop this deciding. You simply relax, be in a let-go, and let him descend in you and let him flow through you. Then, whatsoever happens.... If he wants to become a monk through you, he will become a monk. If he wants to become a warrior through you, he will become a warrior."

Arjuna seems to be more moralistic, puritanistic. Krishna seems to be totally different.

Krishna is a buddha, an awakened being. He is saying, "Don't YOU decide. Out of your unconsciousness, whatsoever you decide is going to be wrong, because unconsciousness is wrong."

And the foolish person lives in unconsciousness. Even if he tries to do good, in fact he succeeds only in doing bad.

Paddy NcNaughty went to confession: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

"And what is it that you have done, my son?"

"I made love to one of the girls in the village."

"My God!" said the priest, "and which of the village girls did you commit sin with?"

"Ah, Father, that I cannot tell."

"And if you will not tell me, then I shall not give you absolution."

"Ah dear!" said Paddy.

"Was it Molly O'Flaherty?" asked the priest.

"No, it was not Molly O'Flaherty."

"Then was it Flora Fitzgibbons?"

"Ah no," said Paddy, "it was not Flora Fitzgibbons."

"Was it Maggie Muldoon, then?" persisted the priest.

"Ah, sure no, it was not Maggie Muldoon."

"Then who in heaven's name was it?"

"Ah, sure, Father - that I cannot tell."

"And if you don't tell me I shall not give ya absolution."

"Ah, Father, that's too bad!" said Paddy and walked out of the confessional.

His friend, Michael, was waiting outside. "Well, Paddy, did ya get yar sins forgiven?"

"No," said Paddy, "but I got the names of a few good broads!"

If you are unconscious you may go to get forgiven, you may go to confession, but it is not going to help - you will remain the same. Foolishness tends to persist. Beware of these characteristics of foolishness. Foolishness is very egoistic. In fact, the more intelligent you are, the less egoistic you are. When intelligence blooms in perfection, ego disappears. Hence, foolishness is very argumentative; it always tries to defend itself. In a thousand and one ways it will convince you that this is the right course, this is what is to be done.

One has to be very aware of all these deep tendencies; they go on forcing you to go astray, they go on forcing you to go off center. They make you eccentric. Consciousness centers you; unconsciousness takes you off your center.

A man walked into a cafeteria and ordered coffee and a cream bun. "Sorry," said the attendant, "but we're out of buns. Why not have a doughnut instead?"

"In that case," said the man, "I'll have a cup of tea and a cream bun."

"I just told you, sir, we're out of buns. Why don't you have a doughnut?"

"Hmm... so in that case, I'll have a toasted bun with butter and a cup of tea."

"Look! How many times do I have to tell you? We don't have any buns - cream buns or toasted buns, or any other kind of buns!"

"Okay then," said the man. "Then give me a currant bun and a hot chocolate."

"Look here, you!" said the attendant, seizing the man by the collar and shaking him violently, "We DON'T HAVE NO BUNS! We don't have no cream buns, we don't have no currant buns, nor hot cross buns, or toasted buns with butter - or any other kind of buns. Get it?"

"Okay, okay!" said the man. "No need to shout - I'll just have a bun!"

Buddha says:

THE FOOL IS HIS OWN ENEMY... for many reasons. First: he will die without being born. He will die as a seed. He will never bloom, he will never come to flowers and to fruits. He will never know what fulfillment is. His life will be a sheer wastage. His life will be a desert without any oasis. He will not know any blessing, any benediction, any ecstasy - which was his birthright. He will be self-destructive. Not to grow into consciousness is the most suicidal act one can commit; hence Buddha says: THE FOOL IS HIS OWN ENEMY. He misses a great opportunity.

Life is such a precious opportunity to know, to be, but the fool misses. He will not even be aware what he has missed. He will pass through life like a zombie. His whole life is mechanical. He gets up early in the morning, takes his breakfast, goes to the office, does his work, drives back home... and he is doing everything, but still he is a robot. He is not yet inwardly full of light; deep inside him there is only darkness. He is doing all these things because he has practiced doing them. He has become skillful.

Scientists have been working for centuries to create robots. I don't see why they should be so much concerned about creating robots - there are so many, millions of them! And there is no need to make robots at all; all these millions of robots go on producing more robots! In fact, the question is how to stop them from producing more!

Each fool leaves at least a dozen fools - particularly in India - behind him. When he dies he makes the world twelve times more foolish; he leaves a dozen fools as a proof that he has been here. What is the need of creating robots?

I was reading a story that robots have been created - it is a twenty-first century story - and they are so exactly like human beings that it is very difficult to distinguish. If you meet a robot on the way driving his car you will not be able to distinguish whether he is a robot or not. He will look exactly like a man. Only one difference will be there: he will be more efficient. Less accidents will be there on the road. He will finish his work in time. He will not go on piling up files on his table; his table will be clean.

So a few indications so you can judge whether the man is really a robot or a man. Once in a while only you will know who is a robot - when his battery runs down. Then only... if he was talking to you and he was giving you great argument, philosophical arguments for God's existence, and then he suddenly says, "Grrr, grrrr, grrr-rr-rrr...!"

and immediately runs towards the electric plug and connects himself to the electricity to recharge himself - then you will know that this is not a real man; otherwise there will not be any difference.

And that, too, is possible to overcome sooner or later: we can fix two batteries. Why one battery? I was worried: why fix one battery in the poor man? - you can fix two batteries so that while one is being used, the other is being charged automatically. If you can create a robot, can't you create an automatic battery? Why make him look foolish: "Grrr, grrr, grrr"? And this can happen any time. He is making love to his woman, and "Grrr, grrr, grrr!" And he has to say, "Excuse me, I have run out of gas!" Either electricity... or he will need petrol.

THE FOOL IS HIS OWN ENEMY. His first inimical act towards himself is his mechanicalness.

"Look what I got today! A brand-new car, and it only cost eight hundred pounds."

"Eight hundred pounds? But that's impossible - a brand-new car?"

"Ah well, you see, it's got no engine."

"Got no engine?"

"That's right. You talk to it, see... you just talk to it and it goes."

"Is that so?"

"Yep, that's right. Wanna come for a ride? Only one thing, though, before we start. This car only understands a few words. Like, to make it go forward you say, 'Bloody hell'; to make it stop you say, 'Bastard.'" "Oh... is that so?"

"Yep. Sure is. Come on, I will show ya. 'Bloody hell' - she goes, see, and all you have to do is turn the steering wheel, blow the horn, flash the indicators.... 'Bastard' - see, she stops when you want, too."

"Wow! I've never seen a car like that before!"

"Let's take her out into the country. Maybe we can go out towards the cliffs by the sea.

See, on a straight road she'll go up to ninety, no problem - ninety-four, ninety-five...."

"Uh... ahem... I say, aren't we getting a bit close to the edge of the cliffs?"

"Come on now, don't worry. Just watch how she brakes."

"Hey! Hey, careful! That sign says, 'Road ends in fifty yards,' and you're going ninety- five!"

"Right! Watch this: Bastard.... Hey, come on now - she doesn't want to stop! Bastard!

Bastard! Bastard! We made it! See, she stopped."

"Phew, bloody hell, that was close...!"

THE FOOL IS HIS OWN ENEMY. SEEKING WEALTH, HE DESTROYS HIMSELF. By "wealth" Buddha means everything that is outside you: power, prestige, money, sex - anything that is outside you. The fool is extrovert; he never looks in. He accumulates everything on the outside. His whole life is devoted to money, power, prestige, and then one day death comes, but then it is too late. When death comes, he realizes that all that he has been doing has been simply stupid because all is slipping out of his fingers.

All that he has been doing was making sandcastles. Just a blow of death, and everything disappears like a dream.

Buddha says: SEEKING WEALTH, HE DESTROYS HIMSELF. He remains constantly extrovert; hence he never becomes aware who he is, why he is, from where he comes, to where he is going, what is his destiny, what is his significance, why this existence needs him, what purpose he is supposed to fulfill, what fragrance has to be released by him.

He never looks in. He goes on rushing faster and faster. As death comes closer he runs faster so that he can accumulate a little more wealth, a little more respect, respectability, so that he can become a president or a prime minister.

But death destroys everything - your presidents, your prime ministers. You may be rich; death is not going to favor you. Before death, everybody is the same - rich or poor, knowledgeable or not knowledgeable, famous or not famous.

Buddha says: If you are putting your energies into such projects which can be destroyed by death, then you are destroying yourself. Attain something that is imperishable.

Attain to something that death cannot snatch away from you. Realize something that will go beyond death with you. Realize something that even fire cannot burn, swords cannot cut, atom bombs, hydrogen bombs cannot destroy. Then only you have been a friend to yourself; otherwise you are an enemy.

Three couples were killed in a car crash. Saint Peter was waiting for them at the Pearly Gates, his big book under his arm. The first couple was summoned forth.

"Name?" shouted Saint Peter.

"Jones," replied the husband.

Saint Peter opened his big book and started thumbing through the pages.

"Hmmm... Jackson... Johnson... ah yes, Jones! Hmm... Jones, hey? Well now, Jones, this is not a very good record, is it? Drink, drink, drink - that's all you've ever been after - even married a woman called Sherry. Well, Jones, this isn't good enough, you know. I'm afraid it is downstairs to hell for you."

The Joneses broke into sobs and hugged each other, but two guardian angels pulled them apart and dragged the man towards the gates of hell. The wife followed shortly.

"Next!" called Saint Peter and the second couple shuffled forward. "Name!"

"Smith," they both replied shakily.

"Hmm... Sutherland... Spencer... ah yes, Smith! Hmm... well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, this one doesn't look too good either. Money, money, money - that's all you two have ever been after - even called your sons Buck, Frank and Mark, and your daughter, Penny.

Now what kind of a life is that! Well, there's only one place for people like you. You'll have to go downstairs - down to hell!"

The Smiths wept and fell at his feet, but the verdict was final.

"Next!" shouted Saint Peter, as the guardian angels were hauling the Smiths away.

The next husband turned to his wife and said, "Come on, Fanny... I'm not gonna stand here and be insulted!"

Buddha says: Don't be too much concerned with this shore; it is momentary. Tomorrow you have to go. Even seventy years is not a long time; compared to eternity it is just a moment. Your life lasts only as long as a soap bubble. You THINK it is long enough - seventy years - because you compare your life with the life of flies or mosquitoes; then it looks long enough. But ask the mosquitoes and they think they are doing perfectly well: they are doing everything that you are doing and in a short span. They are born, they fall in love, they get married, they have children - and many more than you can ever have - and they sing and they dance. Maybe they have their own religion and priests and politicians. And then they become old and then they die. Maybe it lasts only for a few weeks, but in those few weeks they have done everything!

There are insects that will live only for a few hours, but in those few hours is condensed your whole life: boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, and all the fights.... I have heard they go even to marriage counselors, they consult sexologists!

One woman had a cat and the cat was creating much trouble in the neighborhood. He was a playboy and the whole night he was going from this house to that, and they were making so much noise - because cats don't believe in making love silently. They are not Hindus, not Indians! They are all hippies!

So the whole neighborhood told the woman, "Do something. It's too much - we can't sleep! This lovemaking of your cat - he's driving us mad!"

Finally the woman took her cat to the vet and he was operated on. But the neighborhood was in as much trouble as before.

People asked the woman, "What is the matter? What kind of operation is this? Your cat has been operated on, you say, but we still see him coming."

The woman said, "Yes, he still goes - now as a consultant."

Time does not matter. In a few hours you can live seventy years or seven hundred years in a condensed way. Into seven minutes seventy years can be condensed. And seven minutes look very small compared to seventy years, but what are seventy years compared to the age of the sun or the moon or the earth or the stars? And what are seventy years compared to eternity?

This shore consists of momentary phenomena. Don't waste your total energy in that which is momentary. Go on remembering the other shore. By "the other shore" Buddha means that which is beyond time and beyond space. This shore is outside you and the other shore is within you. This shore consists of money, sex, power, prestige, and that shore consists only of awareness, silence, peace, prayer.

But you are full of weeds, hence you cannot grow roses. Before you can grow roses you will have to remove all the weeds, you will have to prepare the ground, you will have to prepare the soil. You will have to remove the weeds, the stones, and all that can be a hindrance for the roses. WEEDS CHOKE THE FIELD.

And about weeds, one thing has to be understood: you need not grow them, they grow on their own accord. Even if you pull them out they will grow again.

Mulla Nasruddin has a very beautiful lawn. A new neighbor moved recently next door to Mulla's house and he became very interested in Mulla's garden, particularly his lawn.

He also wanted to make a beautiful lawn and a garden. He planted seeds, he planted plants, but so many weeds started growing.

He asked Mulla, "How to distinguish which is grass and which are weeds?"

Mulla said, "Simple. You pull them both out. The grass will not grow again and the weeds will grow again. That's how one knows, that's how one can distinguish."

Weeds have a quality - the same quality as the fools: they persist, they insist, they don't want to be removed. Everything great in this life is fragile and everything ugly is rocklike, very strong. Weeds grow on their own accord. You have not cultivated anger and you have not cultivated lust. There are no schools where you are taught how to be jealous and how to be greedy. No teachers, no masters are needed to teach you how to be unconscious. These things grow on their own accord.

Falling downwards is easy; rising upwards is difficult - it goes against gravitation.

You have to remove the weeds, otherwise they choke the field. You are so full of anger, greed, lust, that they are choking your energies. It will be impossible for you to grow - they won't allow you to grow. They will suck all your energy; they are suckers, they are parasites.

Buddha says: WEEDS CHOKE THE FIELD. PASSION POISONS THE NATURE OF MAN, AND HATRED, ILLUSION AND DESIRE.

Passion creates many things in you. It creates fever, it makes you more unconscious - more unconscious than you already are. It drags you deeper into the mud. And with passion come hatred, illusion and desire - and then you are distracted from your nature. Your nature is poisoned, your innocence is poisoned. You lose all simplicity, all humbleness.

Beware of the poisoning by passion. Be warm, be loving - that is a totally different phenomenon - but don't be full of lust. Warmth is possible with your consciousness. A Buddha is very warm, a Jesus is very warm, very loving. Passion has disappeared.

Passion has become transformed into compassion. Their compassion showers on you like flowers. Just as passion poisons you, compassion purifies you. Compassion is nectar if passion is poison. The energy that is involved in passion can be released into compassion.

And the way to release the energy, the way to rechannel it towards compassion, is what Buddha calls SAMMASATI - right awareness, right remembering; what Gurdjieff calls self-remembering, what Krishnamurti calls simply awareness, what I call meditation.

They are all the same, different names indicating the same energy. You have to become alert, conscious of what you are doing.

Try, when you are angry, to be conscious, and you will be surprised - you are in for a great surprise. If you become conscious, anger disappears. And suddenly you have found a key, you have stumbled upon a secret. When sex dominates you and you are full of lust, close your eyes, sit silently and meditate on this energy that is surrounding you, this lust that is surrounding you like a cloud. Just watch it, see it. I am not saying be against it, because if you are against it you have already taken a standpoint. Now you cannot watch.

For watching, the necessary step, the most necessary, is not to take any prejudice, not to conclude beforehand. Just remain silently watchful, neither for nor against. And within minutes you will be surprised that that great storm of lust is over. And when the storm is over, the silence that is left behind is so profound, is so great, such a blessing that you may not have felt it ever. No sexual experience can give you that beauty that will come if you watch your lust and through watchfulness the lust disappears. Then a silence comes to you which is virgin, which belongs to the beyond, which belongs to the other shore.

HONOR THE MAN WHO IS WITHOUT PASSION.... Hence Buddha says: If you can find a man who is without passion - if you can find a christ or a buddha - honor the man... for the simple reason that he has done almost the impossible: he has escaped from the ordinary bondage of humanity. He is no longer a prisoner, no longer a slave.

He has asserted his individuality, his intelligence. He is no longer a fool. Wisdom has happened in his being. He is full of light; darkness has disappeared.

And the moment passion disappears, hatred disappears, illusion disappears, desire disappears, because one feels so contented, one feels so utterly fulfilled. One feels one has come home. There is nowhere to go, nothing else to ask for or desire.

Just think of those moments when there is no desire, when there is no tension, when your mind is absolutely quiet. Only then will you know God exists - or it will be more right to say, godliness exists.

WHAT YOU GIVE TO HIM.... If you give anything to Buddha... what can you give to him? You can give him your respect, you can give him your trust, you can give him your self, your surrender.

Whenever a disciple surrenders himself to an awakened master he becomes the richest person in the world. In his very surrender is victory. In his dropping of the ego he attains to beinghood. For the first time he is - and in a very strange way, because he has dropped himself. But the one he has dropped was a false self, and when the false disappears, the real appears. When the false ceases to be, the real starts shining in all its glory, in all its splendor.

Whatsoever you give to a buddha comes back to you a thousandfold.

The disciple surrenders, the disciple opens his heart, and the buddha starts flowing into the heart of the disciple. The buddha is like a raincloud, so full of love, so full of truth, so full of ecstasy, that if you open your heart, if you are ready to drink out of him, you will, for the first time, feel a deep satisfaction. Your thirst will be quenched.

That's why Jesus says: Eat me, drink me. He is not telling you to become cannibals! He is saying to you, "I am available. Just open your heart and let me in."

When the awakened one knocks on your door, please open the door, because you may miss the opportunity and you may miss it for many many lives. It is very rare to come across a Buddha, a Christ, a Krishna, a Mahavira, a Mohammed. If you are fortunate enough to come across an awakened person, then don't be miserly. Then drop yourself totally, then be committed totally.

Just the other day somebody has asked, "You say: I am the gate. I have come here, I love you. I have come from far away, but I am not a sannyasin and I am not being allowed to see you. Then why do you say: I am the gate if I am not allowed to come through you?"

You are allowed to come through me, but a few things you will have to leave at the gate: your shoes, your heads. That's what sannyas is. These are your two extremes, the two polarities: the shoes and the head. Leave both the extremes outside, then you are balanced. The very word 'sannyas' means a state of equilibrium, of balance, of absolute balance.

I am the gate, but I am the gate only for those who are ready to pass through me. You have to pay the price - and sannyas is the price. And if you love me, then love is always ready to sacrifice. And I am not asking for your money, I am not asking for your house; I am not asking anything of this shore from you. I am asking only for that which you don't have but you believe that you have. I am asking only for the false things: your beliefs, your ego, your hatred, your passion, your desires, your lust, your greed. I am asking for all your diseases! Give all your diseases to me; that's what sannyas is all about. Then I am the gate and I am ready. Come through me and you will find that which you have been seeking for lives together.

But you can miss the gate if you are so miserly or so cowardly that you cannot take the jump into sannyas. Then what kind of love are you talking about? Love knows how to be committed, how to be involved. Love knows how to die and how to be reborn. Love is ready to pass through any fire because love knows, "Nothing can destroy me, not even fire can burn me." Love knows its eternity. Hence love is always courageous.

Sannyas is courage, it is adventure.

Buddha says: WHAT YOU GIVE TO HIM WILL BE GIVEN BACK TO YOU, AND MORE.

Don't be worried and don't be miserly. Be open with me, be vulnerable, be receptive, so that I can pour myself totally in you. I am ready to be a guest in your heart, but you will have to be ready to be a host and you will have to cleanse your heart of all the weeds.

You will have to empty your heart of all the junk that you have collected: of all the past, of all the memories, of all the belief systems, of all the philosophies, ideologies - political, religious, social.

When you are absolutely empty you can come in me, I can come in you. The meeting can happen. And that meeting is the greatest orgasmic experience of life.

Enough for today.