No Mission, No Message

Date: Fri, 1 October 1969 00:00:00 GMT

OSHO: As far as my mission in life is concerned, there is no such thing as my mission. Neither is there any my, nor is there any mission. I am not teaching something to others - there is no message to be given to the world. Messages are many, missions are enough - and there is no lack of missionaries, nor is there any lack of thoughts, ideologies, isms. On the contrary, the mind of the world is much too burdened with these things. To me it seems that if the mind of man can be unburdened, only then is there any possibility of living the truth, or of feeling life in its totality.

Ideologies, thoughts, isms, missions, they all add to the burden of the mind.

The more the mind knows, the less it becomes capable of knowing; knowledge is the only hindrance towards knowing. Knowing is something quite different from knowledge. Knowledge means thoughts, and knowledge means borrowed learning. Knowing means a mind which is unburdened of everything that is known; a mind in the state of knowing is simply ignorant - it doesn't know anything, it is humble. And to be humble, one has to unlearn what has become a burden.

The known must cease for the unknown to be. And life is unknown, and truth is unknown, yet we are all burdened with knowledge. This attitude of knowledge becomes a hindrance towards the void, which goes into the unchartered, into the unknown, the unacquainted, the unlearnt.

So to me there is nothing to be preached or to be taught - I am not a teacher in that sense. Rather, I am awakened - not a teacher. And the first awakening that is required today is the awakening of the humble attitude of an unlearnt, unknowledgeable mind, a mind that is open and not closed.

This humility is needed but you cannot teach this humility through a mission, because a mission becomes an organization. A mission becomes, in the long run, the vested interest. A mission becomes a sect; a mission becomes interested, not in the unknown, but in the knowledge that the mission has to impart to others.

So every type of mission burdens the human mind. And the need is to be unburdened.

There are things which can be known by others; information can be imparted. As far as science is concerned - the complete knowledge known as scientific knowledge - there are things that can be imparted. Then there is the possibility of a school, of a teacher, of a mission.... But there are things as far as the inner is concerned... as far as the divine is concerned, and these things cannot be made part and parcel of a dead knowledge. They cannot be condensed into maxims, nor is there any possibility for any objective experimentation or for a laboratory where more than one person can experiment and come to a conclusion. There is no such possibility. The inner, the divine, is basically individual, is basically subjective. One knows, but cannot impart the knowledge to others.

One knows and lives.... Others may feel the perfume, may feel the scent, may feel the song, may feel the unknown presence, but that too is intuitive, that too is indirect.

You cannot preach the divine directly, so there is no mission-like activity for me. When there is no mission, there is no question of how to work it out, how to implement it, how to organize it. I am against all sorts of organizations. Truth cannot be organized, and the moment one thinks of organizing it the truth is killed, only the dead remains. What is living goes out of any organization, because to know the truth is so individual, it cannot be organized. You can organize around an ideology, not around a realization. You can organize around a mission, not around the unknown, not around the realization of the unknown.

So there is no possibility of there being any organization around me. Nor am I interested... rather, I am against it. But we can never think of doing anything without organization. And the difficulty is:

the very nature of the thing is so, that if you organize it, you kill it; and if you don't organize it, then you raise the problem, what to do with it? How to make others know about it? That too can only be done through individuals, not through organizations.

If what I say appeals to you, or somebody, he has to become the embodied presence of what I am saying. Even if one individual becomes the embodied presence and people begin to feel about him...

something new, something transformed is imparted. By the very presence of such an individual the work goes on....

Only such a type of mission can I conceive of. But I cannot call it a mission because the very word has become associated with so many wrong things.

To be religious means to be imparting indirectly what one has realized. So I will go on trying, endeavoring to contact individuals personally, and indicating towards things which cannot be indicated. But no dead code or dead scripture must be allowed to be practiced or organized, or given a base - unlike the old sects, the old religious or public organizations.

To me, organization means something based on hatred. No organization is centred around love, because love needs no organization. Hatred needs organization. Nations, parties, religions, are all based on hatred: hatred of others, hatred of those who are not in our fold, of those who are not under our flag, of those who are not convinced of our message. Hatred is such a great force, it organizes.

It is so poisonous, and a single individual is not able to be so poisonous, a single individual cannot be as dangerous as hatred requires one to be. So one needs organizations, others, a crowd - one cannot be alone.

But love is such a silent force, that to be alone is enough. Love doesn't know how to work, it works itself. There is no question of method - I have never been concerned with method.

I am a man with no method - absolutely no plan, no method, no organization. My only hope is this, that love works spontaneously. It needs no method. It needs no previous rehearsal. It works!

And if it works it is alright, and if it doesn't work then too it is alright. If love is not enough, then no organization can be much more.

And love has never been methodological. Hatred has always been methodological. When You hate, you hate with a plan, you hate with a disciplined mind. You have to be conscious of the enemy, of the fear, of the planning of the opposite party. You cannot be spontaneous. With an enemy you are always to be prepared. You cannot be unprepared. But when there is no question of hatred, when there is no one to be thought of as an enemy, when there is only love to work and to live with, there is no question of tomorrow, there is no question of the future - it is spontaneous, it works. And the very spontaneity is its force. If you don't plan your hatred, you will be defeated; but if you plan your love, you will also be defeated.

So, I have no plans for the future - today is enough. This very moment passing, the present moment is enough. What I am doing, I am doing without any method. If it is something, if it is to be of any use for others, it will spread like fire without any method.

SECOND QUESTIONER: WHEN YOU SAY THAT KNOWLEDGE IS A HINDRANCE TO THE AWAKENING OF MAN, THEN WHAT TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE ARE YOU AWAKENING IN HIM?

DO YOU WANT MAN TO BE ILLITERATE?

A: No, not illiterate. I am not saying that man should be illiterate, I am saying that man should always be ready: open, not closed. The knowledge that one has gained through the past must not become a hindrance to the future.

SECOND QUESTIONER: THAT IS KNOWLEDGE ABOUT RELIGIOUS THINGS ONLY?

A: Of course, of course. When I say knowledge, I always mean religious, because, really there is no such thing as knowledge which is not religious. Scientific knowledge only means scientific information. There is no scientific knowledge. It is only information - so, it can be imparted. There is no such thing as scientific knowledge.

SECOND QUESTIONER: BUT IS THERE KNOWLEDGE ALSO IMPARTED BY SOMEBODY?

A: No. If it is imparted then it is not religious. Neither is it religious, nor is it knowledge. One has to know oneself. When it comes through others, it becomes dead. Then it becomes simply information, it is not religion. "Religious" means that which has been experienced, that which is existential, that which has been got through living not through scriptures, not through teachers - not borrowed, but lived.

Religious knowledge is only knowledge. Why do I say so? Because science can know something about things. When science knows something, it knows something about it. It is always about and about; it is always an acquaintance from the outside. A scientist knowing a flower... he knows something about it! Everything that can be known about it, he knows. He tries to know more and more, but it always remains information. He has not gone into it, he has not become one with the flower. He has not known it from the inside, he has known it from the outside. Knowing from the outside is what I mean by information. Knowing from inside is what I mean by knowledge. And man can know only himself from the inside; everything else will be known from the outside. So only religious knowledge, knowledge which means a knowing of oneself, knowing the true inner reality...

such knowledge only is true knowledge, because it knows, it is not information about oneself. But we can gain and cultivate information about ourselves. Then again it becomes non-religious. So, scriptures are not religious. They may be scientific or not scientific, but no scripture can be religious because it can only give information: it can give what Mahavira knows, what Buddha knows. I can know what Buddha knows, but that is not my knowledge.

SECOND QUESTIONER: HOW IS THAT A HINDRANCE?

It is a hindrance because when someone comes to conceive that he knows and really he does not know - he has only been collecting information and this collection of inner information gives him a conception of knowledge - then he won't try for further knowledge, then he won't try for himself.

Then it will become a hindrance, because he has come to conclude that he knows, and really he doesn't know. This misconception of knowing will be the hindrance. And further, when the mind is enclosed in information - and there is much information around the mind, much knowledge, much scripture - a barrier is erected between oneself and that which is. When you come to a flower, if you don't know anything about it, you have to contemplate it. But if you know something about it, then you pass it by, because the barrier of knowledge... you know, I know about it: this is a rose, this is a beautiful flower, you say, and you pass on. There has been no living contact between that which is called the rose and the mind which is in a wrongly conceived enclosure of knowledge. There is no living contact. The rose can be known, not through any knowledge about the rose, but through the direct contact with its living existence. But still a rose is something outside. You cannot even think about yourSELF, because who is to think? And every type of information is a part of your thinking.

It makes your mind a thinking machine. You go on thinking and thinking, and reading and reading, and you go around and around a concept. But if one is to know oneself, one has to cease to think.

Because, the very thinking leads you afar.

SECOND QUESTIONER: THEN WE SHOULD NOT READ BOOKS ABOUT...?

No, I am not saying that. I am not saying that you should not read, neither am I saying that the information is of no use. I am not saying that. I am saying this: you must read, you must know, but you must know also that this knowing is simply information, and not knowledge for you. If you are aware of it, then it can't become a hindrance, then your mind is always open. You are always ready to learn, you are always ready to discover. Then you have not arrived, you are still searching, discovering. But a man of knowledge comes to think of himself, that he has arrived. A pundit, thinks of himself as a man who has arrived. Then there is no travel, then there is no mutation, then there is no transformation - then there is no further search; the mind has become closed with knowledge.

This may seem contradictory, but this is the truth: a mind that thinks it knows becomes incapable of knowing.

THIRD QUESTIONER: IT IS SAID, "AS YOU THINK, SO YOU BECOME." IF ONE THINKS OF THE REAL SELF....?

No! This is one of the very wrong conceptions. This conception says, that as you think so you become. No, you cannot become as you think. But you can feel that you have become something.

As you think, you can feel that you have become something, you can imagine it. But imagination is not knowing. If someone thinks I am brahma, I am god, and goes on thinking it, and thinking and thinking, then he comes to feel that he is divine. But this feeling is not knowing. This is simply imagination being suggested, repeated, hypnotized. He has hypnotized himself by suggestions, by constant repetitions.

You cannot become what you think. Rather, the contrary is true: what you become you can think about. The becoming is first, the thinking is secondary - because the being which you are is always behind the primary foundation of your thinking.

First you can exist without your thinking, but your thinking cannot exist without you. So you are foundational, the thinking is secondary. Thinking is only on the periphery, the circumference; your being is in the center. So one can be without any thoughts, but no thought can be without any being.

If you think something and imagine something, you may come to a feeling - imaginary, psuedo - but you cannot come to your very being, because that which you don't know... how can you think about it? We can only think about something which we already know. If you know your self, then there is no question of any thinking about yourself. If you don't know your self, then how can you think about it? Then you will borrow something from others....

SECOND QUESTIONER: KNOWING ONESELF WILL BE THINKING IT.

No! Knowing one self will be a total cessation of thinking; it will be simply existing in oneself - not thinking. Thinking is always about something. Thinking cannot exist in a vacuum, it is always about something. You can think about a chair, you can think about a house, you can think about a friend or an enemy; you cannot think about yourself, because you are! Who is to think? So, if you are to know yourself, you have to cease completely - totally - the process of thinking....

The process of thinking must not be there then you are, in your simple authentic existence. Then you are, simply. Then you come to know that mind is not through thinking, that mind is through non-thinking. That's why I define meditation as a state of mind which is not thinking, but is aware - not thinking and aware. There is no thinking in the mind, but the mind is, and is totally aware. So, about what can it be aware now? There is nothing to think, so it cannot go outside....

SECOND QUESTIONER: AWARENESS... IS IT ALWAYS SOMETHING IN CONTACT WITH OTHERS?

A: No, it is not. You can be simply aware. There is no need of...

SECOND QUESTIONER: AWARE OF WHAT?

A: Aware of yourself. You are aware of yourself. But these two things are one - you and your awareness are not two things. When you are aware of your house, there are two things. But when you are aware of yourself, there is nothing which is aware, and nothing to be aware about - you are the awareness. Then you are simply awareness. Then you are not aware, you are awareness, because there is only one thing: you and you and you, and awareness - and nothing to be aware about. This moment, when you are not aware but you are awareness, is meditation. That awareness which is not aware of anything else; it simply exists, like light; it simply exists, like a flame.

SECOND QUESTIONER: WOULD IT BE JUST LIKE OBJECTIVE....?

A: No. When awareness becomes objective, when you become aware of something else, then it becomes thinking. Then thinking goes on, thinking is created.

FIRST QUESTIONER: WHEN YOU COME SUBJECTIVELY?

A: When you come subjectively, then there is no possibility of any thinking.

THIRD QUESTIONER: HOW DO YOU DEFINE, ATMA CHINTAN?

A: There is no such thing as self-thinking, atma chintan. You cannot be in a state when you are thinking about yourself, because one who knows, knows; he never thinks about it. We only think about things which we don't know... you go on thinking. But one can know oneself through borrowed knowledge; then, one can think about oneself. Then one can think about atma and the nature of the self, the existence of the self, the origin of the self... one can go on thinking about it. But this is not knowing.

In meditation, you are not thinking about yourself, you are knowing. And the moment of knowing is the moment of explosion. The mind is exploded - you become something else. You are not the old man, you are not the old person. The old person has gone, a new man has come into being.

Now this man lives in a totally different way, exists in a totally different way, loves in a different way, is in a different way because he has come to know himself. The first point of knowledge has been achieved. Now he can know others too....

We are in a dilemma. We don't know ourselves, and we think that we know others. We are trying to know others without knowing ourselves. This is impossible. If I am ignorant of my own self, how can I know anything else in the world? The very center is ignorant, the very person is in darkness, so how can I discover light anywhere else? - it has not been discovered in me!

The first point of discovery, the first explosion of light, must be, can only be in me. Then it spreads, then it goes out and out and out. This first moment of transformation is self-knowing. Then like a pebble thrown in a lake, the circles go on spreading and spreading. Then they will go on up to the bank. The explosion is in the self, but then the explosion goes on encircling the whole world. It goes to the very end, and then it becomes divine knowledge.

First the explosion is self-knowledge, then the explosion goes, goes, goes to the infinite and becomes divine knowledge. Self-knowledge is the door, is the opening towards the divine. But we do not know ourselves, and we think we know even God. We debate about it, we struggle about it, we discuss it, we confute, refute, convince... we say this is right, this is wrong, this religion is right, that religion is wrong, this scripture is accurate, that scripture is not accurate, we go on debating and discussing things for which, in ourselves there is no opening.

The opening comes through the explosion of the self.

One thing more to be understood: The explosion is the explosion of your ego also. When you know, when you come to know yourself - this is a miracle and this is a mystery - the self remains only in ignorance. The self is part of the ignorance. We say self-knowledge, but really when the knowing comes, the self goes. There is no self then. Then there is only knowing. Then you are not. Then there is only existence, then there is only being. That being is atman.

Atman is not the self, the ego. One thing to be understood: You cannot know yourself, because the moment you come to know, you are not there, only the knowing remains. And that knowing without an ego, goes to the very endless end. Because there is no boundary now.

THIRD QUESTIONER: THEN, THE WORDS ATMA SAKSHATKAR HAVE NO MEANING FOR YOU?

A: Really, all these words are conceived dualistically. In fact, there is nothing like atma sakshatkar, "realization of the self," because when the realization is, self is not, and when the self is, realization is not. So "realization of the self"... these are two contradictory terms.

It is like this: If there is darkness in the room, there is darkness. Then you bring a lamp to know darkness. You bring a lamp because, in the darkness, how one can know what darkness is? So you go out and you come back with a lamp to know the darkness. But when there is the lamp, there is no darkness! Yet when there was no lamp, there was darkness. So there is no enlightening of the darkness. There is no such thing as darkness seen in the light. There is no such thing.

There is no such thing as self realized. Self is ignorance; when you come to realize that which is, there is no self.

Buddha was more accurate in his expressions. He said, "realization of no-self." That is exactly nearer to the reality than realization of the self - realization of no-self, an enlightening of no-darkness, because when the realization comes, there is no self. So Buddha says that no self is the reality.

That could not be understood; it is very difficult. He said: existence of no self, anatman. There is no atman, there is anatman. And he meant something, something meaningful. But he could not be understood. We can understand atman because it approximates the ego. We can think about the self because it is something like an extended ego, a bigger ego.... So we can conceive of it....

THIRD QUESTIONER: BUDDHA SAYS "NO ATMAN"...

A: Buddha says no atman.

THIRD QUESTIONER: MAHAVIRA SAYS THERE IS ATMAN.

A: Mahavira says there is atman, but without the ego: there is no ego - atman is. Buddha says there is no atman. And the reality is they mean the same thing.

But I say, Buddha's expression more approximates the reality, yet Mahavira's expression is more likely to be understood by all. The expression is different; but they mean the same thing. Mahavira says, there is self but no ego: When you realize the no-ego, you will know the self. Buddha says, there is no self. When you realize this, you will know existence, you will know the being, you will come to know.... And if you ask Buddha what we will come to know, what will be realized, he'd say, realize and know, because when you ask what, you have again asked a dualistic question. You are again asking aware of what? So Buddha says come to awareness, and then you will know there is awareness but you will not know anything about it.

That awareness is freedom.

THIRD QUESTIONER: UP TILL NOW WE HAVE HEARD YOU ON MAHAVIRA AND BUDDHA, OR ON THE ATMAN. CAN YOU ENLIGHTEN US ABOUT CHRIST'S OF THE ATMAN? HAS HE GIVEN ANY LIGHT ON THIS?

A: Not in such a way as to be compared with Buddha or Mahavira. Jesus speaks a totally different language. Jesus' language is totally different, he talks about the Kingdom of God.

THIRD QUESTIONER: HE ALSO CAME TO A STATE OF ENLIGHTENMENT HIMSELF?

A: He came, he came... he understands. He realized what any Buddha or any Mahavira realized.

But the language is completely different. The language is not Indian.

First, the language is not philosophical. Second, the language is Jewish, conceived in a Jewish frame, with parables, with metaphors, with stories. And if one is going to understand Jesus' territory, then one has to imbibe the spirit of Jewish thinking. They don't talk about the self, they talk about the kingdom of God. They say: we are as we are, we don't know about the kingdom of God. Whatever the kingdom of God means, we do not know anything about it. We are unneccessarily poor, we are unneccessarily beggars. In the innermost parts of ourselves there is a kingdom and if we go in, the kingdom will be revealed, and we will then be children of God - not beggars, not crippled with desire, not crippled with misery, we will be bliss. This kingdom of God is the same as what Mahavira calls atman, Buddha calls no-atman. This is the same, but Jesus speaks in parables: he calls it the kingdom of God.

SECOND QUESTIONER: WHAT ABOUT KRISHNA?

A: The same. Those who have realized....

SECOND QUESTIONER: WHAT DOES HE SAY ABOUT THIS?

A: He says the same thing. He calls it brahma: when you surrender yourself.... Krishna says surrender yourself to me. To me means to the ultimate, surrender yourself to the ultimate. Surrender yourself to the ultimate and you will become one with it. Because what one knows, becomes what he knows. But the question is of surrendering. Then it's the same. Mahavira says, egolessness.

But how can you be egoless without surrendering? These are two things taken from two different points of view but coming to the same place. To be egoless means to be surrendered, completely surrendered. A person who has completely surrendered himself becomes egoless. And when one becomes egoless, one realizes the truth, because the ego is not there to be a hindrance, to be a covering. Krishna emphasises surrendering, samarpan, sarva dharman parapechii, mamekam sharanam, prarchi(?): leave all, and come to me totally surrendered. But this me means the ultimate, this me is not Krishna.

THIRD QUESTIONER: THE ULTIMATE MEANS....?

A: God, the Divine, the real, the truth, the atman, whatsoever one may name it - Krishna emphasises surrendering, Buddha emphasises no-self, Mahavira emphasises egolessness, Jesus, the kingdom of God, the bliss. He talks about the bliss, ananda, the kingdom... and the poverty in which we live....

SECOND QUESTIONER: WHAT WAS....?

A: Ananda - happiness. Happiness unbounded, happiness unlimited, happiness infinite.

Whosoever may have realized, whosoever may have reached, the question is not that one says this and the other says that - this and that mean the same thing. If one has realized and the other has not realized, then even this and that cannot mean the same.

This is to be understood: A person who has realized, he may say whatsoever he likes. He cannot say against it... anyone who has realized. But a person who has not realized may say, "this is what I mean, this is what you are saying, I am totally convinced of it." But he cannot mean the same, because the same has not been experienced.

Words cannot convey the experience. But anti-words can convey.... If the person is a person of knowing, anti-words can convey. Mahavira says, "Self is the only thing. To know the Self is the aim, to realize the Self is all." Buddha says quite the contrary: "To know the self is ignorance."

These two statements quite contradictory, quite opposite to one another, mean the same thing. But if someone says, God is, and another, too, says God is, and if the persons concerned are persons who do not know what God means, these two statements - similiar, exactly similiar: GOD IS - these two statements cannot mean the same. The two persons and their experience and their ignorance and their definitions, are different. They have not come to the point where individuality dissolves.

Unless individuality is dissolved, we cannot come to the same experience, because the difference is not in the experience, it is in our personality, our individuality: I. My I gives meaning to my words, your I gives meaning to your words, and your I and my I are two different things, they can't mean the same thing. But a Buddha has no I, a Mahavira has no I, a Jesus has no I. So they cannot mean different things, because the difference was created by the I. They can give different expressions, but they cannot mean different things. For us, this becomes a dilemma. This has become a very difficult job for the human mind to conceive, that Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammed, Krishna, they all mean the same thing. Then... then what is the foundation of Hinduism, of Mohammedism, of Jainism, of Christianity?

In reality, there is no foundation. These all are conceived in ignorance. We have not understood what Jesus means, therefore there is Christianity. We have not understood what Mahavira means, therefore there is Jainism. These are misunderstandings - words with different meanings that we have conceived as if the experiences were different. So there are different sects.

To me, there is no difference, the difference is only of name. One is Krishna: if you wash off the name... one is Mahavira, and if you wash off the name, and the two persons were here, nameless, you could not see the difference. Where is the difference? There is no difference. But the name for us means much. Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, the names are more important to us than the reality for which those names stood.

If one goes deeper, one comes to know the source is one. These things may differ, the paths may differ, but the reaching point is the same. Those who were realized come to know the one reality.

Those who were not realized, conceive their own realities individually.

We create our own realities, our own philosphies.

Another question has been asked, WHAT IS YOUR PHILOSOPHY?

I have got no philosophy at all. Because philosophy means how I define reality. Philosophy means how I systematize the real, what I say about reality.

The first thing I say is that the reality cannot be said, cannot be expressed. How do I define it? I never define it, because definitions can only be in words. You cannot define love. You can know it, you can feel it, you can live it, you can suffer it, but you cannot define it. How can you define love?

How can you define prayer? You can be in prayer, there are moments when you are in prayer, but you cannot define it. All that is beautiful, all that is true, all that is good, cannot be defined. It can only be experienced?

So I have got no philosophy.

SECOND QUESTIONER: SO, WHEN YOU EXPERIENCE SOMETHING THEN YOU CAN DEFINE IT, CERTAINLY?

A: No! Even then you cannot define it! You can only express it... falteringly. You can't define it. You can express it falteringly, and a person who knows will always say categorically... he will say that what I am saying is not what I have experienced. Because words convey so differently....

It is like this:

You have come to a lake; you have seen the sun rise and you have gone back. Now someone asks:

define the beauty, define the sunrise! What do you mean that you have experienced a beautiful scene? What do you mean that you have become exhilarated? What do you mean? Then he says, please paint that sunrise. And you begin to paint. You paint a sunrise: a sun, - with a pencil - a lake, hills, but then you see the difference. It was something living, but this is something dead. That was something miraculous, this is a sketch. A circle, and you say this is the sun? A circle drawn with a pencil, you say this is the sun?

SECOND QUESTIONER: THE DRAWING MAY DIFFER, BUT THE EXPRESSION CAN BE SHARED...?

A: The drawing too is an expression... and it could be more approximate, more real, even more real than words - because words are more abstract.

SECOND QUESTIONER: BUT IT CANNOT BE WRONG? THE EXPRESSION...?

A: That is not the question, that is not the question. I am not saying that it is wrong. I am not saying that it is incorrect, I am saying it is something so faint....

SECOND QUESTIONER: ... EXPRESS IT FALTERINGLY?

A: I said falteringly. A person who has seen the sun rise, may understand something from your sketch. But a person who has not seen any sunrise, he cannot conceive of what you mean. This circle with a pencil, this is the sun? This is beautiful, you say? How nonsensical! How can this circle with a pencil be beautiful?

It can convey something only if the person concerned has experienced it - then there is no question, then it is symbolic, then it can be conveyed. But then there is no need! A person who has known the sunrise, he will understand when you say you have seen a beautiful sunrise. He will say okay, alright, he won't ask you to define it: "Draw a sketch, because I have not seen it, so I may understand by your definitions...." But if you have seen it and then you draw it, you know something has gone wrong. Something has gone wrong. It is something so faint, that it would have been better not to draw it, because it will convey something which you are not meaning to convey. You could say this is a sketch, but no comparison can be made. Even I myself cannot say this is beautiful. Something else was there - living; this is something dead.

And a sun is a physical object. There is a possibility that you may not be able to draw it, but you can have a photograph - that would be more, real. You can have a color photograph, then it would be more real. Still it is an objective experience.

But a person who comes from the divine, cannot bring a photograph with him, cannot have a color photograph. He comes from a vacuum. When he faces us, he is in one of the most difficult states.

He knows something, he has known it, and now you are confronting him, encountering him, asking him, and he is at a loss. He is nowhere. He cannot concieve of how to say it....

So there have been many realized persons for whom the very impossiblity of defining the experience has led them to be silent. They have remained silent.

THIRD QUESTIONER: JESUS HAS SAID THAT THOSE WHO HAVE EARS, LET THEM HEAR.

WHAT DOES HE MEAN BY THAT?

A: He means something. He means something which... he means that only having ears doesn't mean that you can hear. Only having eyes doesn't mean that you can see, because there are things which cannot be seen by the eyes. There are things which are seen with closed eyes, there are things which are heard with closed ears.

A person who has heard things not heard by ears comes to you, says something, and says this: if you have ears...? You will say, what nonsense you are talking about? I have got ears, I have got eyes... But he says I have seen something which was not seen by eyes, but I have seen it, and seen more exactly than any eye can see. If you have eyes - those eyes which are not these eyes, those ears which are not these ears.... So Jesus says, "Listen, hearken - but only those who have ears, who have eyes, can see."

There are eyes which can be opened. But if you think these are all, that these eyes are the only implements, instruments of perfection, then you are losing a greater world - because there are things unseen by these eyes, which can be seen, which can be heard, which can be felt, which can be known. That's what he says. It is the same thing.

SECOND QUESTIONER: THAT REALIZATION STATE?.... HOW TO AVOID THINKING WHILE REMAINING IN THE WORLD, AND KNOWING YOUR OWN SELF?

A: No, you cannot avoid. You cannot escape, because what you avoid follows you, and what you escape from, in a very deep sense you become involved with.

So don't escape, don't avoid. Thinking is, be aware of it. For some moments, sit quietly, be aware of the thinking, be aware of the process: thoughts are coming, thoughts are going... like breath coming and going, coming and going constantly - there is a continuity. See it; just see it. Stand aside, be aware of it. Thoughts are going... this thought has come, that has gone, see it, know it. Notice it, but don't condemn, don't say this is good, don't say this is bad. Don't choose. Just be aware. Like a person standing on a street: people are going and coming, the street is running, there is a crowd, traffic, and a person is standing, is just watching. So just see the process.

By and by, the more you become alert, awake, the more you begin to see thoughts, the more you will come to feel intervals. A thought will come, then it has gone and another thought has not yet come... there is an interval. There is a gap - a little gap. But in that gap there is no thought. So the more alert you become, you will feel the intervals.

Those intervals will be first glimpses of the self - first glimpses. But glimpses. Just glimpses come and gone.

But go on! Those glimpses will be so blissful, that they will invite you more and more towards the inner. And the more you become alert, conscious, thoughts will be coming less and less - it is in proportion. The less alert, the more thinking; the more alert, the less thinking. The proportion goes like this: the more you become conscious, thoughts come less and less. For some time the road becomes vacant and you dip in, you go in. If you continue this - this awareness, being a witness to your mind - then there comes a time... no one can predict it - it is unpredictable but it comes....

Then some day you feel that there are no thoughts.

The thought process has completely ceased and you are transformed to somewhere else, somewhere you have never been. A door has opened, you have gone in. You are not even conscious of going in - you have gone. You know the change, the transformation, the transcendence - you have transcended. Then you come back, but you are a totally different person. Then you live in this very life, but quite differently. Then your everything has changed. It has become more intimate, more loving, more compassionate, you have become a loving, a truthful, a silent, a peaceful, an aware mind. And everything that was associated with ignorance, conflict, tension, all have gone.

Something has been achieved which has led you towards the source. You have become one with it.

Then you live blissfully in every moment, in every circumstance, in every condition, in every situation, something silent and blissful accompanies you like a shadow.

That is the bliss. It is that we have been longing - for births. That has been the longing, but we have searched for it somewhere else, where it is not. We have been longing for it... in love we have been longing for it, in richness we have been longing for it, in everything that we desire, we have been longing for it. But the search has gone astray, not in the right direction. It has gone outward. And the more we have gone outward, the less has become the possibility of the bliss for which we are searching, for which we are desiring.

SECOND QUESTIONER: THEN, THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE ARE WASTING THEIR TIME IN WORLDLY AFFAIRS, DOING THIS AND DOING THAT... GOING TO THE MOON?

A: Those things may be meaningful in another way, in another sense. But as far as the bliss is concerned, they are all useless. They are irrelevant - not relevant to the basic search, the basic urge, the basic thirst of humanity. That is somewhere inside. And you come inside when thought ceases. With thought, the known ceases, the knowledge ceases. With thought the wandering ceases. With thought, everything outward ceases - thought is the foundation of all that is outward.

You come in - really, you have never been out, but with the association of thought you have imagined yourself to be out. When I say you come in, you really don't come in, you have always been in, but for the first time you are disassociated from the outside. You realize what has been always yours.