Becoming is going away from being

Question 1:

The first thing to be understood: you cannot want enlightenment. If you want it, you are not going to get it. Wanting is the greatest barrier, because wanting is of the mind - and enlightenment is the experience beyond mind.

So it is good that you don't care about enlightenment. Do you think I care? As far as I am concerned, you are enlightened, you are just not aware of it.

Enlightenment is not something far away, a goal that you have to achieve; it is not that you have to compete with others, that you have to be fast and speedy.

Enlightenment is your very being.

You are born with it, it is your inner luminosity.

So the question of wanting takes you away from your being. Wanting means desiring.

You can desire everything in the world, but you cannot desire enlightenment; because everything else is there outside you, but enlightenment is your very center of being. It is just that you are looking outward, so your own being is not in your consciousness.

The whole art of meditation is just to turn your consciousness inwards, so that you can become acquainted with yourself. You are not yet introduced to yourself. You know what your name is - but you did not come with that name; that label has been put by others. You know you are a Christian, a Hindu, a Jew - but you were not born as a Hindu, as a Mohammedan, as a Christian.

You were born as a deep and tremendous luminosity, innocence. You were born enlightened - but before you could become aware of it, people started putting all kinds of garbage on you. Before you could have a look inside, they turned your eyes outside and focused them on other things: "You have to become the greatest scientist in the world, you have to become the richest man in the world, you have to become the president."

They managed one thing: they took your attention from being and focused it on becoming. Becoming is going away from being. The more you attain your desires, the farther away you are from yourself.

And there is no end to becoming. Always there is a horizon calling you forth. Becoming is unending, so people go on running after shadows for their whole life. And where do they end up? In a graveyard - presidents and all. The ultimate attainment of all their efforts is the grave. And the grave of a president and the grave of a beggar are not different.

In the East it has been a beautiful tradition that whenever anybody dies, he is burned. The grave is not made, he is not put in a grave but on a funeral pyre. It signifies that this man burned his whole life, this is the ultimate result.

Becoming is burning. The funeral pyre is the goal that he has achieved - all his life burning for this thing, burning for that thing. He had not rested a single moment, he had not relaxed a single moment. The funeral pyre is very significant.

The grave does not give that sense. In the West you make the grave as beautiful as possible, with marble, with beautiful inscriptions on it. You carry the body in beautiful, costly caskets.

Just the other day I saw a book published by the Rolls Royce Company. Of course, we are first in the whole world, but there is a company in Scotland which has two hundred and sixty Rolls Royces; it is a professional company. And in those Rolls Royces a person travels only one way, he never comes back, he has no return ticket. That company carries people to their grave. Of course those who are rich can afford many Rolls Royces to follow the corpse. That's why they have two hundred and sixty. Up to now, the biggest number used by one man was thirty-three Rolls Royces.

But every day people are dying. They could not use a Rolls Royce in their life, at least give them the joy - not only of riding in a Rolls-Royce, but of being followed by dozens of Rolls Royces.

But that company is not a competitor to us. Our Rolls Royces are for the living. Their Rolls Royces are for the dead. And of course, they have to keep two hundred and sixty, because in one day they may have a few orders. Sometimes all their Rolls Royces are engaged. Death comes without giving you any warning.

But whether you go in a Rolls Royce or in a municipal corporation truck, it makes no difference to the corpse. It knows nothing; there is nobody there! You are only carrying bones; how you carry them makes no difference at all. The emperor dead and the beggar dead for the first time become communists - equal. Only in graveyards does communism exist in its authenticity: no hierarchy, nobody above you, nobody below you. There is nobody, in fact. And this is the whole story of becoming.

It is good that you don't care about enlightenment, because your caring about it will destroy the whole thing. That will create a desire, that will create a longing. And enlightenment cannot be an object of your longing and desire.

The basic fundamental of enlightenment is desirelessness.

Here you are enjoying, rejoicing, dancing, singing. Don't be worried about enlightenment. Suddenly one day dancing or singing or listening to me, or just sitting in silence, you will become aware - "My God! I have always been enlightened!"

That's how it has always happened. That's why down the centuries the first similarity enlightened people have shared, is: they have laughed loudly when they became enlightened. On other points they may differ, their philosophies may be different - someone may have one kind of theology, someone another kind - but as far as laughter is concerned, nobody in the whole history of humanity has become enlightened and not laughed!

Life is really so hilarious: you go on trying to find something which you have already - in fact, even if you want to become unenlightened, there is no way.

So don't think that you are being irresponsible. This is just the opposite; you are being, for the first time, responsible. You have dropped the idea of enlightenment. You are no longer interested in enlightenment. That's a great step.

And don't be worried that you are perhaps becoming dependent on me, that without my help you cannot do it. I go on destroying every possibility of your becoming dependent on me. There were people who became dependent on my words. I stopped speaking for three-and-a half years just to get rid of those camels. They have moved, they are all in Santa Fe.

But there are thousands of ways you can become dependent. And that's the function of the master:

not to make you dependent. He wants you to be totally free, independent individuals, having immense respect for your own integrity. And it comes by being joyous for no reason - dancing for dancing's sake; singing as an intrinsic value, not singing in a competition to win the award; singing to enjoy, just the way birds sing in the morning.

You cannot ask those birds, "Why are you singing? Have you got the Nobel Prize? Or have you become the president of America? Have you found a treasure?" Nothing. Just the morning sun, the beginning of a new day, the fragrance of fresh flowers, the darkness disappearing and the whole sky becoming available again - suddenly the song bursts forth for no particular reason.

In fact, it is not right to say that the birds are singing. It will be better to say that singing is happening to the birds. It is simply coming out without any effort, it is not a doing. They are not rehearsing for it.

They are not going to a music institute, nobody has ever taught them how to sing. They don't bother whether their singing has any meaning in it. Sheer joy!

And if you feel around me sheer joy - dancing, singing, rejoicing - that's enough. Don't be worried:

your singing, your dancing, your joy will never become dependent on me. They are yours.

Perhaps in the beginning you will think that it is because of me that you are rejoicing, but that fallacy will not last long. One day, suddenly, sitting in your own room, you may start dancing. In fact everybody does it in his bathroom already. In the room he is a little bit afraid what the neighbors will think. Sitting before the bathroom mirror, have you not made faces? You are again a child.

Soon you will discover my presence is only an excuse, because you cannot laugh without an excuse.

That's why. You need some excuse. The master is here - that is enough to rejoice. But just a little intelligence is needed. Rejoicing in itself is enough, it needs no reason. Soon sannyasins start finding that they can dance, they can sing, they can rejoice under the sky, under the stars, by the side of the river, on the mountain.

The function of the master is, in the beginning, to give you an excuse, a reason, so that you don't feel embarrassed. Otherwise, if suddenly in the outside world, walking on the street you start dancing, soon you will be in the hands of the police. You will be presented in a court: "This man has been dancing on the road, disturbing the traffic, and he does not say why he was dancing! Either he is mad, or some other reason has to be found."

You cannot do it in the outside world; that's why I insist that all my sannyasins should start moving towards communes where nobody is going to ask why you are dancing. Perhaps, seeing you dance, they may start dancing themselves. Nobody is going to ask you, "Why do you have this Jimmy Carter smile? Have you become the president of America?"

Since Jimmy Carter has stopped being the president of America, that smile has disappeared. I have been looking at his pictures after he was out of the White House. Suddenly that big smile, perhaps the biggest in the whole world - you could have counted his teeth without any trouble - has disappeared.

It had a reason: it was not authentic, it was not true. It was not his happiness, his joy. It had a cause.

The cause is no longer there - the smile has died. When he was president, the smile was there all the time. It must have been arduous for the poor man to keep his lips in that position for the whole day.

I heard that by and by those lips became fixed in that posture, and every night Mrs. Carter had to close his mouth. I don't know how far it is true, but Mrs. Carter is very afraid of rats, and if Jimmy is sleeping with that open mouth, any rat might enter in.

And then there are troubles after troubles. To bring the rat out, you have to send a cat inside! Then there is no end to troubles. It is better to force his mouth and close it, and cover him completely in a blanket, because who knows? - when she goes to sleep he may start doing his exercise again. But since he has not been the president, his face looks like Jesus Christ crucified.

I said to you that what all the enlightened people of the world have experienced first was a great laugh. Buddha used to call it "the lion's roar" because the laughter was so loud. It has to be, because for thousands of lives you have been searching for it and you never became aware who was searching for it!

The searcher is the sought.

The seeker is the goal.

So don't feel at all that you will become dependent on me. I won't allow it. I go on saying things, doing things which disturb your dependence. You would like me to do certain things so that you can think I am a great master and you are a great follower. Then there is dependence. Now, who wants to depend on an ordinary man like me? To be a follower of an ordinary man makes you an ordinary follower! Could not you get a little better master?

The masters who have helped people to depend on them were not real masters, they were pseudo.

They knew the simple strategy, that if they pretend to be great, then they are going to attract many idiots who want to be great without any effort, just by becoming a follower. "Believe in Jesus Christ and you are saved" - so cheap! Just go on Sunday and listen to a boring sermon in a church, and for six days you can do anything you want to do, but you are saved. Christianity is a Sunday religion.

And in that one hour most of the people are asleep.

I have heard that one man was creating great disturbance in the priest's mind, because he was not only asleep, he was snoring. The priest pulled the man aside after the sermon and told him that "There is no objection against sleeping; it is not against spirituality or Christianity. There is not a single sentence in the whole Bible against sleep, so there is no problem. But snoring is too much.

"And the problem is that your snoring disturbs other people's sleep. So many complaints have come to me, 'Somehow this man's snoring has to be stopped.' Not that they are interested in the sermon, but their sleep - just a beautiful morning sleep....

"So you please either stop snoring or stop coming to the sermon, and let people sleep. That gives me also the opportunity to go on repeating the same sermon every Sunday. I need not prepare it again and again, because what is the point? - people are asleep, nobody is listening. But you are creating double problems: you are disturbing people's sleep and you are forcing me to prepare a new sermon every Sunday. How can I do that?"

It is good that the idea of enlightenment as a desired object is disappearing from you.

Don't be worried, this is not irresponsible. And don't be worried either that you will become dependent on me. You cannot, because I have not been here for thirty-two years! The day I realized my enlightenment - since then I have been absent.

I laughed, and that was the last act.

You cannot depend on me. I can manage to disturb your dependence in every possible way. Any day you can find me drunk on the streets near your disco. Anyway, I cannot walk straight. Wobbling is my way of walking - drunk or not drunk.

But I can do anything for you! I can smoke Havana cigars. Sheela has kept a good stock - because any day I can ask. She has Havana cigars, Mexican cigars, and all kinds of beautiful things. I can do anything to destroy your dependence so don't be worried, that is my responsibility.

You simply rejoice. You enjoy each moment. One day - that day cannot be predicted, because it is going to be different for everybody - whenever you are in a state of utter relaxation; after dancing, after singing, after listening to me, it can happen. It has happened in all kinds of strange situations.

Jainas - that is one of the oldest religions in India - have been very angry with me. In fact, everybody is angry with me. They were angry because in one of their annual conferences I raised a very embarrassing question. Their greatest master was Mahavira, a contemporary of Gautam Buddha.

Their scriptures say that he became enlightened in a certain posture, which is called gau dohan.

In India, people sit to milk the cows. Gau dohan means milking the cow. Now that is a very strange posture. Mahavira had no cow, so either he was stealing the milk from somebody else cow - which does not seem right for a great master....

And I asked the Jainas, "This question has been bothering me very much, What was he doing?"

Most probably he was pissing, because in India that is the way people piss all around the country.

The whole of India is a big toilet. People defecate, people piss, but the posture is the same - gau dohan.

I said, "I cannot think that he was stealing milk from somebody's cow. Then there are only two other possibilities: either he was pissing or defecating. And if you have any other suggestion, I am ready to accept it."

It can happen in any moment. Perhaps his bladder was too full, and he had been repressing it - perhaps he was passing through a village - and when he urinated there was great relaxation, and he became enlightened.

You can give it a try. Go on and on repressing till you know: now it is going to happen! And then you will know real relaxation - all worries disappeared, all tension gone.... And it is possible. If it has happened to Mahavira, why can't it happen to you?

Enlightenment has happened in all conditions, all situations, strange... but one thing, laughter, is certain. Jainas are naturally angry that I said Mahavira must have laughed.

The whole thing is worth laughing a great laughter: he was meditating, and he was fasting, and he was reading the scriptures, and doing all kinds of things for forty years - and then when he was pissing, enlightenment happened! No scripture prescribes it. But you can expect anything from me:

I prescribe it.

Don't be worried, I will not allow anybody to be dependent on me.

And a person who is rejoicing, dancing, singing, automatically becomes independent. There is no need for him to make an effort to become independent because soon he finds that the master was only providing excuses. Of course, for that he remains grateful because without those excuses perhaps he would never have known what he had been carrying within himself.

My sannyasins will never be dependent on me, but gratefulness is not dependence. In fact, gratefulness is part of your independence. The master did all kinds of things, said all kinds of things, just to push you into a corner where you have to face yourself.

It is because of this I don't consider Moses, or Jesus, or Mohammed to be enlightened. None of them knew what laughter is.

Why did Jesus choose Judea to be born in? Britain was the right place. Long faces, carrying the whole burden of the world - the white man's burden.

Why did Jesus have more followers in the world than anybody else? Because somehow he fits with your misery, your suffering. You have a certain synchronicity with Jesus. He fits with you because you are also carrying a cross on your shoulder. Your life is nothing but a cross.

Looking at Jesus - if this is what is going to happen after enlightenment, then it is better to remain unenlightened. I don't think he ever smiled - not a single picture, not a single statue.... He's so goddamned serious! And that is the reason why he has found so many followers in the world.

It is very difficult for me to find so many followers because people are in misery, people are in suffering, people are in pain, people are in anguish. And my people are dancing, enjoying, relishing every moment of life. Naturally a great hostility arises in people.

First, they cannot believe what you are doing. They think perhaps you are pretending - but for whom? We are living isolated, for twenty miles around there is nobody, no neighbor. For whom are we pretending?

Or they think that you all have been hypnotized. If hypnosis make people laugh, enjoy, relish, then what is wrong in hypnosis? They should get hypnotized rather than suffering their whole life. I think hypnosis is not bad... but nobody is hypnotized. Otherwise great hypnotists themselves would have transcended sadness, but Sigmund Freud is as serious as Jesus.

Both are Jews. Jews have given to the world three great men: Jesus, Freud, Karl Marx - and all these three people are immensely serious. Nobody has seen Freud or Marx.... Jesus, of course, lived two thousand year ago, we cannot be certain - but about Marx, about Freud....

Freud's daughter, Anna Freud, wrote a letter to me. They were very close. I inquired of Anna Freud, "Do you remember any moment when Freud was not serious?" She said, "Freud - not serious? He was serious even in his sleep." He was so serious that if you brought him a joke he would not laugh, he would start analyzing the psychology of the joke.

He has written a book, ANALYZING JOKES AND THEIR PSYCHOLOGY. The joke cannot make him laugh. It only creates a great effort to analyze it, give it a psychological color, sometimes far-fetched.

Jokes are simple. They are not created by great philosophers - just ordinary people in ordinary life.

They don't know that they are creating a great psychological thing.

But Freud was unable to laugh. Not only that, it was an undeclared rule amongst his disciples that when he was present nobody could laugh.

I was also a teacher in the university. And every day complaints were coming from other professors whose classrooms were next to mine: "What is going on? We hear so much laughter. Our classes are disturbed, we are disturbed. And what kind of things are you teaching to these people that they go on laughing?"

It was understood between me and my students that if you start being a little less serious - the whole of life is so ridiculous - everything is a joke. Laughter is the only reality!

Jesus says, "Everybody has to carry his cross on his shoulders."

I say, "Everybody has to carry his jokebook on his shoulders." It is light. It is enlightening.

Just look at people carrying crosses on their shoulders all around. What kind of a world will that be?

Even Christians, even the pope, who represents Jesus, they don't carry the cross on their shoulders.

They have golden crosses hanging around their necks. Jesus never said to make golden crosses and hang beautiful golden chains around your neck. These people are deceiving their own master.

Crosses are not made of gold.

The cross on which Jesus was crucified was so heavy that he fell three times on the road. He was a young man, thirty-three, and he was a carpenter's son, who was accustomed to carry logs, wood, from the forest to his father's carpentry shop. If that man fell three times, what about me? - I have never entered any carpenter's shop, and I have never carried anything, what to say about a cross?

But these so-called Christians, if they are really Christians, should make great, heavy crosses, so when they are going from the house to the office, at least three times they should fall. And rather than reaching the office, they would be carried in an ambulance to the hospital. Then they would be real Christians.

Jesus never laughed, never smiled; he was utterly serious - obviously, because he was the savior and he had come to save the whole world. But he could not save himself.

My approach is totally different. I cannot consider Jesus a man of enlightenment because the first proof of enlightenment - the laughter - is missing. He is a miserable creature. In fact, masochistic, torturing himself and teaching others to torture themselves. Moses is not enlightened. They are all serious people and these people have made the whole world serious. Can you laugh before Moses, who has seen God face to face? Even as far as I know, looking at Moses, God also could not laugh.

In the East we know thousands of enlightened people, but one thing is absolutely characteristic of enlightened people, and that is their joyousness, their laughter, their dance, their singing.

Krishna's flute is far more spiritual than Jesus' cross. Krishna is dancing. Can you conceive Jesus dancing? With the cross it will be difficult.

Krishna is dancing and playing on his flute, and all the beautiful girls run towards the place where he is playing on his flute. And those girls start dancing around him. Can you imagine Jesus, with his cross, dancing, and beautiful girls running towards him?

Only those twelve fools, who Christians think are apostles - they will be there. And none of them is capable of dancing. Somebody is a fisherman, somebody is a woodcutter - all uneducated, illiterate.

And of course, Jesus moved with this gay company his whole life. Somehow he seems to be the founder of the gay people. What the hell was he doing with these twelve stupid boys! No, I cannot believe that this man is enlightened.

No enlightened person has said that he can save another person, because in saving somebody, you are making him dependent on you. And if I can save somebody, I can throw him back into his miserable world. It was my work....

It happened... I was sitting on the bank in Allahabad, where the Ganges is really beautiful and vast like an ocean. I saw a man jump. I thought he was enjoying a swim, but then he started shouting, "Save me!"

I was a little puzzled, but there was no time to think it over, so I jumped in and carried him out.

The man said, "What have you done? I was trying to commit suicide."

I said, "This is strange. Then why did you call, 'Save me!'?"

He said, "Because of the fear."

So you know what I did? I pushed him back! I said, "Now go on your way. Even if you shout 'Save me!', I am not going to come. And we are the only two here."

If somebody can save you, he can throw you back in the river.

In the East, enlightened people have always emphasized one thing: that you can save yourself; nobody else can do it for you.

There are things one has to do for oneself. In one of the existentialist novels there is a story, which I don't think is ever going to happen, but - looking at the stupidity of human beings, sometimes I become doubtful - perhaps it can happen. A rich man sends his servant to kiss his girlfriend. Now, would you like a servant to go and kiss your wife on your behalf? Or your girlfriend? There are things you have to do. You cannot rely on servants.

And this is the greatest thing in life: to know oneself. You cannot depend on somebody else.

Nobody can enter in the very center of your being, except you. This is the dignity of consciousness, that there is no way to trespass it.

And that's what Jesus is trying to say, that he is going to trespass everybody's consciousness. He is going to save the whole humanity.

I am not your savior. I am at the most your friend. It is just your kindness to call me your master.

As far as I am concerned, I am not anybody's master. That word is connected with the slave, with the servant, with dependence. I am just a fellow traveler. Just a little bit of difference, of course - that you go on walking with closed eyes and I go on walking with open eyes. Any moment you can open your eyes, nobody is preventing you. It is your decision to keep them shut. It is going to be your decision to open them.

All that I can do is go on gossiping to you. Mind the word 'gossiping' - I don't use the word 'gospel'.

That I leave for Moses and Jesus and Mohammed. I go on gossiping to you about the beauty of the world, of the stars, of the sun, of the moon. Perhaps, listening continuously to my gossips about beauty, you may open your eyes, saying "Let me see...." Perhaps there are no stars, no sun, nothing, but your eyes will be open. You will be grateful to me, but not dependent on me.

Just two days ago, one beautiful person, a journalist, was asking me, "People in the outside world think that you are not truthful, that you are not honest, that you are deceptive, that you cheat." He was thinking I would be offended.

I said, "They are saying exactly the right things. I cheat people into enlightenment."

I am not honest, because if I am honest you are going to sleep forever. I am deceiving you. I am talking about glories, and blissfulness, and blessedness.

Sooner or later you are bound at least to open one eye and see, just out of the corner, whether these things are there or not. My work is done!

You may not find the things that I have been talking to you about, but you will find far more glorious, far more blissful experiences.

And I am not truthful because truth cannot be expressed in words. What can I do about it? At the most, I can use lies which will make your eyes open. One thing I am certain of: once your eyes are open, you will know why I was lying. You will be grateful that I lied to you, that I was not truthful, because you will know that truth cannot be expressed in words....

The journalist looked at me: he could not believe that I would accept all these condemnations. But they are not condemnations - they are simply descriptions of a real master.

Question 2:

I can say much, but first I want to ask you, "Do you know what love is, that you are afraid that love will be lost?"

People go on imagining things.... In a court there was a case. Two friends, old friends, had beaten each other very badly. They were brought into the court. The magistrate could not believe it. It was a small place - everybody knew that those two persons were always together and they were great friends. He asked, "What happened? What caused the fight?"

One said to the other, "You tell it." The other said, "No, you tell it."

The magistrate said, "Anybody can tell it. There is no question of etiquette, of who should tell it first.

But let me know."

But both were silent. The magistrate had to be hard. He said, "Speak or I will throw you into jail."

Then one said, "It is so embarrassing. In fact we both were sitting on the sands by the side of the river, and my friend said that he is going to purchase a buffalo.

"I said, 'You drop that idea, because your buffalo can enter into my farm and that will be the end of our friendship. I will kill the buffalo."

"My friend said, 'You have some nerve! I am perfectly free to purchase one buffalo or ten buffaloes.

And buffaloes are buffaloes - sometimes they may enter into your field. And I will see what you do:

if you can kill my buffalo, I can burn your whole crop.'"

One thing led to another. Finally, the man who had the farm drew a picture of the farm on the sand with his finger and said, "This is my farm. Let your buffalo enter into it and I will show you."

And he said, "Your honor, this man, with his fingers, brought five buffaloes into my field, and said to me, 'Now do what you want to do."

"Then we started beating each other - because there was no buffalo, there was no farm; so I could not beat his buffaloes, he could not burn my farm. We are very embarrassed, that's why we were insisting, 'You tell.'"

The magistrate said, "This is sheer stupidity! He has not purchased the buffalo yet; your farm is empty, you have not sown the seed yet - and you both have fractures."

You ask me, "When the mind is transcended, when emotions, sentiments, feelings, are transcended, will I have to lose my love too?"

Do you have it? First purchase the buffalo!

I know you don't have it, because if you had it, the question would not have arisen. That's why I am saying with such certainty that you don't have it.

Your question is still significant.

There are three layers of the human individual: his physiology, the body; his psychology, the mind; and his being, his eternal self.

Love can exist on all the three planes, but its qualities will be different. On the plane of physiology, body, it is simply sexuality. You can call it love, because the word 'love' seems to be poetic, beautiful.

But ninety-nine percent of people are calling their sex, love. Sex is biological, physiological. Your chemistry, your hormones - everything material is involved in it.

You fall in love with a woman or a man. Can you exactly describe why this woman attracted you? Certainly you cannot see her self, you have not seen your own self yet. You cannot see her psychology either, because to read somebody's mind is not an easy job. So what have you found in the woman? Something in your physiology, in your chemistry, in your hormones, is attracted to the woman's hormones, her physiology, her chemistry. This is not a love affair; this is a chemical affair.

Just think: the woman you have fallen in love with goes to our doctor, Leeladhar, gets her sex changed, starts growing a beard and mustache. Will you be still loving her? Nothing has changed, only chemistry, hormones. Where has your love gone?

Only one percent of people know a little bit deeper. Poets, painters, musicians, dancers, singers have a sensitivity that they can feel beyond the body. They can feel the beauties of the mind, the sensitivities of the heart, because they live on that plane themselves.

Remember it as a ground rule: Wherever you live, you cannot see beyond that. If you live in your body, if you think you are only your body, you can be attracted only to somebody's body. This is the physiological stage of love.

But a musician, a painter, a poet, lives on a different plane. He does not think, he feels. And because he lives in his heart, he can feel the other person's heart. That is ordinarily called love. It is rare. I am saying only one percent perhaps, once in a while.

Why are many people not moving to the second plane because it is tremendously beautiful? But there is a problem: anything very beautiful is also very delicate. It is not hardware, it is made of very fragile glass. And once a mirror has fallen and broken, then there is no way to put it together.

People are afraid to get so much involved that they reach to the delicate layers of love, because at that stage love is tremendously beautiful but also tremendously changing. Sentiments are not stones, they are like roseflowers.

It is better to have a plastic roseflower, because it will be there always, and every day you can give it a shower and it will be fresh. You can put some French perfume on it. If its color fades you can paint it again. Plastic is one of the most indestructible things in the world. It is stable, permanent; hence people stop at the physiological. It is superficial, but it is stable.

Poets are known, artists are known to fall in love almost every day. Their love is like a roseflower.

While it is there it is so fragrant, so alive, dancing in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, asserting its beauty. But by the evening it may be gone, and you cannot do anything to prevent it.

The deeper love of the heart is just like a breeze that comes into your room, brings its freshness, coolness, and then it is gone. You cannot catch hold of the wind in your fist. Very few people are so courageous as to live with a moment-to-moment, changing life. Hence, they have decided to fall into a love on which they can depend.

I don't know which kind of love you know - most probably the first kind, perhaps, the second kind.

And you are afraid that if you reach your being, what will happen to your love?

Certainly it will be gone - but you will not be a loser. A new kind of love will arise which arises only perhaps to one person in millions. That love can only be called lovingness.

The first love should be called sex. The second love should be called love. The third should be called lovingness - a quality, unaddressed - not possessive and not allowing anybody else to possess you.

That loving quality is such a radical revolution that even to conceive it is very difficult.

Journalists have been asking me, "Why are there so many women here?" Obviously, the question is relevant, and they are shocked when I answer them. They were not expecting the answer.

I have said to them, "I am a man." They looked at me, unbelieving. I said, "It is natural that many more women will be here, for the simple reason that whatsoever they have known in their life before was either sex, or in rare cases, perhaps a few moments of love. But they have never come to know the taste of lovingness." I have told these journalists, "Even the men you see here have grown many feminine qualities in them which have been repressed in the outside society."

From the very beginning a boy is told, "You are a boy, not a girl. Behave like a boy! Tears are okay for a girl, but not for you. Be MANLY." So every boy goes on cutting his feminine qualities. And all that is beautiful is feminine. So finally what is left is just a barbarous animal. His whole function is to reproduce children.

The girl is not allowed to have anything with manly qualities. If she wants to climb a tree she will be stopped immediately, "This is for boys, not for girls!" Strange! If the girl has the desire to climb the tree, that is enough proof that she should be allowed.

All old societies have created different clothes for men and for women. This is not right; because each man is also a woman. He has come from two sources: his father and his mother. Both have contributed to his being. And each woman is also a man.

We have destroyed both. The woman has lost all courage, adventure, reasoning, logic, because those are thought to be the qualities of a man. And the man has lost grace, sensitivity, compassion, kindness. Both have become half.

This is one of the greatest problems we have to solve - at least for our people. My sannyasins have to be both: half man, half woman. That will make them richer. They will have all the qualities that are available to human beings, not only half.

At the point of being, you simply have a fragrance of lovingness.

The journalists have asked me, "Do you love Sheela?"

I said, "Of course. But I love so many women that I don't know even their names. And not only women - I love so many men, because they are also half woman."

In one million sannyasins around the world, I cannot point to a single person and say, "This is the person I love."

I can simply say, "I love."

Whoever is ready to receive my love... it is available.

So don't be afraid. Your fear is right: what you think of as love will be gone, but what will come in its place is immense, infinite. You will be able to love without being attached. You will be able to love many people because to love one person is to keep yourself poor. That one person can give a certain experience of love, but to love many people.... You will be amazed that every person gives you a new feeling, a new song, a new ecstasy. Hence, I am against marriage.

In my vision, marriages in the commune should be dissolved. People can live together their whole life if they want, but that is not a legal necessity. People should be moving, having as many experiences of love as possible. They should not be possessive. Possessiveness destroys love. And they should not be possessed, because that again destroys your love.

All human beings are worthy of being loved. There is no need to be tethered to one person for your whole life. That is one of the reasons why all the people around the world look so bored. Why can't they laugh like you? Why can't they dance like you? They are chained with invisible chains:

marriage, family, husband, wife, children. They are burdened with all kinds of duties, responsibilities, sacrifices. And you want them to smile and laugh and dance and rejoice? You are asking the impossible.

Make people's love free, make people non-possessive. But this can happen only if in your meditation you discover your being. It is nothing to practice. I am not saying to you, "Tonight you go to some other woman just as a practice." You will not get anything, and you may lose your wife. And in the morning you will look silly. It is not a question of practicing, it is a question of discovering your being.

With the discovery of being follows the quality of impersonal lovingness. Then you simply love.

And it goes on spreading. First, it is human beings, then soon animals, birds, trees, mountains, stars.

A day comes when this whole existence is your beloved.

That is our potential. And anybody who is not achieving it is wasting his life.

Yes, you will have to lose a few things, but they are worthless. You will be gaining so much that you will never think again of what you have lost.

A pure impersonal lovingness which can penetrate into anybody's being - that is the outcome of meditativeness, of silence, of diving deep within your own being.

I am simply trying to persuade you. Don't be afraid of losing what you have.

I am reminded of a story. A woodcutter used to go into the woods every day. Sometimes he had to remain hungry because it was raining; sometimes it was too hot, sometimes it was too cold.

A mystic lived in the woods. He watched the woodcutter growing old, sick, hungry, working hard the whole day. He said, "Listen, why don't you go a little further?"

The woodcutter said "What am I going to get a little further? More wood? Unnecessarily carrying that wood for miles?"

The mystic said, "No. If you go a little further, you will find a copper mine. You can take the copper into the city, and that will be enough for seven days. You need not come every day to cut the wood."

The man thought, "Why not give it a try?"

He went in and found the mine. And he was so happy... he came back and fell at the feet of the mystic.

The mystic said, "Don't rejoice too much right now. You have to go a little deeper into the woods."

"But," he said, "what is the point? Now I have got seven days' food."

The mystic said, "Still...."

But the man said, "I will lose the copper mine if I go further."

He said, "You go. You certainly will lose the copper mine, but there is a silver mine. And whatsoever you can bring will be enough for three months."

"The mystic has proved right about the copper mine," the woodcutter thought. "Perhaps he is also right about the silver mine." And he went in and found the silver mine.

And he came dancing, and he said, "How can I pay you? My gratitude knows no bounds."

The mystic said, "Don't be in a hurry. Go a little deeper."

He said, "No! I cannot. I will lose the silver mine."

The mystic said, "But there is a gold mine just few steps deeper."

The woodcutter was hesitant. In fact, he was such a poor man, that having a silver mine - he had never dreamed of it.

But if the mystic is saying it, who knows? - he may still be right. And he found the gold mine. Now it was enough to come once a year.

But the mystic said, "It will be a long time - one year from now you will be coming here. I am getting old - I may not be here, I may be gone. So I have to tell you, don't stop at the gold mine. Just a little more...."

But the man said, "Why? What is the point? You show me one thing, and the moment I get it, you immediately tell me to drop that and go ahead! Now I have found the gold mine!"

The mystic said, "But there is a diamond mine just a few feet deeper in the forest."

The woodcutter went that very day, and he found it. He brought many diamonds, and he said, "This will be enough for my whole life."

The mystic said, "Now perhaps we may not meet again, so my last message is: now that you have enough for your whole life, go in! Forget the forest, the copper mine, the silver mine, the gold mine, the diamond mine. Now I give you the ultimate secret, the ultimate treasure that is within you. Your outer needs are fulfilled. Sit the way I am sitting here."

The poor man said, "Yes, I was wondering... you know all these things - why do you go on sitting here? The question has arisen again and again. And I was just going to ask, 'Why don't you get all those diamonds lying there? Only you know about them. All that gold! Why do you go on sitting under this tree?'"

The mystic said, "After finding the diamonds, my master told me, 'Now sit under this tree and go in.'"

The man dropped all the diamonds there, and he said, "Perhaps we may not meet again. I don't want to go home - I am going to sit here by your side. Please teach me how to go in, because I am a woodcutter. I know how to go deeper into the woods, but I don't know how to go in."

The mystic said, "But all your diamonds, gold, copper, silver - all that will be lost, because all these things are valueless for one who goes in."

The woodcutter said, "Don't be bothered about that. You have been right up to now. I trust you, that you will be right in this last stage too."

The function of the master is basically to persuade you by and by to move from the physiology to the psychology - move from the mind to the heart: then move from the heart to the being.

From the being opens the door of the ultimate being of existence. It is impossible to describe it; it can only be pointed at - the finger pointing to the moon.

But don't be worried: you will be losing only your poverty, your misery. You will not be losing anything that is valuable, and you will be gaining the whole kingdom of the universe.

Just a little courage, a little trust.... I am not using the word 'belief', not using the word 'faith'. I am not saying that you should believe in me. I am not saying, that you have to have faith in what I am saying.

Belief is about theories, theologies, dogmas.

Trust is nothing but pure love.

It is purified love, just pure fragrance. The flower is not there anymore. The petals of the flower have fallen - dust unto dust. Only the fragrance.

If you can feel my fragrance - and you must be feeling it; otherwise there is no need to be here.

Trust is because of that fragrance.

If you can see in my eyes that I have known something which you do not know, that I have experienced something which you are also capable of experiencing....

Trust is just a little courage to move towards the source of the fragrance. And you will be amazed:

the closer you come to the master, the closer you are to yourself. Finally, the master and the disciple disappear. There is only fragrance left. That's what I call paradise - when all separations, all walls have fallen, and you have found the oceanic vastness.

Up to now you were just a dewdrop on the petals of a lotus. Beautiful - in the early sun it shines like a pearl, but soon it will be gone. As the sun becomes hot, it will evaporate.

Our ordinary lives are just dewdrops.

Before death destroys your dewdrop, have courage.

Slip down from the lotus into the ocean.

Certainly it is risky. The lotus is so beautiful, the place is so velvety; the sun is so warm, the wind is so beautiful. And I am telling you, "Take a jump - fall into the ocean!"

You will say, "The lotus will be lost, the warmth of the sun will be lost. My boundaries will be lost."

Yes, you will be lost, but it is not a loss:

You will become the ocean.

The dewdrop will not be found again, but it will remain spread all over the ocean forever and ever.

So don't be afraid. With me, just have a little guts and go on moving. Everything that you think is precious will be lost, but you will find something more precious. And ultimately you will find that all that you have been thinking precious was nothing.

That is enlightenment. You don't seek it, you are doing something else: trying to find your innermost core. The moment you touch your innermost center, enlightenment follows automatically. It is not an object of desire, it is your very subjectivity.

Enlightenment is you; it is your very being.

And whatever I am saying to you, I am not saying according to any scripture. I am not saying something that I have not experienced. Yes, it is true that what I have experienced is beyond words, although I try to bring words as close as possible to the experience. But the moment you experience it, you will say that I was lying. But you will be immensely grateful that a man was ready to lie, to deceive you, to cheat you.

Get ready to be cheated, deceived!

The relationship between a master and a disciple is a very strange phenomenon. The disciple wonders whether to believe or not, whether to trust or not. The master's problem is how to create in language that which is found beyond words. But once you have known it, it becomes impossible for you not to give it expression! The experience starts expressing itself, although no word can contain it. But words can point towards it, they can become fingers.

Don't cling to the finger, because the finger is not the moon.

Forget the finger and look where the finger is pointing.

That's where all the religions have missed. Somebody is carrying the Bible, somebody is carrying the Koran, somebody is carrying the Gita, and these are only fingers - and dead too! And they have all forgotten about the moon.

With me, the finger is alive, and I am not going to allow you to cling to the finger.

I am going to push you again and again to look at the moon.

And once you have looked at the moon, my work is finished.