Be kind to yourself, stop all this seeking

Question 1:

There is no path - either of meditation or of love - because a path leads to some goal. There is no goal in life. What you are searching and seeking is already present within you.

So the first thing to be understood is: there is no path to truth. There has never been, there is no possibility of there ever being - for the simple reason that every path leads you somewhere else, farther and farther away from yourself. If you are going somewhere a path is needed, but you are not going anywhere. You have gone so long already, so far already, from yourself. You have to drop all paths altogether.

Drop the path and it is there.

Jesus says, "Seek, and ye shall find." I say unto you: Stop seeking and you have found it. Jesus says, "Ask, and it shall be given." Nonsense! Who is there to give it to you? And a truth that is given can be taken away any moment. It is worth nothing; it is against the dignity of human individuality.

And why ask anybody?

Stop asking, begging, praying; you are just being stupid. You are it! In each of your breaths it is here - I will not say "there." There is no distance between you and the truth. I say unto you, stop asking, begging, praying, and you will be surprised that it was the asking, begging and praying that was preventing you from finding it.

Jesus says, "Knock, and the doors shall be opened unto you." The doors are already open! Where are you going to knock? And if you manage to knock, you must be knocking your head against some wall. The doors have never been closed.

And that is the beauty of existence: it is always open, available - just for you to take. Existence will not respond to your questions; it responds only to your silence. And knocking is making noise, beware of it.

Can't you see a simple thing? You are alive, and life is truth. And out of this life many flowers blossom; out of this life grows love, out of this life grows laughter. You are not to seek life. You have been seeking it for millions and millions of years. It is time: be kind to yourself, stop all this seeking.

The moment a person stops seeking, asking, knocking, he is where he always wanted to be.

Jesus was a carpenter, so the word "knocking" comes very easily to him. I cannot say that because I know, the door is open. Your eyes are closed. Are you going to knock on your eyes? Then you will go blind.

Just see, the door is open.

And you are not outside, you are inside.

All the religions have been teaching you that you are outside the kingdom of God. You are not, you are the kingdom of God, you are in it.

Whatsoever the biblical story says, that God threw Adam and Eve out of paradise, I categorically contradict it. He cannot throw out Adam and Eve, because there is no place outside paradise. This whole existence is paradise - infinite in every direction. Where can you be thrown? Wherever you will be, you will be in; you cannot be out. There is no "out" in existence, all is in.

You say this is your understanding, that there are two paths, the paths of love and meditation.

Understanding knows only one. It is misunderstanding that knows the two and the many. It is not your understanding that I have been speaking on the path of meditation. These are simply words.

Call it love, call it meditation, or invent your own word, because all words are invented. The words don't mean anything; they mean what you want them to mean.

You have not understood what I have been saying to you. I have been saying to you, "Drop all effort and you will be full of meditativeness." And meditativeness cannot be anything other than love. When you are full of meditativeness, it means you are at the very center of your being. The experiencing of the very center of your being starts blossoming into love, into laughter, into a song, into a dance.

Just remain at your center. And when I say remain at your center, I am saying that you have not moved from it; you are only dreaming that you have moved. Renounce only one thing in life.... I do not tell you to renounce the world, to renounce the family, to renounce the wealth, no; all this is nonsense. Religion is not renouncing, religion is rejoicing.

Rejoice in the world, rejoice in your family; rejoice in all that is available to you. Rejoice simply because so much has been given by nature to you. And in this rejoicing can you think of hatred, of anger, of negativity, of any dark holes? When you are at your very center, everything is light, everything is love, everything is as it should be. You are not to do anything. This is the most difficult thing, to stop doing anything.

Have you not seen a dead body floating in the water? When you are alive, if you don't know swimming you will go down into the water till you die. Strange, the dead body knows some secret which you have forgotten. You cannot drown a dead body. Not that the dead body knows swimming; the dead body has stopped doing everything, swimming included. And suddenly a miracle: the dead body is floating on the water.

People who drown get drowned not by the water. It is a scientific truth that just as the earth has gravitation - it pulls things downwards... water is just the opposite. Its law is not gravitation, its law is levitation; it raises things up. That's why in water you feel light; in water you can lift a big rock very easily. The same rock you may not be able to lift outside the water, because the water - the levitation - is helping you. The person drowns not because he does not know swimming; he drowns because he makes so much effort to remain above water. That very effort exhausts him.

If you don't know swimming, and by chance you fall into water, just get drowned without any effort.

Just go immediately to the very bottom, and you will be lifted up by the water itself. Swimming is absolutely unnecessary.

A Japanese scientist has been working on swimming. He started teaching six-month-old babies swimming - must be mad! But he succeeded, because six-month-old babies don't make much effort. Then he went even to three-month-old babies; they were even more successful, they simply floated. They don't know how to swim, how to make an effort to survive. They don't take water as the enemy who is going to drown you, they are utterly innocent - and for a simple reason: they have a trust. In their mother's womb they were swimming in water for nine months - not swimming, just floating.

That Japanese scientist is convinced, and I think his conviction is going to prove right, that even a just-born baby can be left in water and he will float. He has been floating for nine months.

Going to your center is just like that. You have been at your center, not only for nine months, but perhaps for nine million lives. But you go on making hectic efforts in all directions - searching, seeking, becoming Christian, becoming Hindu, reading the VEDAS and THE BIBLE and the KORAN. Naturally you prove to be a crackpot; you are going to end up insane.

So please don't say that you have the understanding - you don't have it. Yes, you have a misunderstanding.

I have not been talking about any path. I have been talking about pathlessness. Meditation is my word for pathlessness. I have not called it love, because then there is more possibility of your misunderstanding. I know your love. You will immediately translate my word into your kind of love - which is not love at all. It may be chemistry, it may be hormones, it may be physiology, it may be biology, but not love.

You are attracted to a woman or to a man; you think you are in love. You are unaware of the fact that it is your hormones, your chemistry, your biology. Just very easily your hormones can be changed, and all your love for the woman will disappear. Your chemistry can be changed, and a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man. The difference between a man and woman is not much.

It is very simple. It is just like your pocket: pull it out, it becomes man; push it back into its place, it becomes woman. No other difference. Your sexuality is hanging out; their sexuality is hanging in.

And you call it love?

Have you seen animals making love? You must have seen them. Do you remember? - when they are making love they don't look happy. They are not so foolish. They look as if they have been forced to make love. Their faces show a certain kind of despair: "What is this all about? Why am I being forced?" Look at two dogs making love - both in great trouble.

It is not different for man either. It is this fact that makes people want to love each other in darkness.

It is good: you don't see the face of your woman, what is happening to her; she is going into convulsions. The woman cannot see your face, because your face has turned into a monster. Next time you are making love, just see the truth of what I am saying. And you are not the one who is doing it - something is forcing you to do it. It is something surrounding you, but it is not you; it is your body, your biology.

I know about one spider - they also make love; in this world it seems everybody makes love - and while the male spider on top of the female spider is just coming to orgasm, is trembling, the female spider starts eating him. By the time his orgasm is finished, he is also finished. Great love! And they are doing the same thing you are doing.

That's why married men and women cannot live together in peace - their love does not allow them to live in peace. Soon they become prisoners for each other, torturers for each other. It is because of this fact that I have not used the word "love" for this pathlessness.

But once you are at your center, that means you are no longer your biology, you are no longer your physiology, you are no longer your hormones. You are just pure awareness, a witness, a small light, a flame inside, of consciousness. Meditation seems to be a better word, because you are not acquainted with it. But you can call it love if you are alert enough not to get mixed up.

Out of meditation, there is a fragrance which is not chemical, which is not like passing through a hospital. That fragrance is love. It is not directed towards some particular address, it is not directed to some person. Do you think when a flower opens up and sends its fragrance to the winds, that fragrance is directed to some person? No, it is just overflowing. Anybody passing by can enjoy it. I say, anybody passing by can be overwhelmed by it. True love is just like that.

Whenever I use the word "love," this is my meaning: it is a fragrance of the flower of meditation, unaddressed. It is not a relationship. Yes, it may relate if somebody happens to be there. If nobody happens to be there, there is no despair; the flower is enjoying its overflowing energy, it is blessed.

It has given its treasure to the whole existence.

Yes, it is relating in a way, but it is relating to the whole. It is not that it will keep its fragrance and wait for the person whom it loves. That's what you have been doing, because you don't know the authentic quality of love. You are making it a relationship.

Somebody attracts you; there can be any reason for that attraction. Mostly - perhaps one hundred percent, not mostly - the woman you are attracted to has something in her eyes, in the color of her hair, in her way of talking, in her voice, in her gestures, the way she walks... something in her resembles your mother. You are always in love with your mother, and your whole life you are seeking another mother. Of course, you are going to be frustrated.

All lovers are frustrated, except those who never manage to get married. For example, Laila and Majnu - the society did not allow them. Shiri and Fariad - their families came in. They were never frustrated, they remained lovers their whole life. They lived loving the other person, they died loving the other person. But if you come together.... They were prevented from coming together. If you come together you are going to find that this woman is not your mother.

Now, it is a very complicated phenomenon. You cannot get married to your actual mother, or your actual father, but that's what your biology is seeking. It never finds it. People go on changing their lovers, and each lover frustrates more, because by and by they start becoming aware that this search is never going to end. You can have all the women of the world or all the men of the world; still you will not be contented. In fact, you will be the most frustrated human being ever, because you have known all the women - now there is no hope.

All the old societies insist on monogamy. They are trying to prevent you from getting too frustrated.

In India you will not find so much frustration as you will find in America; it is just out of the question.

You are married to a woman - this life is finished. If you want to search for another, then wait for another incarnation, but in this life there is no chance. People get settled, not out of joy, it is a compromise - what else to do?

But in California you can never get settled. There are other women around you, other men around you. Perhaps if this woman has failed, there must be some woman who is born just for you; it is only a question of finding her. The poets have given you that idea that every man is born for a certain woman. And when they meet for the first time, lovers usually say, "We are made for each other."

Nobody is made for each other, and it will not take long to discover that you were wrong. As your honeymoon ends, you know perfectly well, one thing is certain: you were not made for each other.

No woman can be exactly like your mother, no man can be exactly like your father. In this world, everything is unique; you cannot find the same person again. But every small girl loves her father, every small boy loves his mother.

In a way it seems natural, but this is one of the basic causes of human misery. Later on, what are you going to do? That first imprint of his mother in a vulnerable child's mind is going to haunt him for his whole life. Yes, fragments he may find here and there: the color of the hair, the color of the eyes, the sound of the voice. But a fragment is not the whole, and you are searching for the whole.

This is not love. This is biology intending to propagate; it is a strategy, a trick. Just think of one thing:

if there is no joy in making love, no attraction in making love, no desire for making love, will you fall in love with somebody? Then I think that, just like a death sentence, in the courts they will give a "love sentence": "You get married and suffer, this is your punishment."

But whether courts do it or not, it has been happening for millennia. Since man has come into existence it must have been going on. No court is needed to give you a love sentence, you have given it to yourself. That's why I avoid the word "love"; it has very ugly connotations.

If you try to understand, then there is a totally different kind of love. But that happens only when you have found your center. Finding the center is easy. Just not doing anything to find it is difficult.

It is difficult to convince you that enlightenment is a moment when you are not doing anything - the doer is absent. That's why I call myself the lazy man's guide for enlightenment. It is not work, it is play, relaxation.

Question 2:

You seem to be very much in a hurry. If you understand me, there is no problem - right now you can become enlightened. At least right now the world has not ended. There are thousands of people in the world trying for enlightenment, but their very trying is the barrier. It postpones enlightenment.

For ninety years J. Krishnamurti has been working, first upon himself, then upon others. And now he is getting immensely frustrated. Nobody is to be blamed, he himself has made it a difficult job.

He is obsessed with reading detective novels; he has made the search for enlightenment a very sensational, puzzling, difficult detective story. My Krishnamurti Lake is doing far better: just the other day somebody became enlightened there.

You are asking me, "The world is going to end, what am I supposed to do?" Have I to answer you?

Can't you understand? Krishnamurti Lake is not far away.

Krishnamurti himself will not help you. He has been just on the border of enlightenment. One step more... but that one step is missing. And the reason is that he was forced to become enlightened.

For twenty-five years in his early life.... The theosophical idiots found him. He was nine years old, the son of a poor, very poor father; the mother had died, he had one brother. The father was in much difficulty. He was just a small clerk in some office; to look after these two children, and do the work - it was becoming maddening.

So when the Theosophists told him they would like to adopt his two children - one was Nityananda and the other was Krishnamurti - he happily handed over the children to Annie Besant, knowing that at least they would be taken care of, given a good education. The theosophical movement in those days was the top movement of the world. Very important, significant, powerful people had become involved in it.

The Theosophists started making these two poor boys enlightened - it had never been done before...

so much hammering that Nityananda died. My feeling is that the Theosophists were responsible for his death. They tortured these two boys as much as possible: wake up in the morning at three o'clock; go to the river, take a cold bath, then chant mantras... spiritual teaching that went on deep into the night. Both escaped them finally, because it was absolutely inhuman - Nityananda in one way, Krishnamurti in another. Nityananda died - he must have been of a weaker constitution.

Krishnamurti survived.

The Theosophists were going to declare Krishnamurti the world teacher. When he was twenty-five they gathered in Holland to declare him the world teacher, with great hope: "The man who can deliver the whole world from misery has arrived. He is the Christ, he is the Buddha; he contains all the hopes of the past humanity."

Krishnamurti stood up to declare himself to be the world teacher, but on the contrary, he simply said, "I am nobody's teacher. I am fed up with teachers! And just forgive me, I am not jagadguru, the world teacher. And I dissolve this whole organization that you have created around me." A special organization called The Star of the East, a branch of the Theosophical Society, was created for Krishnamurti. He dissolved the organization. The people were simply shocked; they had worked so hard to make him enlightened, and this man freaked out at the crucial moment.

Since then he has been going around the earth alone. But those twenty-five years are still heavy on him; that's why he cannot take that one step. He is not freed from those dead Theosophists. They are long dead, the movement has almost disappeared, but what happened in those twenty-five years in the beginning is holding him back.

Remember always: love is an attachment; hate is a bigger attachment, far more solid. Compassion is very delicate, but cruelty is very hard.

He is still fighting with the ghosts of the Theosophists. All his life he has been fighting and fighting with those ghosts - who are dead, there is no need to fight with them. One should be simply free of them, but being free means you don't hate them. Hate imprisons you.

He has become so afraid of the master and disciple phenomenon.... It is his experience - I can forgive him, I can understand him. What happened to him through his masters was so ugly that he has been teaching everybody that you don't need any master.

This is a contradiction. If they don't need any master, why are you bothering them? Who are you?

You have assumed, unknowingly, the role of a master, of a teacher. What have you been doing for ninety years? - teaching people: Beware of teachers! If the people had really understood you, they would have left you, because, "What is the need? Why should we listen to you? This is what a teacher and a student, a master and a disciple do." The master knows, the disciple does not know.

The master imparts his knowledge to the disciples.

Krishnamurti has been doing that, and I am amazed how blind people are. They don't say to him, "Shut up! If we don't need any master, then who are you to bother us? For ninety years you have been bothering people, and not a single person has become enlightened out of this whole effort."

He has created a different kind of effort: "Don't make effort, don't accept any master, don't be open to any teaching." All kinds of egoists have surrounded him for all these years, because the egoist feels great that he need not be open, he need not listen, he need not be concerned about masters and teachers; he is enough unto himself.

It is true, you are enough unto yourself, but you don't know it! Somebody has to hammer it on your head. But things can backfire. That's what has happened in Krishnamurti's case: a man of tremendous intelligence, fighting with ghosts, and continuing teaching, telling people there is no master, telling people, "You are enough unto yourself" - this can be misunderstood.

You are enough unto yourself if you relax and settle in your being; otherwise you are the greatest enemy of yourself. If you go on making an effort to become enlightened.... And man is so strange:

if you tell him that no effort is needed, he starts making "no effort"!

Krishnamurti has never criticized any individual by name. Although he has criticized principles, doctrines, he has not criticized Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ, Moses, Mohammed. Just the other day I received the information that he has criticized me. This is great! He has always pretended that it is not worth his while to criticize Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira; it is something below him. That attitude is ugly.

But he could not restrain himself about me, for the simple reason that I have told my sannyasins, "Wherever he is, just go and sit in the front line." And you ask me why I have chosen red clothes for you?

The color red has something mysterious about it - just show a red flag to a bull and you will know.

You can show a blue flag, nothing will happen; a green flag, nothing will happen. But show a red flag to a bull and he will rush towards you to kill you. Krishnamurti must have been a bull in his past life.

The moment he sees my red people he forgets all his philosophy, he starts immediately criticizing me. But this is the first time he has used my name.

And what criticism has he given? - very childish. He has said against me that I am convincing people that enlightenment is their sheer inheritance, it is a gift of existence - just as life is a gift. I have always respected Krishnamurti, his intelligence, his courage to dissolve a great organization. But I cannot help it, I have to say the truth to you: he is just on the borderline, he is not yet enlightened.

He can be any moment.

You should not be afraid of the third world war. For you there is enough time. But he is ninety; for him there is not much time. He should come to Krishnamurti Lake and get enlightened!

Question 3:

Baby, my whole work is to confuse you! Unless you are utterly confused, you are not going to drop your knowledgeability. What do you mean when you ask me to "ease your confusion"? In other words, you want certain, settled knowledgeability. You want to convince yourself that you know it. I cannot commit that crime. You do not know it.

So first I have to remove all your knowledge - which is bogus anyway. You have not earned it, you don't deserve it. It has not grown within you, it is all rubbish that you have collected from books, from people.

I am going to confuse you more and more. And look, what is your confusion? You say that there have been moments in your life which you used to call God - you cannot deceive me. I know you may have experienced a few beautiful moments; everybody experiences a few beautiful moments of well-being, of great uplift.

Seeing a sunset, suddenly you are silent. Or listening to the tidal waves of the ocean shattering on the rocks on the shore, suddenly you feel almost a nobody before this vast existence. Looking into the sky and the stars you may have had certain moments, and you may have called them God.

Don't make God so cheap. I am raising God higher than he has ever been.

The Jewish God says, "I am a jealous God. I am a very angry God. I am not nice, I am not your uncle." Jesus tried to raise the Jewish God, and that was his crime. He said, "God is love." Now, this is very contradictory. The Jewish God says, "I am jealous, I am angry, I am not nice," and Jesus makes him a goody-goody: "God is love."

This man Jesus should be removed before he destroys their certainty that God is jealous, angry.

You have to be afraid of him, because that will keep you on the right path. If God is love, then who bothers what is right and what is wrong? A loving God cannot punish you in hell for eternity.

But Jesus on the one hand says, "God is love," and on the other hand - he is a Jew after all - the eternal hell remains. He cannot see a simple fact, that if God is love then eternal hell should be removed - because you need not be afraid of love. Love gives you freedom to be yourself;sandwiched between heaven and hell you cannot have any freedom, any individuality.

I am trying to raise God. When I say there is no God, I mean there is no person as God, there is no personality as God.

You have to understand clearly that personality is something false. The word "personality" comes from the Greek persona - persona means a mask; in Greek drama the actors used to have a mask.

You know sona means sound; a sound coming through a mask was called persona. You cannot see who is behind the mask; hence the actor has a personality. And if you all have personalities, you are all actors - you are not being authentic, sincerely yourself. Personality and individuality don't mean the same thing.

I am taking the personality of God away. I don't want him to be an actor - you have so many in Hollywood. Strange, that the place is called "Hollywood"... all gods, personalities, great personalities. I don't want God to be a Hollywood actor. I am trying to destroy his mask, and once the personality drops what is left is godliness. That is the true individuality of existence.

I will not say, "God is love," because that still keeps God as a person. On the contrary, I say, "Love is God." You can forget all about God. If you can understand love, that's enough religion; more than that is not needed.

I use the word "godliness" and you are confused, because those moments... have you seen anybody in those moments that you can call God? You have not seen anybody in those moments, because there is nobody. You were using a wrong word, I am correcting you. Those moments you can call moments of godliness. I am changing God from a quantity to a quality.

God is a quantity; godliness is a quality. And you are confused by it? Just a hangover. Shake yourself well - slap yourself and shake yourself - and all confusion will disappear.

Question 4:

Here!

You ask me, "Where is this moment?" Your question implies it must be somewhere else. You have already lost it. It is always here! Don't try to find where it is, because while you are finding where it is, you are losing it. You are missing the train continuously.

Time knows no tenses: past, present, future, no - absolutely no! Time knows only one tense, and that is now. It is always now. But your mind can carry the past and destroy the beauty of the now.

Your mind can project the future, and can lose the precious moment.

Please, start relaxing here and now.

This is the taste of it.