The death of the mind is the birth of you

Question 1:

That's what is wrong. You have all your friends here, all that you love, all that you have aspired to.

When one comes to a point of having all, a great desire to escape from it arises - for the simple reason that the mind wants more and more and more. If all is available, the mind starts feeling restless; it has nothing to do.

It is a strange fact that poor countries and their people are more satisfied and contented, compared to the rich countries and their people, because the poor can hope and hopes keep them going. If you reach the final rung of the ladder, you are suddenly at a loss; you cannot hope anymore, there is nothing to hope for.

The mind and its functioning has to be understood; the continuous desire for more has to be understood. It is very sick.

One should start looking into one's desire to leave when everything is available. Who is prompting this desire? The mind wants more, and there is no more anymore. The mind is bound to create turmoil in you to escape. And the dichotomy is that on the other hand you see, "All is available here.

Where am I going to be and what am I going to gain by going there?" It is sheer stupidity. But this mind comes from the monkeys and is stupid.

You have to learn not to be identified with the mind. You have to be just a watcher, and see all the buffoonery that the mind goes on doing around you. Don't applaud, don't support, don't negate - just watch. Take no action against the mind because that is also part of the mind. Only one thing in you is the door, and that is witnessing, because it is not part of the mind. It is simple to understand:

if you can witness your mind, certainly you are not the mind. Anything that you can see in front of you, you are not.

This is the whole simple and open secret of meditation. Whatever the monkey within you is doing, watch, with no judgment, because any judgment is either going to be for or against; you have become party to the foolishness of the mind. Neither for or against, just remain watchful of what is happening and this desire to leave will disappear, because you will be able to see that what you wanted is here. So where are you going? And this mind will be with you wherever you go, and it will not allow you any rest.

The mind always wants to go on and on, because that is its very lifeblood. Stopping, even for a single moment, the mind dies. And the death of the mind is the birth of you. While the mind has power over you, you are not born yet.

All the great masters in the East were either kings, or princes who were going to become kings.

Buddha, Mahavira, Parshvanatha, Bahubali - what happened to these people? Not a single poor man in the whole history of the East has become a great master, for the simple reason that he still has hope.

Hope is your opium. It keeps you going. It is just there, you have to stretch your hand a little bit more. It is hanging just before you: a little effort and it will be yours. It is not going to be so; it will always go on hanging just there. It will not be too far because that may create the idea, "Perhaps I cannot manage to go that far. I don't have the strength. The journey is very long." So your hope is not very far away, just close enough so that it would be foolish not to get it. By the time you get it, it is still there in some different form.

That's why religions in the East - particularly in India - have a flavor that religions which are not born there don't have. In India, three religions have existed for thousands of years: Jainism is the oldest, then Hinduism, then Buddhism. Jainas have twenty-four tirthankaras, the great masters.

But strangely enough, all twenty-four came from royal families. Either they were already kings or they were going to be kings sooner or later. And they escaped - they had everything, just at their fingertips they had the whole world. That was the problem; they had to escape.

In Buddhism there is a strange story - but worth understanding, because it is the story of each of you. When Buddha was born, the great astrologers said to the king, "We are afraid, but you have to be made aware of it: this newborn baby is either going to become a chakravartin" - a chakravartin means one who rules over the whole world - "or he is going to become a beggar who owns nothing."

... two extremes.

The king was old and this was his only son, born in his old age. He asked the astrologers how to prevent him from becoming a beggar and renouncing the world. Those astrologers had no idea of mind and psychology. Astrologers may have ideas about faraway stars, whose light takes millions of light years to reach the earth.... And what a foolishness, that man thinks his fate, his destiny, is determined by all these millions of stars so far away!

There is a reason why astrology has remained significant: it gives you great satisfaction that the whole universe is interested in you. Even the faraway stars are trying their best to do something to you; you are not an ordinary person, you are not nothing. Those faraway stars are not even aware of you, cannot be, but your ego feels tremendous satisfaction.

Astrologers have been exploiting this since the very beginning of man. Of course, they exploit you, you have to pay for it, but it seems worth paying them; they are giving you a big ego. You are bigger, far more important, than the biggest star in the sky. They are all just revolving around you!

But those poor astrologers were not even as intelligent as Sigmund Freud. They told the king, "If you want him not to renounce the world, then a few arrangements have to be made."

In India there are three clear-cut seasons in the year. Since the atomic explosions around the world, that has changed; otherwise, every year on the same day the rains will begin, and on the same day they will stop. On the same day the winter comes, and after four months on the same day it stops.

For centuries it has been absolutely certain. Now it is not so, but in Buddha's time it was certain.

Buddha's father made three palaces, one for each season. For summer, a palace in the hill station:

cool, beautiful, green. Every care was taken that Buddha would never become disappointed with the world. For winter, a warm and cozy atmosphere was made in the palace.

The astrologers told the king, "From the very beginning let him be surrounded with beautiful girls, so by the time he becomes a young man he has all the beautiful girls of the land."

They even went into details: that he should not see any old man, because in his seeing an old man the question could arise in him, "Is this the destiny for everyone?" Never allow him to see a dead body. Keep him absolutely unaware of the realities of life, keep him in a dreamland. Their argument was, when he has everything, why should he renounce?

The greatest physician of the country was looking after him. Even the gardeners in the king's garden were told that Buddha should not see a flower withering away or a leaf turning pale. In the night everything that indicates death had to be removed. He should see only beautiful flowers which are always young. He should see only green leaves which are always green.

And this the king could manage. He managed it - and his management backfired. Those idiotic astrologers had no idea of a simple fact: that if you give a man everything and keep him unaware of all that is ugly around, soon he is going to be fed up with it. Soon he will start thinking, "Is this all?

Then tomorrow is going to be the same, and the day after tomorrow is going to be the same. What is the point?" He will become bored.

And that's what happened. Buddha became bored with unchanging beautiful women, unchanging beautiful flowers. How long can your mind keep silent? The astrologers were the reason why Buddha renounced the kingdom. If he had been allowed to live just the ordinary life of every man, perhaps there would have been no Buddha. In a way, the idiotic astrologers unknowingly did a great service to humanity.

The story is beautiful. There used to be an annual festival in the capital, and the prince who was going to be king used to inaugurate it, declare it open. It lasted for a few weeks - all kinds of things, all kinds of athletic games, shows. Buddha was going to inaugurate this youth festival in his twenty-ninth year.

On the way every care was taken - but existence has a way to reach you. You cannot remain completely closed in a grave, unless you are dead. If you are alive, there are bound to be loopholes from where existence will enter and make you aware of the reality. The astrologers and the kings could not be more intelligent than existence itself.

Every care was taken that on the way from the palace to the festival stadium, no old men should be seen, no dead bodies should be carried - nothing that could create a questioning in Buddha. But you cannot avoid reality for long. As the chariot was going towards the festival grounds, Buddha saw an old man. The old man was deaf and he had not heard that today he was not to pass on this road, he was to remain in the house or go somewhere else. He was deaf, he could not hear it, so just as usual he came out of his house; he was going to purchase something from the market.

Buddha, for the first time in twenty-nine years, saw an old man just on the borderline of death. He asked his charioteer, "What is the matter? What has happened to this man? I have never seen anything like this!"

The charioteer loved Buddha just as his own son. He could not lie. He said, "Although it is going against the orders of your father, I cannot lie to you. You have been prevented from seeing people getting old. Everybody gets old - I will get old. This is the way of life."

Buddha immediately asked, "Am I also going to be old one day just like this man?"

The charioteer said, "I have to say the truth to you: I would like that this should not happen to you, but it is the law of nature; nothing can be done. Just as from childhood you have become a young man, from youth you will become one day old too."

And then, just then, somebody died. Now you cannot prevent death. You cannot order death, "You are not to happen on this road, you can happen anywhere else." Death is not in your hands.

Somebody died, people were crying, and the dead body was there.

Buddha asked, "What has happened? Why are people crying?" He had never seen anybody crying, he had never seen anybody with tears; he had never seen anybody dead. He asked, "What has happened to this man? He is not even breathing!"

The charioteer said, "This is the second stage. First you saw the old man. Soon death will come to him too. It has come to this man."

Buddha asked, "Am I also going to die one day?"

The charioteer - afraid of the king, but he must have been a man of some integrity - said, "Truth is truth, nobody can deny it. Your father the king is going to die, I am going to die, you are going to die.

Death begins the day you are born. After birth there is no way to escape death."

And just then they passed a sannyasin. Astrologers had said to the king, "Your son should not be allowed any contact with sannyasins, because those are the people who have renounced everything.

Those are the people who teach that this world is illusion, that all your desires are going to lead you nowhere, that you are simply wasting your life, and death is coming close by every moment.

Sannyasins have to be avoided." And for twenty-nine years Buddha had no notion that there are people who are trying to find something which is beyond life and death.

This red-clothed sannyasin looked very strange to him - just as when you move into the world outside the commune you look strange to people. They are living a life of dreams. You suddenly come, and you shock them! Questions, enquiries: "What has happened to you? Why are you wearing a red robe?"

And a man who has not seen a sannyasin his whole life, for twenty-nine years, is bound to be more enquiring. He said, "And what about this man? I have seen people, but nobody wears a loose robe like this, with a begging bowl in his hand. What kind of man is he?"

The charioteer said, "This man has understood that beauty is going to turn into ugliness, that youth is going to turn into old age, that life is going to turn into death, and he is trying to find, 'Is there something eternal? Is there something which is not affected by youth, by old age, by death, by disease?' He is a sannyasin, he has renounced the ordinary world. He is a seeker of truth."

They were just reaching the stadium. Buddha said to the charioteer, "Turn back - I am not going to the youth festival. If youth is finally going to become old age, disease, death, and if this is going to happen to me, then I have lost twenty-nine years uselessly. I have lived in dreams. I am no longer young, and I am no longer interested in being the prince. Tonight I am going to renounce this world and be a seeker of truth."

What the astrologers had thought looked like common sense... but common sense is superficial.

They could not think a simple thing: that you cannot keep a man for his whole life unaware of reality.

It is better to let him know from the very beginning; otherwise it will come as a big explosion in his life. And that's what happened. That very night Buddha escaped from the palace where everything was available.

In India, all these three religions' great masters come from royalty. That's why there is a great difference, almost unbridgeable, between Christianity and Buddhism, between Mohammedanism and Jainism. The difference comes because Jesus is not a prince. He comes from a poor family, he is the son of a poor carpenter, Joseph. He knows all, nothing is hidden from him. His religion is going to be the poor man's religion. No wonder all around the world poor people go on turning into Christians.

In India, I have traveled continually trying to find a single rich man who became a Christian, and I have not found one. Those who become Christians are orphans, beggars, starving people. Of course they cannot understand Buddhism because Buddha does not turn stones into bread, and that's what they want. Buddha does not change water into wine; on the contrary, he prohibits you because any alcoholic drug is going to destroy your meditativeness. He is not going to raise a dead man from the grave and bring him back to life. What is the point - he will go again. Why give him trouble?

Do you know what happened to Lazarus?

Even if Jesus raised him from the dead - which is nonsense.... For the argument's sake if we accept that yes, he was raised from death back to life, then what happened to him? Where is Lazarus? He will have to die again so what is the point? Maybe a few years more of misery and poverty, sickness, anxiety and anguish - and you call it a miracle? And again he will be back in the grave. At least in the grave he will be without anxiety, without poverty, without sickness, and without any fear of death. It has already happened, now it cannot happen again. Jesus really was unkind if he did raise Lazarus from death.

Buddha would not do it. It is not a miracle, it is foolishness. A similar case happened in Buddha's life: a young child died; the father had died, and the woman was living only for this child. That young child was her whole life and her only hope; otherwise, there was nothing for her to live for. And the child died. She was almost on the verge of going crazy. She wouldn't allow people to take the child to the crematorium. She was hugging the child in the hope that perhaps he might start breathing again. She was ready to give her life if the child could live.

The people said, "This is not possible, it is against the law of nature." But she was in such misery, she could not listen to anybody. Then somebody said, "The best way is, let us take this woman to Gautam Buddha who, just by chance, is in the village."

This appealed to the woman. A man like Gautam Buddha can do anything, and this is a small miracle - nothing much - that the child starts breathing again. She went, crying and weeping, put the child's dead body at the feet of Buddha, and asked him, "You are a great master, you know the secrets of life and death, and I have come with great hope. Make my child alive again."

Buddha said, "That I will do, but you have to fulfill a condition before I do it."

She said, "I am ready to fulfill any condition. I am ready to give my life, but let my child live."

Buddha said, "No, the condition you have to fulfill is very simple. You just go around the village and find a few mustard seeds from a house where death has never happened."

She was in such despair, she went from one house to another. And those people said, "We can give you as many mustard seeds as you want, but those mustard seeds will not help you. Not only one, but many have died in our family; perhaps thousands have died."

By the evening, a great awakening had happened to the woman. She had gone through the whole village, and the same reply.... They were all ready to help her but they said, "These mustard seeds won't help. Buddha has made it clear to you, 'Bring the mustard seeds from a family where nobody has ever died.'"

By the evening, when she returned, she was a totally different woman. She was not the same woman who had come in the morning. She had become absolutely aware that death is a reality of life - it cannot be changed. And what is the point? "Even if my child lives for a few years, he will have to die again. In the first place it is not possible; in the second place, even if it were possible, it is pointless."

Now there were no more tears in her eyes, she was very quiet, serene. A tremendous understanding had come to her: that she was asking for the impossible. She dropped that desire. She came and fell at Buddha's feet.

Buddha said, "Where are the mustard seeds? I have been waiting the whole day."

The woman instead of crying, laughed. She said, "You played a good joke. Forget all about the child, what is gone is gone. Now I have come to be initiated and to become a sannyasin. The way you have found the truth which never dies, I also want to find. I am no longer concerned with the child or anybody else. My concern is now, how to find the truth which never dies, which is life itself."

Buddha said, "Forgive me that I had to ask you for something I knew was impossible. But it was a simple device to bring you to your senses, and it worked."

I call this a miracle. Lazarus being raised from the grave is not a miracle; it is just a bogus story created by the Christians to make their master appear as the greatest master in the world, who can do such miracles, who can walk on water. Nobody can walk on water. I find it difficult even to walk on the ground! Do you want me to walk on water? I will become enlightened again!

One very rich, super-rich Jew was visiting Jerusalem in the holy land, Israel, and he was going around seeing all the places. He saw Lake Galilee where Jesus used to walk on water. He did not believe it - he was a Jew, he was not a Christian. But he told the boatman that he would like to go around the lake - it is a really beautiful place.

The boatman was a Christian. He had no idea that this man is a Jew because Israel is a holy land for Christians too, and Christians are coming daily to the boatman to take them around the lake where Jesus walked. This water is no longer ordinary water; this lake is no longer an ordinary lake. Jesus walking on it has made it something holy, something divine.

But he could not see that the man was a Jew, not a Christian... only Christians used to come there.

One thing he could see: that he was American, rich - he has come in a big limousine. So he raised his price. Ordinarily he was asking only one dollar to go all around the lake; he asked for twenty dollars.

The Jew said, "My God, twenty dollars! Now I know why Jesus used to walk on water - for the first time I have discovered the truth. From where would that poor guy get twenty dollars? Of course he had to walk on water! I am not going to walk on water, and I am not going to give you twenty dollars either!"

Christianity and Mohammedanism are the two religions born outside of India. Mohammed was also a very poor man, uneducated, just capable of somehow managing two meals a day. He was a shepherd - not metaphorically, as Jesus goes on calling himself the shepherd and you the sheep.

Mohammed was actually a shepherd; that was his job.

Mohammedanism and Christianity are the two religions created by poor people. They don't have that elegance, that delicacy, that flavor, that comes from meditation. They don't have even the word "meditation" in their vocabulary. They are the religions of prayer.

Prayer makes you a beggar; meditation makes you a master. Prayer is a degradation: you are humiliating yourself, falling on your knees, folding your hands towards the sky, knowing nothing of what you are doing. And what do you ask in your prayer? "Give us more wealth, give us more life, give us more health." What else can you ask?

And religion is not for those who ask. Religion is for those who give. But to give in the first place you have to have. You have to experience the life that is flowing in you; you have to experience the consciousness that you are. Then suddenly you are no longer a beggar and prayer becomes absolutely absurd. There is no one to whom the prayer can be addressed, and there is no need - even if someone is there - because meditation opens the doors to your own treasures.

Unless you are in a meditative state, this mind of yours will go on being a beggar. You may have everything, but the mind wants more. That is what I mean by being a beggar: always wanting more, more, more.... And there is no end to it.

Meditation does not desire for anything. There is no idea of more. Meditation simply wants to know, "What is in me? If I can discover my own center, I have discovered the center of all" - because the center of you is not only the center of you. On the circumference we are different, but at the center...

there is only one center, it is universal. It is at the center that I and you and everybody meet and become one.

It is easy to understand your desire, that you have everything here - but that is the trouble. What do you want? - that things should be taken away from you so you can start again and not feel stuck?

No, more and more will be given to you. And that is creating a dichotomy, because on the other hand, you would not like to lose what you have got. That is the schizophrenic nature of the mind.

All minds are schizophrenic. Mind as such is sick. Mind creates a split in you: you would like to have all this, all that is available here, so you cannot go away. And you have everything that you wanted available to you, and the mind wants more. You have to decide and choose between mind and meditation. Mind is a beggar, and meditation is a master.

Become master of your own self. And I would like you to become more and more rich in every dimension, because I accept life in its totality. I would like my commune to be the richest, to be the most intelligent, to be in the best of health. I would like my commune to change into paradise.

But that is possible only if you drop this crazy mind which goes on asking for more. And it is only a question of simply understanding and shifting your energies from the mind to the witnessing consciousness. Don't be identified with the mind, because you are not it, you are the witness.

Without knowing it, your question itself makes it clear that you are a witness. You are witnessing that you have everything here, there is no need to go anywhere - and anyway you cannot go. This is your home, these people are your people. You cannot find so much love and life and laughter anywhere in the world. So you cannot go. But once in a while the mind will create the disturbance and say, "Here you are just stuck. Nothing is happening."

I am answering the question because it happens to many people, and they go on writing to me, "What to do? I would just like to go in the outside world for a few days, the mind is going crazy. I don't want to miss anything, and I know I am not going to get anything there, but what to do with the mind? It says, 'Just go for a three week holiday. Go to the beach.'" And during all those three weeks on the beach, your mind will say, "What are you doing here? You are an idiot! All that was beautiful, lovable, you have left behind."

In fact, we are constantly enjoying a holiday. Where can you go? If there is anything missing here, we are able to create it, to bring it here. Rather than you going to the beach, we can bring the beach here! And that will be far better, because one person going on a holiday... you will miss your friends, and you will miss this great family.

And you will find you are just an outsider there. You will not be able to mix with the people outside the commune. You have changed so much that you and they are living in two different worlds. They will not be able to understand you, nor will you be able to understand them.

Drop the mind. Move towards the witness. Then you will be immensely attuned with the milieu here.

If anything is missing, so many intelligent people can create it. And we have to create something that the whole world feels jealous of!

Question 2:

Those fanatic Christians are writing all these things, but they don't know that these things are not against me. They have written what I am teaching you! You are entering here; there is no hope, no hope even of getting out from here!

Those idiots who have written that will be thinking that this will stop you entering Rajneeshpuram.

In fact it is an invitation, because hope brings hopelessness, sure and certain. All hopelessness in man exists because he hopes.

You have heard the proverb: Man proposes and God disposes. There is no God who disposes. Man certainly proposes, and hopes that it will be fulfilled. Nature has no obligation to fulfill your desires, crazy demands. Existence is available only for those who have dropped hope, because every hope is against existence.

Do you see the point? Every hope is against existence. Every prayer is against existence. You are asking for something that existence has not given to you. You are trying to get something that existence is not willing to give you. Perhaps you don't deserve it.

I don't teach you hope, because to teach hope means that following the hope, just like a shadow, with be hopelessness. I teach you to enjoy whatsoever is.

Hope is always in the future, and you are always in the present. How can there be a bridge between the hope and you? Existence is here, hope is there - the bridge is not possible. Every hope is going to be frustrated. If you enjoy being frustrated, if you love to be hopeless, then you can hope as much as you like.

If you want to be blissful, to be blessed, then all hopes have to be dropped. Just visualize for a single moment that you don't have any hope. Immediately you can see hopelessness also disappears.

It is a very significant question. If you ask for the meaning of life you will feel meaninglessness.

Jean-Paul Sartre feels life is meaningless. Life is neither meaningless nor meaningful, life simply is.

But if you try to find some meaning in it, naturally that meaning is not there. You are the creator of your meaninglessness. And then despair, anguish....

Life simply is. Enjoy it! Why hope? When life is here, you are wasting your life and time in hoping, and then one day you will find those hopes cannot be fulfilled. Then you will suffer hopelessness.

This is all your own creation: hope, hopelessness; meaning, meaninglessness.

I don't have any hope. That does not mean hopelessness. Hopelessness is the other side of hope.

Throw away the coin of hope and the hopelessness is thrown away too. You cannot save one - you cannot have a one-sided coin - the other side will be there. You can go on deceiving yourself, but for how long? And whom are you kidding? Just wasting your life....

People have been asking me, "What is the meaning of life?" Now, if I say there is no meaning, they feel sad. It is not life that is making them sad, it is their stupid question - "What is the meaning of life?" - that is creating the sadness.

I don't ask for the meaning. Why should there be any meaning? What is the meaning of a roseflower? But it blossoms, releases its fragrance. What is its hope? Is the roseflower hoping that somebody will come and say, "How beautiful!" That somebody will pass by and say, "What fragrance!" No, the roseflower even flowers in a place where nobody passes by, nobody sees it, nobody feels it.

In the Himalayas there is a place, a valley, which is called the Valley of the Gods, for the simple reason that it is impossible to go deep down into that valley - steep hills surround it. But in that valley where nobody goes - there is no way to go, no path, and it is so deep that you can only see it from the hilltop - in that valley there have been growing for millennia, beautiful flowers. I have seen it. I think there must be many flowers which are not even known to us, which are not even named by the scientists.

The valley is completely just flowers and flowers. For whom are they blossoming? For whom are they waiting? What is their hope? There is no hope, there is no desire. They are not waiting for somebody, they are simply enjoying themselves blossoming to their completion. They are enjoying the sun, they are enjoying the hills, they are enjoying the other flowers blossoming all around. They are enjoying the moon in the night, and the stars in the night. But remember, there is no meaning and there is no hope.

Destroy all hope in you and you will never be hopeless, you will never feel hopelessness. Drop the enquiry into the meaning of life and you will never feel it is meaningless. I am not saying that you will start feeling it is meaningful, no. You will be freed completely from meaning and meaninglessness, from hope and hopelessness. And there is no need for them. You can just enjoy.

And the whole existence is enjoying except man. Something is crazy about man. The trees must be laughing at you; the rocks must be thinking, "What has happened to you? Why this sadness?" The birds must be thinking, "This whole humanity has gone mad." And it has gone mad.

Sanity is to enjoy the moment. Whatever it brings to you, relish, rejoice. I teach you the moment and its joys, and I want you to completely drop dreaming about hopes. Your dreams about hopes have helped you to be exploited by the priests. They give you the hope; they say, "This life is hopeless, but there is a life beyond the grave."

Strange... everything is beyond the grave and nobody comes back from the grave to say, "Yes, the priests are right." Not a single man has come back from the grave to say, "These priests are perfectly right: all that you are hoping for, desiring for, is abundantly available in the kingdom of God - but that kingdom of God is beyond the grave." My kingdom of godliness is here, now, this very moment.

Who cares about tomorrow?

Only people who are living in despair cling to hope. That hope keeps them dragging on: "If it is not happening today, it will happen tomorrow; it is just a question of a little more waiting." But you are waiting for Godot, who is never going to come.

In fact, existence is pouring on you all its treasures this very moment, but you are not here! You are digging in the future, and the future is only a projection of your mind.

Those who cannot think of the future start thinking of the past. Old people are afraid: death is coming, tomorrow is death! And their whole life and its experience has raised many doubts in them: who knows whether after death all that you wanted will be available? There is not a single eyewitness. The old man starts being afraid of death. He turns his eyes towards the past which he has lived - he starts remembering the beautiful days of youth, the wonderful days of childhood.

And I tell you, he is inventing it. When he was a child, he was as miserable as anything. When he was a young man, he was burdened with all kinds of miseries and problems. Now that death is coming near, he cannot look forward - there is only the darkness of the grave. He turns his back towards the grave and starts looking at the past, which he has not lived, which he has missed! A strange phenomenon... when you are a child you are wanting to grow up and become a young person because young people are enjoying so much.

I used to go for a morning walk, and there was a post office nearby. I knew the postmaster, I knew his family. One day, early in the morning - it must have been five o'clock, it was still dark - I saw a small boy with a mustache passing by my side. I could not believe that a small boy... I ran after him and caught hold of him, and he said, "Please don't tell my father."

But I said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "Whenever I see somebody with a mustache, I feel so bad that I don't have any mustache.

I have purchased this, but don't tell my father. I enjoy it very much."

I said, "What else do you enjoy? I will not tell your father."

He said, "Promise?"

I said, "Promise."

He took out a pack of cigarettes. He said, "I enjoy cigarettes, although I start coughing and the taste is bad. But what to do? One has to enjoy. So many people smoking.... And I am waiting to come of age, but it is coming so slowly."

In old age this boy will remember, "Wonderful were the days of my childhood," and that will be simply imagination.

All that is real is here.

Whether you are a child, or a young man, a young woman, or an old man, or on your deathbed, all that is to be experienced is here. And here is the only time, and the only place. There is no "there"

anywhere, past or future. There is no "then" past or future. It is always here, now.

Just the other day I received a letter from a sannyasin - of course he is from California. He is a man but he wants to wear the clothes of a woman. He says he enjoys it so much but he is afraid that somebody will find out. So, closing his doors, he puts on women's clothes. He was asking me, "Is it okay? And can I move in the commune in women's clothes?"

No woman is enjoying her clothes, and this guy is enjoying women's clothes! I receive letters from women saying that they want to change their sex, they want to become men. What can you say to these fools? Can't you see the men all around you? And it is happening in the world: men are changing their sex, becoming women; women are changing their sex and becoming men. What could be the cause of this?

You cannot enjoy whatsoever you are, wherever you are. You are always thinking that the other guy is smarter, that men are enjoying, that women are enjoying. You are all in the same ship - and nobody is enjoying. And of course, once you have changed your sex from a man and become a woman, you cannot say that now you are not enjoying it; that would look very stupid. You went through such a process - painful operations, plastic surgery - and now to say that it was useless would not be right. You brag that you are enjoying, that it has been a great experience.

I cannot conceive that a man becoming a woman or a woman becoming a man can be a great experience. It is bragging. You have done something stupid; now to accept the stupidity of it is embarrassing, it is better now to go on pretending. But I know... People who have changed their sex have written to me that there is nothing great in it, it is the same, you just change one place for another place. But you are the same, because you are not your body, you are not your mind. You are consciousness, and no plastic surgery can change your consciousness - your consciousness will remain the same.

The only way to become blissful is to raise your consciousness from its dormant position. It is fast asleep, because you have never bothered about it. You are searching all over the world, leaving only one spot that is deep within you, and the key is there.

My whole effort in creating communes all around the world is to make you aware of this tremendous gift of existence, these flowers that are showering continuously on you. But your eyes are focused somewhere else.

You are closed to the present; that is the only misery, the only hell. Be open to the moment; that is the only heaven and the only blessed state.