Mastered By Zen

THERE are a thousand and one poisons, but nothing like idealism - it is the most poisonous of all poisons. Of course, the most subtle: it kills you, but kills you in such a way that you never become aware of it. It kills you with a style. The ways of idealism are very cunning. Rarely a person becomes aware that he has been committing suicide through it. Once you become aware, you become religious.

Religion is not any ideology. Religion does not believe in any ideals. Religion is to become aware of the impossibility of idealism - of all idealism. Religion is to live here and now, and idealism goes on conditioning your mind to live somewhere else. And only the now exists. There is no other way to live.

The only way is to be here. You cannot be there. The tomorrow is non-existent, it never comes, and idealism believes in the tomorrow. It sacrifices the today at the altar of the tomorrow. It goes on saying to you, 'Do something - improve yourself. Do something - change yourself. Do something - become perfect.' It appeals to the ego.

Idealism belongs to the world of the ego. It appeals to the ego that you can be more perfect than you are; in fact you should be more perfect than you are. But each moment is perfect, and it cannot be more perfect than it is.

To understand this is the beginning of a new life, is the beginning of life. To miss this is to commit suicide.

Then you go on destroying this moment for the moment which never comes. Then you go on destroying this life for some life which exists nowhere. You go on destroying this world for some other world - some paradise, some moksha, some nirvana.

To sacrifice the present for the future is to be trapped into death.

To live the moment, to live it totally and freely, is to delight in existence, is to celebrate it.

And that is the only way of being; there is no other way. Idealism has put you on a wrong track.

The first thing to be understood: you ARE perfect.

If somebody says to you that you have to become perfect, he is the enemy - beware of him! Escape from him as soon as possible. Don't let him poison your being. Don't let him destroy you. He may have been destroyed by others; now he is doing the same to you. He himself may be a victim. Have compassion on him, but don't allow him to destroy you. He has not lived his life. He has only hoped; he has not lived. He has only dreamed; he has not lived. He has only prepared, planned, he has not lived.

The idealist mind goes on preparing for something that never happens. It is a nightmare. It goes on preparing and preparing - infinite preparations for a journey that never starts. It goes on planning in a thousand and one ways - subtle, cunning, clever - but the whole thing is pointless, because each moment it is denying life.

Life is knocking at your doors each moment and you are denying it, because you say you are preparing for it. You say, 'How can I receive the guest right now? I am not ready.' By and by you become so accustomed to preparing that preparation becomes your life.

You have missed.

This type of mind is constantly missing, and the more it misses, the more it plans desperately - to go somewhere, to reach somewhere, to attain something, to be somebody. And the misery of all miseries is that it is not going to happen.

Life was already available. You need not prepare for it. You are already entitled to enjoy it. By just being alive, you are already ready. Because you breathe, you are already capable. Because you can be conscious, you are already ready. Nothing is lacking.

Once you take the first wrong step, the whole journey goes wrong. The first step defines and decides your whole life.

Never try to be perfect, otherwise you will be caught in a dead routine - preparing and preparing.

You can watch yourself, you can watch others. People who have become addicted with idealism live a life of ritual, of empty gestures. They are always waiting: some great thing is going to happen. It never happens of course, because it cannot happen that way.

It is happening right now, here, and their eyes are fixed somewhere there, far away. It is happening at close quarters. It is already happening near your heart. Where your heart is beating, it is already happening. And they are looking at the sky.

So they make a life of routine, dead routine. They move like dead corpses - waiting and waiting and waiting. And every day they know death is coming near: they become more and more desperate.

Their whole life will turn into a mechanical routine.

Really if you want to live, you have to be spontaneous. Life is spontaneous. Be available to this moment. Allow this moment to lead you. Don't plan for it.

Otherwise you will live in empty gestures, obsessed with a dead routine, just thinking as if'... if you plan your life completely, some day or other the great happening is going to result.

You think life is a result? Life is not a result; it is already there. It is a grace. Nothing is to be done to attain to it. What have you done to be born? What have you done so that you can breathe? What have you done so that you can be conscious? What have you done so that you can fall in love? It has happened. It is a sheer grace, a gift.

Yes, let me tell you - life is a gift. Don't think that it is going to be a result. Once you think it is going to be a result, it is never going to be there at all.

Then there are a few people who will go on waiting and waiting, and they will die. Almost ninety-nine percent of people die this way. Their whole life has been a sheer wastage. One percent of people, sometimes, by chance, accident, become aware that they are wasting their life. Then their whole training and conditioning takes a subtle revenge. The day that they become aware they have been waiting for something which is not waiting for them, which is not going to happen, they start saying that life is meaningless. First they were waiting for some meaning; now, because that meaning is not happening, they say life is meaningless. First they were waiting for some purpose; now, because it is not happening, they say life is purposeless.

Ask Jean-Paul Sartre. He says, 'Man is a useless passion.' It does not say anything about man. It does not say anything about life. It does not say anything about existence. It simply says that Sartre has missed. It simply says that he was waiting for some utilitarian end to be fulfilled in life and now he has become aware that it is not going to be fulfilled. He was waiting for some meaning. Now, seeing it, realizing it - that that meaning is not going to be - he says life is meaningless.

Life is neither. It is neither meaningful nor is it meaningless. If really there is no meaning, how can life be meaningless? If there is no purpose, how can life be purposeless? For life to be purposeless there must be a purpose. For life to be meaningless, for even the word 'meaningless' to be meaningful, there must be a meaning.

Life is neither. It simply is there in sheer beauty, with no purpose. Look at the trees. Look at the sunlight. Just... it is. What is the purpose of the sun rising every day in the morning? What is the purpose of trees blossoming? What is the purpose of birds singing? No purpose. I don't say purposelessness; I simply say no purpose. It is.

Drop your search for meaning, because that search either will destroy your whole life and you will live in misery, or, one day if you become aware, then another anguish will surround you - the anguish of meaninglessness.

Says Sartre, 'Life is nauseating."

He must have been expecting too much. Now the fulfillment is receding further away and he feels a rumbling in the stomach, a nausea, an illness, a sea-sickness. He was expecting too much. Now all expectations are turning into frustrations and life has become nauseating.

It is not. Life has nothing to do with nausea, because it has nothing to do with your expectations.

Once you get out of this trap of idealism, you are available to life and life is available to you.

Somewhere Friedrich Nietzsche has said, 'Where can I feel at home? Where?"

He must be seeking a womb, a home, a mother. He must have been a little childish. He must have been stuck somewhere in his growth. Why are you seeking a home?

Life is not a home, but it is not homelessness either. It is. Simply it is. Enjoy it. Celebrate it. It is not going to become a home for you, but it is not homelessness either. The very search for a home makes life look as if it is homelessness. Drop the search.

The very search throws you away from life. You go on missing the present moment.

So you can either wait - a futile waiting; or you can become angry - a futile anger. If you go on waiting, your life will be obsessed with routine. You will try to become an automaton.

Let me tell you an anecdote:

"Mr Smith had killed his wife, and his entire defence was based on temporary insanity. He was a witness on his own behalf and was asked by his lawyer to describe the crime in his own words.

'Your Honour,' he began, 'I am a quiet, peaceful man of systematic habits, who virtually never bothers anybody. I get up at seven every morning, have breakfast at half-past seven, punch in at work at nine, leave work at five, come home at six, find supper on the table, eat it, read, watch TV, bed. Until the day in question....' Here he paused to breathe passionately.

His lawyer said gently. 'Go on. What happened on the day in question?"

'On the day in question,' said Smith, 'I woke at seven, had breakfast at seven-thirty, began work at nine, left at five and came home at six. There was no supper on the table and no sign of my wife.

I searched through the house and found her in the bedroom in bed with a strange man. So I killed her."

What were your emotions at the time you killed her?' asked the lawyer, anxious to get the point on the record.

'I was in a white-hot fury,' said the defendant, 'mad with rage, simply out of my mind, and unable to control myself.' He turned to the jury and, pounding the arm of the witness chair, cried out, 'Gentlemen, when I come home at six o'clock, supper has to be on the table!""

That was his reason for killing his wife - not that she was in bed with a strange man. 'Supper has to be on the table exactly at six o'clock!"

Are you aware that you are also more or less obsessed with a dead routine? Why are people so obsessed with a dead routine? They are so obsessed with a dead routine because if the chain of their routine is broken, suddenly, underneath they see a futile life, a useless life, a meaningless life.

Somehow they are trying to give it a feeling of meaning, an aroma of meaning. Somehow they are trying to forget that they are living uselessly, that they are not living at all.

They make a dead routine; they follow it. Just by following it like a mechanism, they have a feeling that everything is going perfectly well. They get up exactly at the right time, they go to the office, they come home, they read the newspaper, they watch the TV, they take their food, they go to sleep - everything is going as it should go. A dead routine gives the feeling that everything is perfectly right. Underneath, everything is in chaos. They are missing life. Idealism, to me, means living for some ideal to be fulfilled in the future.

Future is not part of time; it is only part of desire. Ordinarily you think that past, present and future are divisions of time. You are wrong. They are not divisions of time. Time is Only present, always present, never otherwise. Past is just in the memory, in the mind. It is not part of time; it is part of the mind. And future is also part of the mind - the desire. Past, the memory; future, the desire. And between the two is the very small moment, the atomic moment of time which is present, which is always present. Time comes always as now.

If you are missing the now, you are committing suicide.

Maybe it is slow, that's why you are not aware. You are postponing life for some ideal? Then your life will become a dead routine, futile. You are simply wasting a great opportunity - but wasting for beautiful words. Somebody is trying to become perfect. Somebody is trying to become a sage.

Somebody is trying to become a mahatma. Somebody is trying to become something else.

Be - and forget becoming.

Becoming is the nightmare.

Relax. You are perfect. Life as it is, is perfect each moment of it.

Very difficult to accept it, because you have been conditioned for centuries. You have been given ideals and you go on comparing with ideals. You say, 'How can I be perfect? - I still have anger in me. How can I be perfect? - I still have sex in me. How can I be perfect? - I still have violence in me. How can I be perfect?' You are comparing.

Comparison is the disease, the very illness.

You are you. If anger is there, what can you do? You have to accept it. If you try first to be beyond anger and then live, you will never live. Listen to me. Accept the anger and live.

And I tell you - by living, the anger will disappear. Transformation happens through living, not through preparations. The more you prepare, the more you become hung-up in the head. Relax.

Enjoy. But the ego goes on like a hard taskmaster. It goes on saying, 'Why are you wasting your time in small things, trivia? Become a great man! Become a buddha, become a mahavir, become a christ!"

Christ was never trying to become a christ, that's why he was a christ. He simply accepted himself - through that acceptance he flowered. Mahavir was not trying to become somebody else. He had no ideals. He simply lived his life, he simply did his thing, and life happened to him. It always happens.

It is always happening.

It is not that life is not happening; it is that you are missing it.

It is a simple fact. I am not talking philosophy. It is a simple statement of a fact. Right now look!

What are you missing? Nobody is missing anything.

I was reading one of Emerson's essays. He says, 'Man is timid and apologetic. He is no longer upright. He dares not say "I am". He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose.

These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones. They are for what they are. They exist with god today."

Let this be the very foundation of your life: 'They exist with god today.' They don't refer to the former roses. They don't compare with better roses. They simply are themselves and they exist with god today.

'There is no time to them. There is simply the rose. It is perfect in every moment of its existence."

Perfection is not a goal; it is already there. You are born perfect. Only perfection happens in this existence, nothing else. Out of god, how can imperfection happen? Only perfection is possible.

The idea that you have to be perfect makes you imperfect in the present, because the comparison arises. You go on comparing yourself with others. Somebody is more beautiful. Somebody is more intelligent. Somebody is more moral. Somebody is more sincere. Somebody is more healthy.

Somebody is stronger. And you are crippled in these comparisons; such a dead weight falls on your head that you cannot move. But you have forgotten one thing - that you are you and you cannot be anybody else.

Once you accept the fact that you are you and whatsoever you do you are not going to be anybody else, you are going to remain yourself... once you accept it, a transfiguration happens. You start living. Then you don't bother about the future. Then you are not in the rat-race of being somebody else. Then you are no more comparative, no more competitive. Then you also become a rose under the window. You exist with god today.

If you are not existing with god today, you will be in a nightmare.

Buddha realized this. He was the first man to realize it in its absoluteness. He dropped all ideals.

People would come to him and ask, 'Is there god?' and he would remain silent. Not that there is no god, but once he says there is, a desire arises in you to achieve, to know, to be - and you are on the wrong track again. Buddha remained silent. He would not say anything about god. People would ask, 'Okay, if god is not there, it is nothing to be worried about. Is there a soul inside?' Buddha would keep silent, because once he says, 'Yes, there is a soul,' then you are after it.

You have become such addicted chasers of shadows that any word, any hint will do, and you are on the track, running. Chasing has become your life. Chase something. Money, moksha - it makes no difference, but chase. Power, prestige, meditation - it makes no difference, but chase.

I can understand how difficult it was for this man Buddha to keep quiet when he knew well god is, when he knew well the soul is. How difficult it was to keep quiet. He resisted the temptation because he knew you. Never has anybody known humanity so deeply - and the madness of humanity, the obsession with ideals.

People would ask, 'When we attain, when we become realized and enlightened, where will we be then? Will there be a moksha, a state of total freedom?' and Buddha remained quiet. He invented a new term. He dropped the old eastern term 'moksha', the state of total freedom; he invented a new term - nirvana.

The term is beautiful. The word is very significant. Nirvana simply means cessation. You will not be. Nothing will be. He used the most negative term, the absolute negativity - nirvana. of it. How can you make an ideal of a negative state? Anything positive and it becomes an ideal and you start chasing it. He used the most negative term, the absolute negativity - nirvana. Nothing will be there.

Only nothingness will be there. You will cease to be.

But look at the human mind - the human mind has made a goal of it. Buddha tried to give you a totally negative term so that you cannot make an ideal of it, but since then people have made...

millions of people are chasing nirvana. They have completely forgotten that nirvana simply means nothing. It means absolute void. It means emptiness.

How can you chase emptiness? The chaser has to cease, only then the emptiness is there - so how can you chase it? How can you seek it? The seeker has to drop. You have to disappear completely, utterly.

People have even made a goal of that. The mind seems to be so addicted, that whatsoever is said, it will make a goal out of it. For example, I go on saying be here and now, and I know well you will try to be here and now. You miss the point - because in the very trying you have missed. You cannot try to be here and now, because by the time you are trying, the here and now is passing. You can simply relax. You can be, but you cannot try.

If you understand me - finished! Then there is nothing to be done.

But you go on coming to me. You ask me, 'What is to be done?' I go on telling you, 'Do this, do that.' That is just a way to tire you, to exhaust you, so that one day, by sheer tiredness you say, 'No more!' - and you relax. Otherwise nothing is lacking. When I see you, you are buddhas - chasing empty shadows. Then each and everything becomes a nightmare. "An old man was sitting on a park bench, enjoying the late spring sunshine, when another old man sat down at the other end of the bench. They viewed each other cautiously and finally one of them heaved a tremendous, heartfelt sigh.

The other rose at once and said, 'If you're going to talk politics, I'm leaving.""

If you feel that somebody is going to give you an ideal and goal, leave him immediately, because the disease is very infectious and once you are caught in it, it becomes chronic.

Nothing has to be done. The doing has to be dropped - not by effort, but by understanding.

If you understand that goals have not helped you, if you understand that becoming has not helped you, then in that understanding, something within you stops. In that understanding, something falls, drops, on its own accord. Not that you drop it; otherwise you will continually ask, 'How to drop it?

How to drop this constant chasing? How to drop ideals?"

No, you cannot drop it. If you are trying to drop it, again... again here you go. You cannot drop it; it will drop on its own accord. You simply understand. Understanding is enough. Understanding is the only transformation.

When you are following an idea, an ideology, an ideal, a goal, you are bound to imitate others - bound to. You are bound to follow others, because from where will you get the cues? Then you are bound to follow Christ, Buddha, Mahavir. And never has there been a man like you or a woman like you. You are simply unique.

You cannot follow a buddha, you cannot follow me. You can watch me, but you cannot follow me.

You can love me, but you cannot follow me. You can understand me, but you cannot follow me. Once you follow me, you will become more blind. You are already blind.

All beliefs lead to blindness. All following leads you away from you.

If you try to become a buddha, one thing is certain - you will not be able to become yourself. One thing only is certain - that you will not be yourself. And then follows the next thing: you can never be a buddha, because you are you and a buddha is buddha. If you try to become a buddha, you cannot be a buddha; at the most you can be an imitation - a plastic flower, not a real rose.

You can imitate, you can become an actor. You can follow. You can completely follow Buddha and you can make a character exactly like him, but remember - a man like Buddha has no character. He lives spontaneously. He has awareness, he has no character. Each moment he responds to life. He does not follow any character. He does not follow the past. He does not follow any routine that he decided in the past, yesterday. He is herenow responding.

A man of character is always a dead man. A man of character means that he has created an armour around himself. He has taken a vow that he will never speak a lie; that's why he never speaks a lie. He wants to speak lies but he cannot because of the character, the ego involved in it. He suppresses. He can never be authentic and true, and he can never be flowing and open. He is always closed. A man of character carries his tomb around himself. He is not alive. The dead layer of character never allows him to meet life - to meet life herenow.

Buddha has no character, but if you follow him you will have to follow his character as you understand it. You cannot see his consciousness, you can only see how he behaves, and through that behaviour you can find some cues. You will miss.

The only way to become a buddha is to be yourself.

It is going to be a totally different and unique phenomenon. It is not going to be a repetition.

Existence never repeats. It is infinitely original. It never repeats; there is no need. It goes on innovating new persons, new beings. Never again will you be here; never before have you been here. Totally new, fresh, you come. Why try to become stale?

"lt happened in a very famous hotel. A new person was being recruited. The experienced veteran bellhop was explaining the ropes to the young trainee+. 'This thing,' he said, 'isn't all carrying bags.

In a big hotel, you're forever encountering delicate situations and you have to think fast.

'For instance, I had to deliver some ice to a particular hotel room and walked into the one across the hall by mistake. The door shouldn't have been open, but it was. Inside the room, the bathroom door was open - which it shouldn't have been - and inside the bathroom was a fat lady taking a bath. In a minute, I knew the fat lady was going to scream her head off."' - Fat ladies are dangerous.

"'Thinking fast, I said, "Excuse me, sir," and left. The "excuse me" was politeness, but the "sir" was tact, and it saved the day. She figured I hadn't been there long enough to see anything and she calmed down. Get it.?"

The trainee got it - and there starts the trouble - but the next day he was in the infirmary with a black eye and assorted bruises. The veteran said, 'And what happened to you.?"

The trainee said, 'I was following your advice. I was delivering ice and got into the wrong room and there was a man and a woman on the couch with almost all their clothes off. So I said quickly, "Pardon me, gentlemen," and the guy got off that couch and nearly killed me.""

If you have got cues from anybody else other than your own awareness, you are moving in a very dangerous situation. You will miss yourself and you will not gain anything else. The cost is very much, and out of it no fulfillment ever comes.

If you follow a buddha, you will be in trouble - millions of people are in trouble. If you follow a jesus you will be in trouble. Look at christians. Look at jains. Look at people who are followers. They are bound to be in trouble, because life goes on changing every moment and they have dead principles.

Remember, there is only one golden rule - that there are no golden rules.

Each rule is arbitrary, every rule is arbitrary. No rule can be ultimate. It is useful in a certain situation, but it is not ultimate. It is not useful in any other situation.

The only thing to attain is consciousness. And consciousness simply comes if you live the moment.

If you live here and now, responding, you become conscious. The consciousness has not come to you up to now because you have never lived in the present. It is a consequence of living in the present. Call it meditation if you like. The only meditation there is, is to live in the present, to live herenow.

Eating, eat. Walking, walk. Sitting, just sit. Be alert! Enjoy it! It is a tremendous gift. Breathing, breathe. Enjoy it! Delight in it! Looking, look. Sleeping, sleep.

Be ordinary if you want to become a buddha. Be simply ordinary and yourself and do your thing and don't be worried about others, and don't try to follow anybody else.

If you are here with me, it is very simple to follow me, because in a follower the need for awareness is thrown away. You are no more responsible. When I say you are no more responsible, I mean you are no more responding to life. You have a dead idea. You consult that dead idea and then you follow it. You don't look at life. The situations are changing; it is a constantly flowing ganges. It will never fit with your idea. That idea was a byproduct of a certain situation - that situation is not there.

Never follow a dead idea. If you are here with me, don't follow me. Try to understand me. If you love me, you will understand me. If you trust me, you will try to understand me, not try to follow me. If you understand me, the only thing that has to be understood is that life is infinitely valuable. Don't waste it.

No ideals are valuable, more valuable than life. Life is the only reality and all else is just mind. Avoid mind. Follow reality. And wherever it leads, go courageously with it and you will never miss. You will become yourself. By being yourself, you will become yourself. I am not saying to try to become yourself - by being yourself, every moment you will become yourself... by and by the potentiality will be revealed, realized. All the religions of the world have created a certain schizophrenic state in the human mind. They have created a division. Half of you is against the other half. You are never one.

Angry, you are never totally angry. Somebody is standing by the side and condemning, saying, 'This is wrong! Have you forgotten the great masters? What are you doing? This is wrong! Don't do it!"

Making love, a part is standing against it and goes on saying, 'Celibacy is purity."

Whatsoever you do... it is not a question of anger or love. If you try to be celibate, one part of you goes on saying, 'You are missing life.' Whatsoever the situation, you are divided.

If you are angry, you are divided. If you are not angry, you are divided. If you don't go into anger, one part of you goes on saying, 'This is not good. The other will take advantage of it. He will think you are a weakling. And life is a struggle and if people come to know that you are a weakling, you will be oppressed. Stand on your feet and give a good fight! Don't be an escapist."

If you become angry, the mind goes on saying, 'This is wrong. Anger is unawareness. It is irreligious.

A religious person like you - and angry?' This doesn't fit with your ideals. This doesn't fit with your image. You have a very beautiful image of yourself: serene, calm, collected like a buddha... of course, a stone buddha... unperturbed, centered.

Religions have created schizophrenia. You don't know how to do a thing totally, and this is the basic madness of humanity: everybody is divided.

Divided, how can you enjoy? Divided, how can you celebrate? One part of you goes on against you continuously - as if one of your legs goes to the right and the other leg goes to the left. You are standing on two boats which are moving in different directions, diametrically opposite. This is your anxiety.

So many people come to me and they say, 'How to get rid of anxiety?' They don't know what this word 'anxiety' implies. They think that something like transcendental meditation will do: just by chanting a mantra their anxiety will go. They are simply stupid. Things like transcendental meditation have appeal because of the stupidity of people - because they are in search of shortcuts, something easily done... like instant coffee: you do it - finished!

Anxiety is a deep problem. The problem is schizophrenia. You are divided, constantly fighting with yourself. You are two, not one, and this tension creates anxiety. Now, this repeating of a mantra is not going to be of any help. It may give you a little deeper sleep, it may help you to be a little more together, but it is not going to help far enough. Your division remains, and sooner or later again you realize that now the trick is not working.

The schizophrenia has to be dropped in a deep understanding. Don't fight with yourself. And always remember that the top-dog is wrong. Always remember that the natural is truer. Whenever there is a conflict, follow the natural. If there is a conflict between love and celibacy, follow love - and go totally in it. I know one day celibacy arises, but that comes out of a deep experience of love. Brahmacharya arises, but this is the flowering of profound love - love felt so deeply it becomes brahmacharya, it becomes innocence, it becomes virginity.

Virginity has nothing to do with the body; it has to do with profound love. You call a woman virgin because she has not made love yet. I don't call her a virgin. I call a woman virgin who has transcended love; who has loved so deeply that the very depth has become a transcendence.

I call a man virgin who has loved deeply and through love has become so one that now there is no need - no need to depend on the other. He feels grateful towards the other because the other has helped him to become so independent. Virginity is not in the beginning; it is in the end. Children are not virgin. They are just waiting to be violated.

I have heard:

"Three children were sitting on the steps of a home, and one child was playing with toy motorcars, another was playing with a spaceship, and the third was reading a glossy playboy-type magazine. A man passed. He looked at the three children. He asked the first, 'What would you like to become in your life?"

The first said, 'Of course, I would like to compete in car races. I want to become the greatest driver in the world."

The second said, 'I want to become an astronaut."

And he asked the third, 'What do you want to become?"

He looked at the man and said, 'Grown up, sir. Grown up."

Children are not virgin. They are just waiting to become grown up. In fact they are worried why it is taking so long, why it is being delayed.

I was reading the autobiography of a poet, and when he was a child, he must have been about eleven, he came under the influence of a christian missionary. He became very impressed by the christian doctrine that soon the world is going to end and Jesus will come, the second coming. But he became very much afraid. He started praying, 'God, wait a little. Let my virginity be broken, violated. Wait a little! - just two or three years more. Don't finish the world so soon!"

Children are not virgin. In fact, children are not innocent - they just look it. They are getting ready to be corrupted. They are getting ready to move in the world.

Real innocence comes only in the end. It is a flowering; it is not a seed. It is not the beginning; it is the end.

If love is fulfilled, brahmacharya arises. If you have lived totally in anger, compassion comes. If you have moved in life, suddenly you have a transcending experience. But the old religions, all of them have created a divided mind, a guilty mind, a crazy mind - split.

"Once it happened, a governor came to visit a madhouse. He was inspecting the new state- supported psychiatric hospital and on being taken through the isolation wards was struck by the fact that in one cell there was sitting a man of distinguished appearance who was reading a copy of the Wall Street Journal and who was wearing nothing but a glossy silk top-hat.

The inmate looked up, and saw the governor and his surrounding cluster of doctors and other functionaries. The inmate thereupon rose, bowed politely, and said in cultured tones, 'Sir, I perceive you are a man of importance and it strikes me that you must be curious as to why I sit here in the nude."

'Well, yes, ' said the governor cautiously. 'The thought had indeed struck me."

'It is not at all mysterious,' said the inmate. 'The cell is air-conditioned, as you will note, and is maintained at a most comfortable temperature, and I am, moreover, quite private. Since clothing is not necessary either for warmth, modesty, or adornment, why bother with it at all?"

'True,' muttered the governor, rather taken aback at the other's obvious rationality. 'But tell me,' he said, 'in that case, why the top-hat?"

The inmate shrugged. 'Oh well, someone might come.""

This is the split mind. This is the basic schizophrenia of humanity - never total this way or that.

My whole teaching is to be total whatsoever you do.

I don't say don't be angry. I say that if you choose to be angry, if it happens to be, be total. I don't say don't be greedy. If it happens to you that you are greedy, then be total. Because I have come to know that only through totality you transcend.

A split personality can never become non-greedy. It can try, but it can never become. A split personality can never go beyond anger. It can try, but it can never go beyond. A split personality can never go beyond sex. It can fight. So many monks in the monasteries are doing it. They don't go beyond sex; at the most their sexuality becomes perverted, their love becomes poisoned.

Whatsoever the case, I am not telling you to choose something against it. Whatsoever the case, be total in it. Let totality be the only concern, because that is the only way to be alive. And if you are alive, you are perfect. Then you are with god today, not tomorrowow. Because you will not find god tomorrow; he is always today. God is today.

Tomorrow is hell. Today is nirvana.

But the mind goes on treating even nirvana as if it belongs to tomorrow. Then even nirvana itself becomes a nightmare. Now, the zen story.

DATE-JITOKU, A FINE WAKA POET WANTED TO MASTER ZEN.

The misery starts... WANTED TO MASTER ZEN. If you want to master anything, you are on an ego-trip. And particularly you cannot master zen. Zen is something which can be found only when there is no ego.

Zen means dhyana, zen means meditation. The very word comes from dhyana. It originated in India; Buddha called it dhyana. Then Bodhidharma took it to China; in China it became chan. Then from China it went to Japan; there it became zen. Zen means dhyana. Dhyana means meditation.

You cannot master meditation, because YOU are the barrier. You drop and the meditation is there.

Please don't come in and there is meditation. If you come in, you are the disturbance.

And remember, as I was saying to you, you come in only when you are split. The ego is only when you are divided. You need an ego to make a connection between the divided parts of your being.

You need a link, otherwise you will fall apart.

The ego is the link between your two diametrically opposite parts. It keeps them somehow together in a bundle. It is the rope around them, the link between them, the chain that keeps you somehow together. Otherwise you will fall apart. You will be like Humpty-Dumpty, and all the king's men will not be able to put you together again.

The ego is needed. It is the rope that helps you remain together somehow. Once you are together, the rope is not needed. Once you are one, the ego is not needed. You are, but there is no I in it. You are, perfectly you are, but there is no I in it. I is a tension.

Have you watched it? In certain moments this miracle even happens to you also. You are in love with someone and love gives you an opportunity to be together. Suddenly there is no I; suddenly you are, without the I - an infinite vastness, an uncorrupted being, undivided totality.

Or suddenly some day looking at the sunset, the beauty is so tremendous... you become one. Or listening to music, or singing, or dancing... one day suddenly you move so fast in dance that the very idea that you are, cannot be retained. You move so fast that you become total. Run fast and see.

Dance fast and see. Whirl fast and see. Suddenly the action becomes so total it takes possession of you - the ego drops.

DATE-JITOKU, A FINE WAKA POET, WANTED TO MASTER ZEN.

Now the wrong journey starts. You cannot master zen. You can be mastered by zen, but you cannot master it. It is not a skill to be mastered, it is not a technique to be mastered. It is your very being...

to be possessed by it. It is your totality.

WITH THIS IN MIND.... If you come to a master with anything in the mind, you never come. If you have come to me with anything in the mind, you have not come at all. You have travelled, but you have not come. You are still travelling; you have not arrived. If you have come with nothing in the mind, you have come. Then you are close to me.

With nothing in the mind, mind disappears - because the mind can only be there if something is in the mind. The mind cannot exist without the content. The mind is nothing but the total of the contents. If the contents disappear, the mind disappears.

If you have come to me with something in the mind - that you have to achieve something, that you have to be something: some ideal that you are chasing, some image that you have to fulfill - then you will miss me. You will miss me utterly. To be with me, there is only one way: come to me without anything in the mind so that you are open - so that you are open for all things. If you have something in the mind, you are not open for all things. Then you are closed.

Ekkei was one of the rare masters. You will see why I call him rare.

You should come to a master only when all your hopes have failed. To be full of hopes is to be in the world. A man who is living still with hopes is still living in the future, in the tomorrow. A man who has come to understand that all hopes have been futile, have not led anywhere, can come to a master.

Not that he becomes hopeless, because if you feel hopeless it simply means you are still hoping.

Hopelessness is an indication of a mind which is still hoping.

When hopes have really been dropped, when you are suddenly without hope - not hopeless; simply without hope, without hopelessness - you are simply here. With the disappearance of hope, future disappears. Future is nothing but the extension of hope. Future is a hope-project.

The master did well. He had not even uttered a single word, he had not asked anything, and he had been hit hard. When you come with hopes, that is the only way to bring you to the moment. If I hit you hard on the head, at least for a single split moment you may come here. Otherwise you are in the future. Zen masters have been hitting their disciples out of their compassion.

Once you start understanding me, I am going to hit. Right now I know you will not understand; you will simply escape - so I go On persuading you to be near me. Once you are ready... a good hit on the head is simply a tremendous gift. One should receive it in deep gratitude. It brings you to the earth. It brings you to the herenow. You have gone so far away that only a hit on the head can bring you here.

But he missed. He followed the rule, but he could not respond to the situation. When you follow a rule, you miss the situation. He knew that it is a rule that unless the master says something you are not expected even to utter a single word - and he had not said anything. He had to withdraw. But deep down he was hurt.

The master had hit his head to bring him herenow, but he felt hurt, his ego was hurt. He missed the point. He must have been really too obsessed with the future. And a person who is obsessed with future is almost always obsessed with past also. That is the way the pendulum of mind goes on moving - from past to future, future to past. It never stays in the middle where time really exists.

Immediately he said... NO ONE HAD EVER DARED TO STRIKE HIM BEFORE... inside he said - he moved to the past - 'no one has ever dared to hit me before.' The master hit him to come herenow; he moved to the past. From the future he jumped to the past. He missed the middle point.

He followed a rule.

Rules are not helpful with a master. You have to respond, not according to rules. You have to watch the situation. You are not to interpret according to your mind. You have to look without the mind to see the fact, to see what the master has done. The master had done a great act of compassion, but it had been missed. The ego came as a barrier.

It is a great act of compassion. A master is beyond anger, beyond ego, beyond hurting anybody, but out of his compassion he can even hit. The hit is surgical. The knife is not against you. The knife is not in the hands of the enemy. It is in the hands of a doctor, a surgeon. He's going to cut you deep.

He has to take out the growth, the canceric growth inside you of the ego. It is the greatest surgery ever. And he has to be hard, because he loves you.

Dokuon said, 'Don't be puzzled, don't be confused by it, and don't take any decision right now. For a few days sit in zazen."

Zazen means simply sit, do nothing. Zazen is a beautiful meditation. One simply sits looking at the wall, not doing anything. One goes on sitting... sitting... sitting.

If you simply sit and don't do anything, by and by the mind settles, because there is nothing to be done - the mind is not needed. In the beginning it rebels, in the beginning it thinks more - thoughts whirl in a mad whirlpool inside - but if you go on sitting and sitting, there is no point for them. By and by the dust settles - thoughts disappear, gaps appear. In those gaps, understanding is possible.

When thoughts are not there, thinking is possible. When you have no thought in the mind, the whole energy that is invested in thinking, in thoughts, is released, becomes your awareness.

'EXERT YOURSELF IN ZAZEN

AND YOU WILL SEE FOR YOURSELF

WHAT HIS TREATMENT OF YOU MEANS."

FOR THREE DAYS AND NIGHTS

JITOKU ENGAGED IN DESPERATE CONTEMPLATION,

THEN, SUDDENLY, HE EXPERIENCED

AN ECSTATIC AWAKENING.

THIS SATORI WAS APPROVED BY EKKEI.

What happens when you simply sit? The whole energy that has been moving in the body, outside the body, in actions, is no more moving. You become a pool of energy. The energy goes on gathering; you become a reservoir. In zazen you are not even allowed to sway or move your body, not even a slight movement, so no energy is invested in action; all energy becomes available. It goes on falling inside. It fills you. It starts overflowing. When the moment comes of overflowing, there is satori.

Satori is a moment of energy overflowing.

Thinking stops by and by. It takes time - almost three days is the time. If you exert day and night, continuously, somewhere in three days the moment comes when the energy is so much it simply explodes. Everything calms down - a sudden lightning inside. Everything becomes clear - a clarity of perception is achieved. This is what is called satori in Japan.

Satori is a glimpse of samadhi - the first glimpse. Of course, in the first glimpse you cannot recognize what it is. It is so unknown. You have never known it before, you have never come across it before.

It has to be approved by the master. The next time when it comes you will be able to recognize it, but for the first time you don't know what it is, how to understand it, how to interpret it.

It is so vast, and all your experiences are irrelevant to it. Your whole past is irrelevant to it. All your hopes for the future are irrelevant to it..It is something you had never hoped. It is something you had not even imagined. It is something you had not even dreamed. How can you recognize it? That's why the first satori has to be approved by the master. Up to the first satori one has to remain with the master. Then one can move on one's own, but not before that.

Now he understands. Had it been a little harder.... That time he was offended. Now he says HIS BLOW WAS FAR FROM HARD ENOUGH. Now he understands the compassion.

You are on the same journey. You are here with me to know what life is; to learn how to know that which is already available; to learn how to look into that which is already standing in front of you; to learn how to feel that which is already surrounding you from all sides. Many times I have to hit you; It may not be a physical whack on your head, because to tolerate that is not very difficult.

Just the other night a sannyasin came and he said, 'Last time I came to you, you called me a coward!"

He was very much offended. Just because I called him a coward, he was so much offended. He missed an opportunity. The ego started thinking, the ego came in between. It was a hit on his head.

He missed. Now I will have to take another opportunity.

And there are certain moments when only then can I hit you. Even then there is no certainty that you will not miss them. Only in rare moments you can be hit - and then too you can miss. Be alert.

And don't philosophize, because that can again be a trick. When I hit you, respond. Be alert. It is not to offend you; it is to awake you. And I know, the day you understand, you are also going to feel HIS BLOW WAS FAR FROM HARD ENOUGH.

To seek life, to search for truth, is to be ready to die - to die to that life that you have been thinking is life. It is not.

I have to destroy you in many ways; in fact, dismantle you - only then can the new arise. You need a crucifixion, and only then can there be a resurrection.

Let me be a cross to you. Only then, and only then is there a possibility that you will be enthroned.

The path is hard, arduous, but once you realize the truth of your being, you will come to know that nothing was hard, nothing was hard enough. Then you will know that whatsoever you have attained is not because of your efforts. Your efforts were nothing compared to that which you have attained.

That which you have attained is a sheer gift. And the paradox is: it is already in your hands. I have just to make you aware. It is already in you. I have just to point it to you.

Many times you will be offended in many ways. Many people come to me and leave. They become offended. If I have to think about them and not offend them, I am useless; then I cannot help. I have to go on offending. A hundred persons come: ninety are bound to leave by and by. Out of the ten who will remain with me, even if one attains, it is enough. Not because it is difficult to attain - the difficulty is not part of truth; the difficulty is part of your conditioning, the schizophrenic conditioning.

The religions have completely poisoned your being, have made you fragmentary. To put all those fragments again together - not only put them together, but melt them so that you can become a crystallized being - is difficult because of you.

If you are ready, it is not difficult; it is very simple. It is so easy. It can happen right this moment. If you have to wait, it is because of you - always remember. It is a question of understanding. It is not a question of doing anything.

That waka poet, just sitting for three days, day and night, doing nothing, came to realize a sudden awakening.

And it is always sudden. Whenever you are full of energy and the energy starts overflowing, you attain to an inner orgasm. That orgasm is satori. When that orgasm becomes your constant state of being, that orgasm is called samadhi.