A Lotus on the Lake of Emptiness

The first question:

Question 1:

You have not forgotten it, you have never known it - so how can you forget it? Forgetfulness is possible only once you have known it - and once known, it is never forgotten.

You are divine but you have not known it yet. In fact, it is because you are divine that it is so difficult to know it. It is at the very heart of your being. If it were something outside of you, you would have encountered it by now. If it were something objective, you could have seen it. But it is not outside and it is not an object - it is your subjectivity. It is not something to be seen, it is hidden in the seer.

It is a witnessing. Unless you go behind yourself you will not be able to know it.

There are three things in the world. One is the world of the object - the things that surround you.

Closer to it, when you come towards yourself, is the world of thoughts, dreams and desires. That too surrounds you. That's what you ordinarily call the inner world. It is not inner, it is still outer. There are two kinds of outsides. one that you see with open eyes and one that you see with closed eyes.

But both are outside because whatsoever can be seen must be outside. To be seen, it has to be outside, it has to be different from you. The object has to be different from the subject.

And then there is the third, the world of your innermost core, your subjectivity - from where you go on seeing. To come to that is to realise one's divinity. One has to become a witness to objects and to thoughts, and by witnessing, by and by, a moment comes when the turning happens. When there is no object and no thought left in your consciousness, when your consciousness is pure, it takes a turn - a hundred-and-eighty degree turn. When there is nothing to be seen, the seer starts seeing itself.

Remember, I am only suing words, and they are not adequate any more.

'The seer starts seeing himself' are not the right words because, again, the words indicate a division:

the seer and the seen. And now there is no division - there is only you and you and you; there is not something that is seeing and something that is being seen. It is pure consciousness.

Divinity means pure consciousness. You will first have to go from the world of objects to the world of thoughts, and then you will have to take another step - you will have to drop thinking, let thoughts disappear, let there be nothingness. And in that nothingness the turning happens. You cannot do it. You can do only two things: you can close your eyes to the world and you can close your consciousness to the constant traffic of thoughts. That is all you have to do. Then the third thing happens on its own. Suddenly you are aware that you are a God. Awareness is what God is.

But when you are aware, in a sense you have disappeared, you are no longer there. The old ego is no longer there. You cannot even say 'I' - because the 'I' depends on things and thoughts, the 'I' is constituted of things and thoughts. When all the bricks of things and thoughts have disappeared, the building of the 'I' also disappears. There is pure emptiness. That's what Buddha calls ANATTA, no-selfness. At the very core of the self, at the innermost shrine, you will not find yourself - and that's how one finds oneself. When the self is lost, the self is found.

That's why at this point all great Masters become con-tradictory and paradoxical. Jesus says, 'If you want to find yourself, lose yourself. If you want to lose yourself then go on clinging to yourself.'It is very paradoxical. Those who cling will lose and those who are ready to lose will attain.

You ask me: WHY DO WE FORGET OUR DIVINITY? No, you have not forgotten - one never forgets - you have not known it at all in the first place. once known, it is known forever. But I am not saying that you are not divine. You are divine.

When we say that one has forgotten, the word 'forgotten' is used metaphorically. It is not very true, factual. Nobody can forget. A Buddha can never become anything else but a Buddha. He cannot forget. He knows. He knows even while he is asleep. There is no way to forget it. Once known it is known eternally. But we have never known it - and we have been it always and always. From the very beginning we have been it. But we have not allowed our energy to turn upon itself.

You must have seen old symbols - there is an Egyptian symbol - of a snake turning upon itself, a circle of a snake. The snake has its own tail in its mouth - that's what knowing is. The snake has its own tail in his mouth, it is a complete circle, the two ends meet.

When you turn upon yourself the circle is complete. That's why in many mystery traditions the circle is the symbol of ultimate attainment. Right now you are not a circle, you are a line. You go from yourself but you never come to yourself. The ray of your consciousness goes on and on, it is linear, one-dimensional. This is what the SAMSARA IS - the world, the linear consciousness. Your consciousness goes on and on moving in a line; it has been moving that way for millions of years.

When it starts becoming a circle, starts moving backwards, starts moving back home and one day suddenly strikes itself, falls upon itself, then there is knowing. And that knowing is never forgotten.

You are gods but you have not recognised the fact. The recognition is missing, it is not that you have forgotten it.

The second question:

Question 2:

Everybody feels fear more or less. That's why people don't allow others to come very close; that's why people avoid love. Sometimes in the very name of love they go on avoiding love. People keep each other at a distance - they allow the other only so far. Then the fear arises.

What is the fear? The fear is that the other may be able to see your emptiness if he comes too close.

It has nothing to do with the other. You have never been able to accept your inner emptiness - that's the fear. You have made a very, very decorated surface: you have a beautiful face and you have a good smile and you talk well and you are very articulate and you sing well and you have a beautiful body and a beautiful persona.

But those are on the surface. Behind them is simple emptiness. You are afraid that if somebody comes too close he will be able to see beyond the mask, beyond your smile, he will be able to see beyond your words. And that frightens you. And you know that there is nothing else. You are just a surface - that is the fear - you don't have any depth.

It is not that you cannot have the depth, you can have it, but you have not taken the first step. The first step is to accept this inner emptiness with joy and to go into it. Don't avoid your inner emptiness.

If you avoid your inner emptiness you will avoid people coming closer to you. If you rejoice in your emptiness you will be completely open and you will invite people to come close to you and to have a look into your innermost shrine. Because accepted, the emptiness has a certain quality; rejected, it has a different quality. The difference is in your mind. If you reject it, it looks like death; if you accept it, the same thing becomes the very source of life.

Only through meditation will you be able to allow others to come close to you. Only through meditation, when you have started feeling your inner emptiness as joy, as celebration, as song, when your inner emptiness no longer freaks you out, when your inner emptiness no longer frightens you, when your inner emptiness is a solace, a shelter, a refuge, a rest - and whenever you are tired you simply drown into your inner emptiness, you disappear there - when you have started loving your inner emptiness and the joy that arises out of it, thousands of lotuses flower in that emptiness.

They float in the lake of emptiness.

But you are so afraid of being empty that you don't look at it. You make every effort to avoid it. You will listen to the radio, you will go to see the movie, you will look at the TV, you will read the newspaper, the detective story - something - but you will be continuously avoiding your inner emptiness. When tired you will fall asleep and you will dream, but you never face it, you never hold it close to you, you never hug it. That's the reason.

You ask: 'WHY DO I FEEL FEAR WHEN SOMEBODY COMES CLOSE TO ME? It is a great insight that has happened to you. Everybody feels fear when somebody comes very close to you, but very few people are aware of it.

Closeness is not liked. You allow people closeness only very conditionally - she is your wife, then you allow her to sleep in your bed, to be with you in the night. But still you keep an invisible wall between you and the wife. The wall is invisible but it is there. If you want to see it, observe it, you will find it - a very transparent wall, a glass wall, but it is there. You remain private to yourself, your wife remains private to herself. Your privacies never meet. You have your secrets, she has her secrets.

You are not really open and available to each other.

Even in love you don't allow the other to really come into you, you don't allow the other to penetrate you. And remember, if you allow the other to penetrate you there is great bliss. When two lovers' bodies penetrate each other there is a physical orgasm, when two minds penetrate each other there is a psychological orgasm, and when two spirits penetrate each other there is a spiritual orgasm.

You may not even have heard about the other two. Even the first is a rarity. Very few people attain to the real physical orgasm, they have forgotten about it. They think that ejaculation is orgasm. So many men believe that they have orgasm and because women don't ejaculate, not at least visibly, eighty per cent of women think that they don't have any orgasm. But ejaculation is not orgasm. It is a very local release, a sexual release - it is not orgasm. A release is a negative phenomenon - you simply lose energy - and orgasm is a totally different thing. It is a dance of energy, not a release. It is an ecstatic state of energy. The energy becomes a flow. And it is all over the body; it is not sexual, it is physical. Each cell and each fibre of your body throbs with new joy. It is rejuvenated. and great peace follows it.

But people don't even know physical orgasm, so what to say about, how to talk about the psychological orgasm? When you allow somebody to come very close to you - a friend, a beloved, a son, a father, a Master, it does not matter what kind of relationship - when you allow somebody so close that your minds start overlapping, penetrating, then there is something so beyond the physical orgasm that it is a jump. The physical orgasm was beautiful, but nothing compared to the psychological orgasm. Once you have known the psychological orgasm, physical orgasm by and by loses all attraction. It is a very poor substitute.

But even psychological orgasm is nothing compared to the spiritual orgasm, when two spirits - by 'spirits' I mean two emptinesses, two zeros - overlap. Remember, two bodies can only touch; they cannot overlap because they are physical. How can two bodies be in the same space? It is impossible. So at the most you can have a close touch. Two bodies can only touch; even in sexual love two bodies only touch. The penetration is very superficial, it is not more than a touch - because two physical objects cannot exist in the same place. If I am sitting here in this chair then nobody else can sit in the same place. If a stone is lying in a certain place, you cannot put another thing in the same place. The space is occupied.

Physical objects occupy space, so two physical objects can only touch - that is the misery of love.

If you know only physical love you will always be miserable because you will only be touching, and the deep desire is to become one. And two physical objects cannot become one. It is not possible.

A better communion happens with two psyches. They can come closet. But even then two thoughts cannot occupy the same space because thoughts are subtle things. They can touch far better, they can get intertwined far better than two things... things are very solid, thoughts are very liquid. When two lovers' bodies meet it is like two stones coming together; when two psyches meet, it is like water and oil coming together. Yes, it is a better meeting but still there is a subtle division.

Two thoughts cannot occupy the same space. When you are thinking one thought you cannot think another thought at the same time - the first thought will have to go, only then will you be able to pay attention to another thought. Only one thought can be in your mind at one time and in one space.

So even friendship, psychological friendship, misses something, lacks something. It is better than the first but nothing compared with the third.

Spiritual penetration is the only possibility of really being one with someone - because spirit means emptiness. Two emptinesses can be together. And why two? ALL the emptiness of the world can be together in one space. They can occupy the same space simultaneously, at the same time, there is no problem - because they are neither concrete like objects nor liquid like water, thoughts. They are simply empty of themselves. You can bring as many emptinesses together as possible.

That's what happens around a Master. When a Buddha exists in the world, thousands of people will become disciples. And sometimes disciples become worried.

Just today there is a question from Nirgun: NOW THAT PEOPLE ARE COMING FROM FARAWAY PLACES AND THE ASHRAM IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE CROWDED, HOW WILL YOU BE ABLE TO GIVE YOUR LOVE TO YOUR DISCIPLES? THERE ARE SO MANY.

The question seems relevant, it seems relevant from the physical point of view - but not from the spiritual point of view. I am not giving my love to anybody, I am simply love . If I am giving, then it must be a kind of thing, a quantity. Then certainly I can give only to so many and others will not be able to get it.

It is not a quantity, it is simply a quality. It is not confined, it is not defined. It does not occupy any space. I am just emptiness. So whether one disciple is here or one million disciples are here it will not make any difference. The difference it makes will depend on the disciple: if he is not ready to dissolve with my emptiness then he will miss.

When you start feeling your emptiness - joyously, remember - then you will be able to allow people to come close to you. Not only will you be able to allow them, you will be always welcoming, inviting - because whenever somebody can come into you, the only way is if he allows you to come into him. There is no other way. If you want to come into me, the only way is to allow me to come into you. There is no other way.

Sometimes it happens.... Once a young man was with me for two years. He was deeply in love with a woman. They used to live together. Their parents were against it, that's why they had taken shelter with me. I gave them a meditation, a simple meditation to do. The meditation was just to sit every day at least two times, morning, evening, at a fixed time, regularly, and look into each other's eyes and feel that they are going into each other.

After the six-month experiment one day they went crazy. It happened. After six months of regular experimentation twice a day it happened that the man went into the woman spiritually and the woman went into the man spiritually. And then they became very much afraid - now what would happen?

The man started feeling like a woman and the woman started feeling like a man. Their whole personalities changed. Even their voices, the way they used to walk, suddenly changed. The man started walking like a woman and the woman started walking like a man. The woman's voice became coarse, harsh, and the man's voice became very, very feminine.

Naturally, they became very much afraid and I had to give them an antidote technique to come back to themselves. For three days they had to be confined in a room, they couldn't go outside. And they had to look into each other's eyes continuously so that they could come back home. After three days it happened - but those three days were crazy days. They could not understand what had happened. They became so disoriented.

They missed a great blessing. And they became so afraid of me that, when after three days they came back home to their own selves, they simply escaped without informing me. I have not seen them since then.

Yes, it is a crazy phenomenon to feel that you have become the other, that you are no longer the same person, that you are being possessed by the other, that your soul has left your body and somebody else's soul has entered. You can imagine. But they could not accept it, that's why it became bizarre. It they had accepted It they would have learned the way to come back. Then they would have slowly, slowly learned the way to go into each other each day and come back. By and by the passage would have become very, very smooth and they would have known the knack of it.

And I was giving them a great experiment that would have made the ultimate in orgasm possible for them, the spiritual orgasm. But they missed.

That goes on happening around here every day. Whenever something starts happening you become afraid, you start escaping. Remember it. When something is very frightening remember that this is the time not to go anywhere, this is the time to be here. When something frightening is happening, then something is happening. The moment is very pregnant and you have to be here and you have to go into it.

This is a good insight - that you ask: WHY DO I FEEL FEAR WHEN SOMEBODY COMES CLOSE TO ME? You are becoming a little bit aware of your emptiness. Now let this awareness increase; let this awareness become a great experience. Go into this emptiness and soon you will be surprised that this emptiness is what meditation is, this emptiness is what I call divinity, God. And then you will become a temple - open to every stranger who wants to come in.

The third question:

Question 3:

But I am.

Man and woman - that duality - does not exist for me my more. And if you go on working and go on moving inwards, one day it will not exist for you either. Man and woman are only superficial things, biological. They don't go very deep. They are just skin deep. Deep inside there is only one thing - con-sciousness. And consciousness knows nothing of man, nothing of woman. It is simply conscious. But you become too identified with the body that's why the problem arises. Then you start thinking that you are man or you start thinking that you are woman, and you start thinking you are young or old, beautiful or ugly, healthy or ill.

These are all misunderstandings. You live in the body but you are not the body. The body is just your abode, your dwelling place. It is your nest. One day you will fly out of it. You will take shelter in some other nest. You have had many nests in the past, you will have many more in the future. You have lived in many, many bodies and you will live in many, many bodies in the future. You constantly go on changing your houses. When one house becomes rotten, dilapidated, you have to go and to find another younger house, more alive, with more potentiality for growth.

I am no longer identified with my body. So when you ask: WHY ARE YOU NOT A WOMAN? you are asking an absurd question. I am neither man nor woman, nor both. I am a transcendence. And that's what I would like you to become also - a transcendence. The body will remain man if you are a man and the body will remain woman if you are a woman, but that is only the shape of your house. Once you know that you are the witness of it all, you have transcended. That transcendence is freedom.

But I understand. The questioner is Ma Prem Madira. Her question is relevant in some other sense.

She is asking why all enlightened people are men. Why are they not women? There have been enlightened women too, but history does not record them. For a certain reason.... The reason is that history has been written by men. the reason is that it has always been against the male ego to think of a woman as an enlightened woman. It was impossible for the male chauvinistic mind to think of a woman as a Master. Very rarely they had to accept it. Because the phenom-enon was so radiant they had to accept it.

In a Meera or in a Rabia or in a Theresa they have accepted it - but very reluctantly, very, very reluctantly. Sometimes the reluctance has been very much - for example in the Jaina tradition one of the great Jaina Masters was a woman. Mallibai was her name. But Jainas have changed her name - they have made it Mallinath. They have changed her identity from she to he. There are twenty-four teerthankaras, twenty-three are men, one is a woman, but they could not even tolerate that. They have changed the history. They say that she too was a man.

It happens every day that history is changed. In this century when Joseph Stalin came to power, he changed the whole history of revolution in Russia. Leon Trotsky's pictures were removed from everywhere, from all photographs. His name was removed from all history books. He was so completely removed that if anybody wanted to search he would not have found a single reference anywhere that this man, Leon Trotsky, had ever existed. And he was one of the most important men of the revolution, next only to Lenin. Stalin was nobody, not at all important. But when he came into power and murdered Leon Trotsky he changed the whole history.

And then again it happened. When Stalin died and the power came to other people they changed the history again. Now Stalin exists no more. In Russian history books Stalin exists no more, not even in footnotes. It is as if he never happened.

This has been happening down the ages always. People go on changing the history. When they are in power they change the history. And whosoever is in power manages to have the certain kind of history that he wants to have. So the whole of history is bunk . It has nothing to do with truth, it is all false. It is as fictitious as any fiction.

For example, a man like Mahavira existed in India but Hindus have not even mentioned his name in their books - not even his name. Why? Such a great man, not even mentioned? If Jainas had disappeared from the earth then Mahavira would have disappeared. And because Jainas are very few - only thirty lakhs, three million, it does not matter as far as their number is concerned - Mahavira remains a very secondary figure. He is as important as Christ, as important as Buddha, as important as Krishna, as important as Mohammed, but he is not mentioned anywhere because the number of followers is so small, they are in such a minority. Who bothers about them?

Christ looms large because half the earth is Christian. Buddha also looms large because the whole of Asia is Buddhist. Krishna also looms large because there are millions of Hindus. And so is the case with Mohammed. And Mahavira is as important as any of them. But, still, at least his name continues - a footnote somewhere, a reference here and there.

But there have been other Masters of the same calibre whose names have completely disappeared because they never left a following behind them. In the days of Mahavira there was a great teacher, Goshalaka, an opponent of Mahavira. He was almost like J. Krishnamurti. He did not believe that there should be any following. He did not believe in being a Master or initiating people. He did not believe in creating a religion. So when he died everything disappeared. Now his name does not exist anywhere except in the references made by Mahavira against him. Naturally, you cannot trust those statements. They were made by Mahavira or by those who were recording Mahavira's statements. But they were recorded by the enemies. They cannot be trusted.

It is like Joseph Stalin making statements about Trotsky.... Just think if Adolf Hitler had won, the whole concept of history would have been different. Because he was defeated there is a totally different kind of history - written by Churchill and Stalin and Roosevelt, written by the enemies of Hitler.-There exists no history which is impartial - because there exists no historian who is impartial.

And particularly about women Masters.... There has always been a conflict between man and woman. Man has never allowed woman to have her say in anything. Even if it has happened sometimes that a woman became a Master, became enlightened, she has not been recorded. And it was very much against the male ego to follow a woman, it was impossible for it, so a great following never gathered together.

And one thing more. You know women. We can say that no man would follow Rabia - but what about women? Why didn't they follow her? Women are so much against each other that it is very difficult.

They can follow a man very easily, but to follow another woman? That is impossible. Women are so jealous of each other. Women cannot believe that another woman has become enlightened. No woman can believe that another woman can be beautiful. Women always talk about other women.

They cannot understand some man falling in love with some woman; no woman can understand what he sees in her - 'I don't see anything. ' And they all agree on it - 'What does he see in her?'

That constantly jealous state of mind has been another barrier.

So Rabia could not gather women followers and naturally she could not gather men followers.

She was as important a person as Buddha, Mohammed, Rumi, Kabir, Nanak, but this has been a misfortune.

This should not be so in the future if you become a little more alert.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

The question is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya.

Never ask any question that starts with 'if' - because that is just a made-up question, meaningless.

You ask: IF LIFE IS AN INTERDEPENDENCE AND AN ORGANIC WHOLE, HOW CAN ONE AWAKEN WHILE THE REST OF HUMANITY IS FAST ASLEEP? The question is knowledgeable, it is not innocent.

First, when one awakens one finds that one is not. When one awakens out of the idea that one was, out of the idea that one was separate, when one awakens, one disappears - and then there is no point in saying 'the rest of humanity'. That's why Buddha has said, 'The day I became enlightened, the whole existence became enlightened.' Yes, that is how it is for Buddha, that's how it is.

For you existence has not become enlightened because you are fast asleep. In your sleep you think you are separate. The very idea of separation is part of sleep. In your sleep you think you are separate and the rest of humanity is separate from you, and in your sleep you have heard me talking about the organic unity of existence. So in your sleep a question arises: IF LIFE IS AN INTERDEPENDENCE AND AN ORGANIC WHOLE, HOW CAN ONE AWAKEN IF THE REST OF HUMANITY IS FAST ASLEEP?

Yes, one can still awaken. But in the very awakening one disappears. One does not awaken as one, one awakens as the whole. Asleep you are only one, awake you are the whole. Lost in your dreams and desires and thoughts you are separate; those thoughts and dreams and desires create the separation. Once those thoughts and dreams and desires have disappeared there is no separation, nothing to divide you. And in that moment you see that all is already awakened.

Existence is already enlightened. That's why Bodhidharma is said to have laughed for years when he became enlightened - a very strange laughter. People used to ask him, 'Why do you go on laughing?' and he would say, 'It is so ridiculous that everybody is enlightened and everybody is seeking enlightenment. And everybody is already where everybody wants to reach and go. It is so ridiculous! Everybody is already happy but they are searching for happiness, and just because of the search they are missing their happiness which is already there. Everybody is running here and there looking for something that he has inside himself. It is so ridiculous,' Bodhidharma used to say, 'that's why I go on laughing.'

There have been other Masters who will hit you if you ask how to become enlightened. Rinzai hit a man because he asked how to become a Buddha. When he hit him, the man was puzzled - 'Have I asked something wrong?' he said. And Rinzai said, 'What more can there be? What more wrong is possible? What greater absurdity can one ask? You want to become a Buddha? You are already a Buddha. How can a Buddha become a Buddha? The very effort is futile. Hence I have hit you - so that I can give you a little piece of awakening, a shock. Maybe in that shock you can see that you are a Buddha already.'

The whole existence is one. If you think it is separate that is just an idea. If you think you are not enlightened that too is just an idea. Enlightenment is already the case because only God exists.

So rather than asking how it is possible, try to awake. Just a little bit of awareness, a little gap, a little interval of being conscious and suddenly you will see that 'Yes, that is how it is. I am not and there is no division between me and the whole. All is one, intertwined, interdependent.'

But I can understand your difficulty. When you see millions of waves on the surface of the ocean, and if those waves are conscious like you, then each wave will think that it is separate from the other waves. And it will be as logical as your question is logical - because each wave will say, 'I am separate. I can see it.' And it can prove it also. The wave can say, 'When the other wave disappears I remain, so how is it possible? If we were together and the same, in the disappearance of the other I would also disappear.' Or, 'I disappear but other waves remain, so how can we be together?'

That's what you are asking. A man dies. Now you can ask, 'If he is one with the whole existence then how can he die alone? The whole existence should die.' A child is born and you can ask, 'This child is born but the whole existence is not born with him. It has been there already. So how is it possible?'

Just watch the ocean. Go and sit on the shore and watch the ocean. One wave arises, but it does not make all the waves arise. One wave disappears, but it does not mean that the other waves disappear. But can't you see that all waves are one in the ocean? They are joined together. They are interdependent. Can you make it happen that there is only one wave on the surface of the ocean and all the other waves have disappeared? Can you make it happen? One wave cannot exist alone.

It will need millions of waves around it to keep it afloat, otherwise it will disappear. Waves don't come alone, they don't come in a great crowd. Have you ever seen a single wave? Nobody has ever seen a single wave on the ocean. Whenever they exist, they exist in multiplicity. One wave means many waves - because a wave is a waving, it is a process. When there is one wave, many ripples will arise around it and they will become waves.

But all waves are joined in the ocean; they are one and organic. Can you take a wave away from the ocean? Can you bring it home? It will be a wave no more. You can bring water - but water is not a wave. The moment you take the wave off the ocean it is just water. The wave has disappeared. That shape, that roaring quality, that dance, that form, that beauty, that sound - all have disappeared. You cannot take the wave away from the ocean and you cannot have the ocean without the waves; they are together, they are a togetherness. Even to say that they are together is not right because the word 'together' again gives the idea of them being two. They are not two. It is the same energy. That is the meaning when I say life is organic - it is one. We are waves, God is the ocean.

But we can look at ourselves in two ways. One is that we can think of ourselves as separate - that's what I call sleep - or we can think of ourselves as one - that's what is known as enlightenment.

To know the truth is to become enlightened; to cling to a lie is to remain unenlightened. For one who becomes enlightened, everybody has become enlightened, in the same moment. Then the whole existence is made of the stuff called enlightenment - for him.

But you have your private fantasies; you can go on remaining in them. I declare to you that in my enlightenment you have become enlightened. it can't be otherwise. In my enlightenment the whole existence has become enlightened. Since that moment I have never thought of unenlightenment for a single moment. I cannot. It is impossible to conceive of anybody as unenlightened.

But you can have your private fancies and fantasies and you can go on believing that you are unenlightened. That much freedom is yours. You can go on being deluded - but that is your private creation, your invention. Reality is not in support of it that's why you are so miserable. You are without support in your ideas. You know the proverb - it exists in all the languages of the world in some form or other - in which people say, 'Man proposes and God disposes.' Your propositions are so foolish, absurd. It is not that God disposes of them - just because they are foolish, stupid, irrelevant to reality, you yourself dispose of them in the very proposal.

You say 'I am.' You are saying something so utterly nonsensical that it is disposed of by its very statement. You are not. Now God is not at fault. Don't say God disposes of it. Your statement was so utterly false that it will not find any support from anywhere. It is against the truth. So if you want to keep it you will have to struggle hard, you will have to be continuously fighting for it - then too it will go on slipping again and again and you will think God is against you and disposing of your idea.

Nobody is disposing.

It is as if the trees are green and you have a fantasy that they are red. Now whenever you open your eyes they are green, so you will have to keep your eyes shut. Only with closed eyes can you go on imagining that they are red. But whenever you open your eyes for a single moment, you will think, 'God is against me and he goes on disposing of my idea. I say that trees are red and he goes on insisting that they are green.' God is not doing anything. Trees are simply green. Your idea is just your idea, your invention. And your invention is such a lie that it can't have any support.

The greatest lie is the ego. To think that 'I am' is the greatest fiction ever invented. Just go into it and try to find out where it is - this 'I'. Watch. Where is it? You will never find it anywhere. Nobody has ever been able to find it. If you go in and search for it you will be very much puzzled. It is not there at all. It simply does not exist.

But you can go on creating props for it. You can have much money and then you can have a bigger 'I'; and you can have a bigger post and you can have a bigger 'I'; and you can create a great kingdom and you can have a bigger 'I'; you can become very knowledgeable and you can have a bigger 'I'; or you can become an ascetic, a mahatma, and you can have a bigger 'I' - but these are all supports that you are making. And God will go on disposing - disposing in the sense that truth cannot support the lie. Your very idea is so inauthentic that it cannot have any nourishment from existence - that's why you will be miserable, you will be in misery. Continuously you will feel 'I am defeated. Defeated again and again.' And there is frustration.

But you are Creating your frustration. In your very expectation you sow the seeds of frustration. In your very desire to be, you create death. In your very desire for that 'I am' you create an enmity with existence.

See. Go in. Watch. Try to find out where it is. Nobody has ever been able to find it. Buddha went in and could not find it. He came out and said to people, 'There is no self.' And from that moment there was no misery - because he was no longer holding any lie against the truth of existence. So now there was no conflict, now there was only harmony. And in harmony is happiness.

Those who have gone within themselves have without exception declared that there is no 'I' to be found anywhere. It has no foundation. And it creates misery. To be in a lie is to be miserable; to be in truth is to be blissful.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

First, lies can be very delightful and delicious. In fact, lies are more delightful and delicious than truths. So that is no point. Truth is more shocking, truth is more annihilating. Truth is like a fire; it will burn you.

But that is not the meaning of what I have said to you. What I am saying is truth, but when you hear it and interpret it, it becomes a lie. I am not saying that Buddha has been telling lies or Mohammed has been telling lies - but people have been hearing lies. When I say something it is my experience.

If you believe it, it is a lie. Unless you experience it on your own it will remain a lie. All beliefs are lies.

Belief is a hindrance. That is the who!e approach of Sufism, the basic approach - that all beliefs are lies. Experiment, experience, and then, and only then, do they become true. They become true only when you have lived them. Through your life they attain the quality of truth.

I am saying something.... I have known what love is and I am saying something to you. You will only be hearing it; it will not be a lived experience. Yes, you may feel delighted with the very idea, with the very poetry, with the very vision of love. You may feel delighted. It may start great dreams in you, it may become a great ideal in you, it may put you back again into a world of hope, it may help you to be less depressed, it may help you to be less in despair, it may give you dreams, it may be a delight, you may feel it as beautiful - but that is not going to help.

When I am talking about love there are two possibilities. One is that you simply hear my words.

They soothe, they console, they fall like thin rain, and you feel joyous. then you have heard only my poetry, and this is not going to help much. It will be a kind of drug. You enjoyed my words, you enjoyed the rhythm of those words, you enjoyed the vision contained in those words, but that will be a kind of spiritual entertainment - nothing of much value.

The other way is that when I am talking about love, you watch where you are and you will find yourself full of hate. When I am talking about love, let that love become an indication of your hate.

Let that idea of love provoke all that you go on carrying on in the name of love. Let it be a challenge.

Then it will hurt, it will not be so delicious. Then it will hurt, it will be painful. It will open your wounds.

But then it will be helpful because then a change has started, a transformation has started.

Don't listen to me as if you are listening to poetry or music. Listen to me as one would listen to death. Listen to me as one would listen to transformation. I bring you a message of trans-formation, not a drug to soothe you. I don't bring a tranquilliser to you.

So when my words hurt you it is far better, because then there is a possibility of some change happening. When my words become painful to you, unbearably painful, then something really good is going to happen. Because those words will make you aware of your reality, where you are, and those words will make you clear about where you should be - how things should be and how things are.

And the gap, when you recognise it, will hurt you, will open your wounds . You live in hate, you go on talking about love. Your love is just a facade, behind it is written jealousy, domination, possessiveness, and all kinds of illnesses. Your love is neurotic. It kills you, it kills the other. It is not love at all. You don't know what love is. So when I talk about love, listen very carefully so that it can make you aware of your fact, your reality.

Don't start thinking that you have understood what I am talking about. You cannot understand unless you experience it.

There is no other understanding than experience. Yes, intellectually you will be able to understand what I am saying because I am speaking a very simple language, the simplest possible. Everything is clear, whatsoever I am saying. But what I am saying is so profound that unless you dive deep into it through experience it will remain only an intellectual idea in the mind.

You say: YOUR WORDS ARE SUCH A DELIGHT IN MY HEART, HOW CAN THEY BE LIES? The question is from Arup. She certainly listens from the heart... there are very few people who listen from the heart. People listen from the head. Even the very idea of listening from the heart seems to be very unscientific and absurd. How can one listen from the heart? The ears exist in the head, the heart has no ears. How can one hear from the heart?

But to hear me, the only way is to hear from the heart. And if you hear me from the heart then you can enjoy both - the pain of it and the joy of it. Then you can enjoy both - the shock of it and the promise of it. Then the promise will thrill you with joy - that's what must be happening in Arup's heart. The promise, the possibility, the opening of the door; that you need not remain a hopeless state; that God happens; that love happens; that prayer is not nonsense, there is a sense in it; that life is not meaningless, there is a significance in it, one has to search for it and discover it....

Yes, there are a thousand and one thorns, true, but still rose flowers bloom. That very possibility becomes a thrill, an adventure in the heart. In the head it will become just a concept, in the heart it will become a dance.

So if you can hear from the heart then this question takes another meaning. Then it is right. YOUR WORDS ARE SUCH A DELIGHT IN MY HEART, HOW CAN THEY BE LIES? They are not lies if you hear from the heart.

First I said that they will be lies if you hear from the head, now there is this other possibility, a rare possibility - that if you hear from the heart, with great sympathy, en rapport with me, almost one with me, your heart pulsating with my heart, heart-to-heart, if you hear in that way, then they are no longer lies. Because then you have heard them with the same meaning and sense that I am uttering them, then you have not interpreted them.

The heart cannot interpret. The heart is so innocent that it cannot interpret. The heart knows no knowledge. That the heart is so utterly ignorant is its beauty - it cannot be corrupted by knowledge.

Then it remains truth. If you hear me from the heart then my truth becomes your truth because your heart becomes my heart.

But if you hear from the head then whatsoever I say immediately turns into a lie. Your head is a great mechanism to make lies out of truths. It is a converter. It immediately puts anything into the slot-machine of the head and it simply corrupts it, colours it, changes it, makes something which was not there, creates something which was not there - and destroys something which was there.

And something absolutely different arises in your mind - that's what interpretation is.

If you can listen from the heart then certainly your question is relevant. Then you will be very, very joyful. Yes, the pain will be felt, but even that pain is a growth pain. That too is a joy - to feel it is to feel that one is alive, to feel it is to feel that one is on an adventure. Yes, all adventures are dangerous, all adventures are risky, all adventures are insecure; only through that insecurity and risk does life take on a grandeur, a splendour. Only through that risk does life remain fresh. Only through that challenge does one go on being alive. When the challenge dies, how can you remain alive? You fall asleep. There is nothing to keep you awake.

Listen from the heart - there will be a great delight. In fact, when you listen to my words from your heart they are no longer words - when you listen from the heart you listen to my wordless message.

then words are irrelevant. The heart cannot listen to the words, there is no mechanism. Words go into the head. They are sorted out in the head, interpreted, classified, condemned, appreciated, criticised, believed in or disbelieved in - all that work happens in the head. Words go into the head.

But if the word has something wordless in it, if the word has been uttered by a man who is beyond words, then something of his silence goes on hanging around the words. Then something of his silence, like a flavour, a fragrance, goes with the word. The word goes into the head, the fragrance goes into the heart; the word goes into the head, the flavour goes into the heart; the word goes into the head, the wordless message goes into the heart; the container goes into the head and the content goes into the heart. Then there is great joy, great delight.

And Arup is right. YOUR WORDS ARE SUCH A DELIGHT IN MY HEART, HOW CAN THEY BE LIES? If you hear from the heart you cannot hear the lie because the heart has no way to interpret.

The heart simply trusts. The heart is SHRADDHA, trust, faith. If you listen from the head you are a student, if you listen from the heart you are a disciple. If you listen from the head you will go on missing me, if you listen from the heart then there is no way to miss me. Then you have arrived.

The last question:

Question 6:

The question is from Swami Anand Adi.

First, have you heard my call yet? The living Master is confronting you - have you heard my call yet? And if you cannot hear my call, what hope is there that you will hear some other living Master's call?

The very idea shows that you are missing me - otherwise who bothers about death? If you have heard me, there is no death. If you have heard me at all, in that very hearing death has disappeared.

Why are you concerned about my death? How can I die? I am no more. Death is possible only to the ego. Yes, the body will disappear but I cannot disappear.

Raman Maharshi was dying and a disciple started crying. Raman opened his eyes and said, 'What is the matter? Why are you crying?' And the disciple said, 'Bhagwan, you are leaving us. It is unbearable.' And although in great pain - because he was suffering from throat cancer it was very difficult even to speak - Raman laughed. And he said, 'But where can I go? I will be as much here as I am right now. Where can I go? You tell me. There is nowhere to go. There is NOWHERE to go.'

The same I say to you, Adi. How can I die? The one who could die has already gone, and the one who cannot die is here con-fronting you.

But it seems you are missing me. Because you are missing you think, 'What will happen to me when Osho is gone?' Rather than being concerned with that, be concerned right now with what is happening to you when Osho is here. That should be the concern. When I am here and you are here then let there be a meeting, let there be a dissolution, let there be a communion. What nonsense you are asking - what to do when I die. Do something while I am here.

And I don't care a bit what you will be doing when I am gone. If you cannot do anything while I am here, what can be hoped about you? If you go on missing me while I am alive, naturally you will go on missing me when I am dead. It will not make much difference to you.

And it will not make much difference to others who are not missing me right now. They will never miss me. Even when I am gone I will be there in their heart, as alive as ever. Once you are really in contact with a living Master, that living Master becomes your living Master forever. Then there is no need.

But if you are not in contact, naturally you will have to find somebody else. In fact, you are already looking. This very question shows that you are already worried and the search has started. In fact, you are asking me, 'Osho, die soon so I can find another living Master.' That's what your question really means. If you want, I can do that. Just for your sake I can die so you will be free to find another Master.

But you are free right now. Have I to die to make you free? You are free. If you do not feel any contact with me, then who is holding you here?- Don't deceive yourself. You are absolutely free. I am nobody's bondage. I am here to liberate you, not to create a prison for you. If you cannot make a heart-to-heart contact with me, then escape from here. This place is not for you.

Your question is very clear. It says: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU DIE? STAY TOGETHER AND RUN THE RISK THAT THE MOVEMENT WILL TURN INTO A STALE SORT OF RELIGION, OR DISSOLVE AND BE OPEN FOR THE CALL OF ANOTHER LIVING MASTER? If you have heard me there is no need to worry. If you have not heard me then there is every need to escape from here. Then I am not for you.

But think of this moment. Don't be worried about the future - that is none of your concern.

The second thing: each religion becomes a Church by and by. It has to, by the very nature of things.

While the Master is alive it is one thing; when the Master has gone it is quite another. But for those who loved the Master, the Master is always there. For the people who loved Raman Maharshi.

the Master is there. They still have the same feeling. when they go to Arunachal, his place, his mountain, and when they sit near his samadhi, it still has the same fragrance, the same freshness, the same presence, the same radiance. And Raman still answers and Raman still instructs and Raman still comes into their dreams, into their visions. For them there is no need to go anywhere; they have found their Master.

There are others also who go to Raman's place - but he is no longer present there. They think that he is dead, they know that he is dead. It is only a graveyard now, an old temple, relics. They cling to the sect. They still cherish the idea that they are followers of Raman. They are the dead people.

It is good if they find some new Master - because with the old they missed. They should find a new Master.

So I cannot make a categorical statement about what you are to do when I am gone. For those who have contacted me I will never be gone and for those who have not contacted me I am already gone.

They should leave right now. They should not wait for my death. Yes, after death they have to leave - but I am saying they should leave right now. Don't waste your time.

It depends on you whether my religion will remain alive or not when I am gone. It depends on you.

To a few it will be dead... to them it is dead now. To a few it will remain alive... to them it is alive now and it will be alive forever. So each one has to decide for himself. If when I am gone you feel that I am there to help you, I will be there to help you. If you feel I am no longer there to help you, naturally you have to choose another Master.