The Cyclone is the Centre

The first question:

Question 1:

THERE IS NO CENTRE TO THIS CYCLONE, the cyclone is the centre. We have a chronic habit of dividing things into two, we have a chronic habit of duality: God and the world, body and soul, the lower and the higher the good and bad. The habit persists. Now it is the centre and the cyclone.

Let me insist on it: the cyclone is the centre and there is no other centre to it Once you understand this oneness of life then all tension, anxiety, anguish, disappears. The anxiety is created because you are always dividing. Through division you become split; through division you become schizophrenic. Now you think that you are on the circumference - the cyclone - and the centre has been lost, so now the centre has to be found.

It is the old habit of duality. The 'centre and the cyclone'is a new language, but this habit is very old, the gestalt is very old. It is always that wherever you are you are not right, you should be somewhere else.

My whole emphasis is that whatsoever is, is right. There is no other right. There is nowhere to go. This is the only life there is, the only dance there is. Only then you can be spontaneous, really spontaneous.

Why have we lost spontaneity? By what trick? The trick is to divide. You cannot be spontaneous about today because you have to think about tomorrow. You cannot be spontaneous this moment because you have to think of the coming moment. You cannot be spontaneous in this life because you have to think about the after-life. You cannot be spontaneous in your act because you have to think about the consequences. It is always a division of now and then, of here and there. Hence spontaneity is lost.

Who is spontaneous? One who lives in this moment as if this is all, is spontaneous. And this IS all.

In the beginning it will be 'as if', but slowly, slowly, as you get into tune with it, you will come to know that it is not 'as if', it is the only reality there is.

The second thing: spontaneity is dangerous. It will be better if we say 'spontaneity is danger'. To say 'dangerous' means that dangerousness is a quality, accidental. So I say that it is better to say 'spontaneity is danger' - then it is not a quality, it's very intrinsity is spontaneity. There can never be spontaneity without danger: danger is spontaneity.

What do I mean? The first thing: when you are spontaneous you are not in control, you cannot be in control. If you are in control then the act is not spontaneous, then you are thinking of the consequences, the results, this and that - a thousand and one things. You are managing. A spontaneous act is one in which you are not the manager; in which God manages, the whole manages - call it Tao; in which you are no longer in control, you have dropped your control, you have surrendered your control. Now you don't know what is happening, you don't know where you are going, you don t know what will be the outcome - and you are not worried about it at all, not even a bit. You are simply herenow, totally. The act is so total that you are absorbed in it, you are not standing outside of it. To control something you have to be outside of it. A controller can never be inside an act a con-troller is always on the outside - hence the controller can never enjoy. To enjoy, you have to disappear in the act. That disappearance is-danger. Now you will be vulnerable - naturally so, obviously so. Now you don't know. Anything is possible. And you are not in control so you cannot direct - this is the danger. There is no direction any more. You are completely drunk with the moment, drowned in it relaxed in it so much that you cannot even feel who you are.

Remember, the feeling that 'I am' is the feeling of a tense mind. When the tenseness disappears the 'I' also disappears. The ego is nothing but accumulated tension of the past, of the future. Have you not observed some moments in your life when you were not? Those were moments of benediction - those were moments of great blessing, beatitude. In those moments heaven opened for you.

But heaven opens only when you open - and when you open there is danger. The danger simply means that now the future is not in your hands, the future becomes unpredictable. You are at the mercy of the whole - this is what danger is.

So right, Sahajo, your feeling is absolutely right. YOU HAVE HELPED ME TO BE IN TOUCH WITH MY OWN SPONTANEITY YET IT IS THE MOST DANGEROUS QUALITY OF LIFE I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED. In fact. this is the first time you have encountered life, because life is spontaneity and life is danger.

Have you ever heard of any man who has lived without danger? To live means to be in danger, to die means to be out of danger. Those who are in their graves are out of danger, out of all danger.

Now nothing can happen to them: nobody can insult them, nobody can kill them, nobody can rob them. Not even death is possible. They are absolutely beyond all danger.

So people who are too afraid of danger start living in a sort of grave; they create a grave of security around them-selves and they start living in that grave, a subtle grave, a mind grave. They feel protected. But against whom are you protected? Against life. The moment you protect yourself you are creating barriers against life - then less and less life will be coming. A person who is secure is a person who is dead.

To live means to live dangerously; to live means to remain available to all possibilities. And infinite are the possibilities. You are not limited to any possibility, you have an unlimited being, unbounded.

You can be anything; the next moment can bring anything. Deep down each individual is a whole humanity - not only a whole humanity, a whole existence. The tree exists in you, the dog exists in you, the tiger exists in you; the whole past exists in you and also the whole future. In a very atomic way all that has happened in the world and all that is going to happen exists in you potentially. You can be in millions of ways hence to live means to live dangerously, to live means to live through change, movement. One remains a river.

If you are secure you become a pool of water; there will be no movement, no dynamism. Static, stagnant, the pool of water becomes dirty and by and by it dies. A river is alive and nobody knows what will happen. It may get lost in a desert. What is going to happen is unpredictable. A predictable life is a mechanical life; unpredictable and you are throbbing with life, pulsating, vibrating. Then God, or Tao, or the whole, lives through you.

You have come across life for the first time, Sahajo don't lose this contact whatsoever the cost. I know it is costly to be alive and it is very cheap to be dead. It costs nothing to be dead, it costs much to be alive. One has to pay for it.

YET IT IS THE MOST DANGEROUS QUALITY IN LIFE I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED - ESPECIALLY IN RELATIONSHIP. Yes, it will become more clear in relationship because when you are alone you don't have any mirror. Just as you need a mirror to see your face so you need the mirror of relationship to see your being. Love functions as a mirror, it shows you where you are. what you are, who you are. Hence many people become afraid of relationship. They are cowards. They escape to the Himalayas or to Tibet or to the monasteries or to the caves. Why are they escaping and from what? They are escaping from mirrors.

I have heard about an ugly woman who would never look in a mirror because she used to think that mirrors were against her. While she thought she was one of the most beautiful women in the world, they showed her ugliness. If somebody presented her with a mirror she would simply throw it away or break it immediately. She would never go into a room where there was a mirror because she felt that mirrors had always been against her.

These are your mahatmas. They escape from relationship because relationship shows their ugliness, relationship shows where they are, who they are. Sitting in their caves in the Himalayas they feel perfectly beautiful because there is no mirror.

Never escape from relationship. That's why I have introduced sannyas with relationship, not without it. There is great meaning in it. Never on the earth has sannyas existed with relationship, that's why I say that sannyas has not really existed. or, the sannyas that has previously existed was anaemic, bloodless. People thought they were beautiful without the mirror they thought they were beautiful. It is very easy to befool yourself when the mirror is not there.

When you are in relationship with people, in a thousand and one ways you are provoked, challenged, seduced. Again and again you come to know your pitfalls, your limitations, your anger, your lust, your possessiveness, your jealousy, your sadness, your happiness all moods come and go, you are constantly in a turmoil. But this is the only way to know who you are.

Self-knowledge is not the knowledge of a dead self, self-knowledge is the knowledge of the process of the self. It is an alive phenomenon. The self is not a thing, it is an event, it is a process. Never think in terms of things the self is not there inside you just like a thing waiting in your room. The self is a process: changing, moving, arriving at new altitudes, moving into new planes, going deeper into new depths. Each moment much work is going on and the only way to encounter this self is to encounter it in relationship.

Love is the mirror. Let your meditation be mirrored in love. If you find that something is missing, meditate more - but never escape from love; let it be mirrored in love again and again, because that will be the only criterion of whether you are growing or not. If you are really growing in love soon you will see that love has remained and jealousy has disappeared; love has remained and possessiveness has disappeared: love has remained and hatred has disappeared. A great purity arises. a great innocence. A fragrance is released into your soul. Go on meditating and go on loving. Let love and meditation be two wings. Let them help each other.

I am showing you a path which is arduous, which is really arduous. Love alone is good because there is nothing to reflect, meditation alone is simple because there is no mirror to reflect, but meditation and love together.... I am throwing you into the very eye of the storm. But that is the only way one comes home.

And when things become silent after the storm, the silence is alive, it is not the dead silence of a cemetery.

.... ESPECIALLY IN RELATIONSHIP. I LOSE MYSELF. AND WHAT HASSLES YOU HAVE CREATED THROUGH IT! That's my whole work here - to create hassles for you, to send you on hazardous journeys, to push you into new ways of being, into new styles, into the unknown, the unfamiliar, the strange. You would like to remain with the familiar because there you have become very efficient. My whole effort here is to push you again and again out of the familiar into the unfamiliar because wherever you have become efficient you have become mechanical. Machines are efficient. So when you become efficient. know well that now you have to move. Now this is no longer of any value, you have to move. You have learned it, now move and learn something else.

If a person remains a learner each moment of his life, from birth to death, only then enlightenment comes otherwise not.

So never stop anywhere. Somebody asked Buddha 'What is enlightenment?' And he said, 'CHARAIVETI, CHARAIVETI' - go on walking, go on walking, never stop, become an eternal journey. Yes, you can stop for an overnight stay, you call rest under a tree, but don't make your house there. Let the eternal growth be your only house. There is no end to it - that is the meaning of saying that God is infinite. There is no end to it. You go on arriving and arriving and arriving but you never really arrive. You go on coming closer and closer and closer but you can never say that you have arrived... reality is so infinite, how can you claim it in your fist?

NOW I FEEL TOTALLY HELPLESS. Good. Blessed are you, Sahajo. To be totally helpless is to be in the hands of God. If you still feel that a little help is possible through your own effort, then God will not be available.

There is a beautiful story.

Krishna was just going to take his lunch, he had started, he had taken a bite, he was chewing but suddenly he jumped up and ran towards the door.

Rukmani, his wife, said, 'What are you doing. my Lord? Where are you going? What is the hurry?

This is so sudden!

Then Krishna stopped at the door, waited for a moment, came back, looked very sad, sat down again and started eating.

Rukmani was even more puzzled. She said, 'Now you have puzzled me even more. Why did you jump up so suddenly to go to the door and why did you come back? You jumped up as if the house was on fire. I don't see anything happening anywhere. And why have you come back if there was something happening?'

Krishna said, 'There was something. One of my devotees is walking on the earth in a certain city.

And he is singing my song, playing on his veena, dancing in the street, but people are throwing stones at him and blood is flowing from his forehead. He had not reacted at all, he was absolutely silent, absolutely centred, absolutely helpless. I was needed, I was needed to help him immediately.'

And Rukamani said, 'Then why did you come back from the door if you were needed so urgently?'

Krishna said, 'There was no need then. The moment I reached the door he had taken a stone in his hand. Now he is helping himself. My help is not needed.'

This is a beautiful parable. God helps you only are really totally helpless, absolutely helpless. In your absolute helplessness ego is completely gone. What is helplessness? Egolessness. Egolessness is helplessness. You cannot do anything. How can you be when you cannot do anything? The ego functions through the doer. If you can do a little bit still then the helplessness is not total. And God only comes to you when you are totally lost. When you are really helpless, help comes.

Become totally helpless. I don't think, Sahajo, that you are totally helpless. You are feeling helpless but not totally. Go a little deeper into it. And a moment will come, the moment of transformation will come, where you disappear and the whole takes everything in his hands.

I AM FEELING TOO VULNERABLE, POSSESSED BY YOU AND THIS SPONTANEOUS UNION.

WHERE IS THE CENTRE OF THIS CYCLONE? Nowhere. The cyclone is the centre. Lose yourself in this cyclone. Losing yourself in this cyclone you find the centre. But the centre is not separate from the cyclone. God is not separate from the world, the soul is not separate from the body. mind is not separate from matter, the outer is not separate from the inner, the lower is not separate from the higher. it is one reality, one solid reality. Lose yourself in it and you will find that the cyclone is the centre. The moment you have found that the cyclone is the centre you have found a great truth, you have arrived at the door from where you can enter the innermost shrine of life, love, meditation, existence.

The second question:

Question 2:

A difficult question because I am not a womb-reader. Wait a little. Time will show who is in your womb.

An old man had a set of monkey glands installed in his system and shortly thereafter was married.

In due time his wife was in the maternity room while he waited outside the door. When the doctor opened the door the husband besieged him.

'What is it,' he begged, 'a boy or a girl?'

'Don't be so impatient,' said the doctor. 'Wait till it comes down off the chandelier and I'll tell you.'

If you have monkey glands installed in you then a monkey is born. So the doctor said, 'Don't be so impatient. Wait till it comes down off the chandelier and I will tell you.'

Wait a little, I don't know how you have managed, what kind of soul you have called into your womb.

But a few inferences can be made. They are just inferences, guesswork.

You must have heard the proverb: Hope for the best and expect the worst. So I hope it is a God and I expect it is a ghost. But these are extremes and extremes generally don't happen; what happens usually is the middle, so the greater possibility is that it is a goat. A goat is just midway between a God and a ghost, a cross between a God and a ghost. But, in a way, a goat is better than either because if a God is born I will not find a new sannyasin because God need not be a sannyasin, and if a ghost is born it will be difficult to persuade him, he is already in the service of the Devil.

But if a goat is born it will be a beautiful sannyasin, Swami Goatananda Paramahansa.

Wait!

The third question:

Question 3:

He sees what I am saying and I see what he is saying, but neither will he come here nor will I go there. I am doing my thing, he is doing his thing.

Remember, even after enlightenment the uniqueness of the individual remains intact. That uniqueness is so deep that it never leaves you. When a man becomes enlightened his uniqueness blooms rather than disappears. It comes to bloom. A Buddha becomes enlightened in his own way.

The enlightenment is the same, the experience of the light is the same, the experience of truth is the same, but the experiencer has an individuality, a unique individuality.

For example, during the night, on a full-moon night, the moon is one - but it will be reflected by the sea in a different way, it will be reflected by the river in a different way, it will be reflected by a cool, placid pool in a different way. The moon is one but the sea will reflect it in its way - great waves will be arising. The river will reflect it in its own way - small ripples, small waves will arise. A placid pool, a silent pool, will reflect it in its own way - there are ripples. The moon is still the same. the reflections are also not different, but the medium of reflection is different.

So what I am saying Krishnamurti sees, what he is saying I see - but I will go on doing my work and he will go on doing his work. There is no other possibility. When Buddha be-comes enlightened he functions in his own way. When Meera becomes enlightened she functions in her own way. Buddha cannot dance and Meera dances so beautifully. Buddha sits silently under the Bodhi tree, there is not even a slight movement, he is almost like a statue.

The first statues were created of Buddha and it cannot be just accidental he looked so statue-like. In fact, in Arabic - Urdu - the word for statue is 'budh' and the word itself comes from Buddha. Those were the first statues ever created of any man. It is difficult to create a statue of Meera - she is such a movement, a dance. Buddha's statue is very simple and the marble reflects him perfectly well.

Even when he was alive, sitting under the Bodhi tree, he was almost a marble statue; there was no movement, no wavering. That is beautiful, it has its own beauty, it has its own variety. And Meera is also beautiful.

Mahavir became naked when he became enlightened, Buddha continued to use his clothes.

Mahavir's nakedness is beautiful - such innocence. Krishna is totally different, Christ is totally different. And then there is this man, Lao Tzu. No two enlightened persons have ever been the same, cannot be. Even unenlightened people are not the same, how can enlightened people be the same? Even unenlightened people, imitating each other, cannot destroy their individuality completely, utterly. They react in their own ways even though they try to efface them.

Society wants you to efface your individuality completely; society does not like individuals. It likes you to become a member of the society, not an individual. It does not want you to become independent, it wants you to be a dependent link and it wants you to live the way others are living. The moment you assert your individuality, society comes in and puts you back into your place, it forces you to be just like others. There is danger when you assert your individuality, because you are becoming chaotic, you are becoming anarchic. No, you have to follow the order.

But even unenlightened people, forced by society and the state and the church, still retain their individuality. There is really no way to drop your individuality utterly. Something unique is there - what can you do? You can hide behind the same clothes, you can hide behind the same masks, you can hide behind the same words, same philosophies, same slogans, same flags, but still, all this is just skin deep. Scratch a person and you will find an individual soul, unique. Never has there been such a person before, never will there be again.

Two hipsters were visiting a small Alaska town when they heard some rumbling in the distance.

'Hey, cat,' one hipster said to a native. 'What's that crazy noise?'

'That noise means an avalanche is starting,' said one of the locals. 'In the past we've had to leave here for safety's sake.'

'Man,' said the second hipster, 'I don't dig this. Let's beat it.'

'You can go if you want to,' screamed hipster number one, 'but I'm staying. I've got a feeling this town is really going to move tonight!'

If you look into people you will find that in situations absolutely alike - or even in one situation - they react differently, they respond differently.

So what to say about enlightened persons? They are like peaks, peaks of the Himalayas, absolutely alone, unique. Never compare two enlightened persons. If you understand well, never compare any two persons - but at least about two enlightened persons never be comparative, because whatsoever you think will be wrong.

It is very natural. If you are close to me you fall in love with me and naturally you start thinking that this is the only way to be enlightened. Then other enlightened people start looking wrong somehow, because you have a fixed idea of enlightenment. How can they be enlightened? If you are with Krishnamurti the same will happen there - you will fall in love with him and you will start thinking that this is the only way a person can be enlightened.

Beware of this stupidity. There are as many possibilities of enlightened people as there are unenlightened people. Every person will be unique when he becomes enlightened. He will be a flower, new, incomparable. And always remember, God loves variety. That's why there is so much variety - there are millions of forms and never any repetition.

Krishnamurti is beautiful, so is Buddha, so is George Gurdjieff, so is Raman, so is Ramakrishna.

They are all beautiful. If you fall in love with one enlightened person don't let love make you blind.

It you are alert you will go on loving me. hut that will not make you blind. You will be able to understand that there are other possibilities too. All the possibilities are not exhausted by me, cannot be exhausted by me. Nobody can exhaust all the possibilities.

And it is beautiful that nobody can exhaust all the possibilities otherwise Buddha or Lao Tzu or Mahavira or Buddha would have exhausted all the possibilities. Then what would we have been doing here?

The fourth question:

Question 4:

BEING unique is everybody's nature, being special is relative. When you start feeling that you are special you are comparing yourself with somebody. Special: in comparison to somebody; unique:

there is no comparison. Unique means you are alone as you are - how can you be compared?

You cannot compare a car with an elephant. They are so different, how can you compare? Each individual is so different from any other individual that there is no possibility of comparing.

Uniqueness is everybody's nature, but specialness is comparative. Uniqueness is religious, specialness is political. When you claim that you are special you are claiming that you are higher, superior to others; that others are lower. inferior to you. You bring the other in when you use the word 'special' and this is violent. To compare yourself with somebody in any way is violent because he is he and you are you and you are both so different. The very idea of comparing is stupid.

And through comparison misery arises: either you feel you are inferior, then there is misery, or you start feeling you are superior, then too there is misery. If you feel superior. ego arises - and ego hurts. If you feel inferior, ego is wounded - and those wounds hurt. And you may feel superior to one person but what about others? You may one day or other come across somebody to whom you feel inferior. With one person you may feel intelligent, with another you may look like a pygmy. With one you may feel beautiful, with another you may start feeling ugly.

To carry the idea of comparison you are carrying seeds of illness which will create misery and nothing else. Comparison creates hell. Heaven is an inner space where you live a life uncompared.

You simply live yourself, it is your life, you are you just think of the beauty of it, the tremendous purity of it. You are simply you. Then are you beautiful? Are you ugly? Are you intelligent, or unintelligent?

If you are simply you and there is no comparison, how can you say you are this or that? Then both disappear. There arises neti-neti, neither this nor that. Then you are simply there.

Just think... the whole world disappears and you alone are left. God takes away the whole world and only you are left, nobody else. Then what will you be - strong, weak, intelligent, unintelligent, beautiful, ugly? Then who will you be? All comparisons will disappear, you will simply be yourself.

That is the way to be.

Right now, be that! Don't create unnecessary misery for yourself and for others. Start living a unique life.

Uniqueness is everybody's nature. With the feeling of being special ambition enters, comparison enters, jealousy enters, conflict enters. You become political. Then you start pulling others down because you have to be superior. Then you start fighting, struggling, and then you start using all sorts of means. You have to prove and perform and your whole life is wasted in this nonsense.

Three ambitious politicians were walking along the beach, planning a strategic move to defeat a powerful rival, when they came upon Mulla Nasrudin looking for crabs. As each crab was caught, the Mulla put it into a wicker basket.

Looking into the container, one of the politicians warned Nasrudin, 'Mulla, you should cover your basket. If you are not careful the crabs will climb out and run away.'

'Oh, I don't need any cover,' explained Nasrudin. 'These crabs are born politicians and if one crab tries to climb up, the others will pull him down.'

This is what is happening continuously in life. You are pulling others down, others are pulling you down, and the whole life is wasted in this unnecessary struggle. Just be yourself and you are unique.

and that uniqueness is non-violent.

Never try to be special. In the very idea of being special you are feeling inferior. In the very idea of being superior to somebody or inferior to somebody you have lost contact with yourself, with your uniqueness. In that very idea you have become your own enemy. Now you will be in trouble, you will create more and more misery for yourself and for others, you will create ripples of misery all around you.

A man who simply relaxes in his uniqueness is a man who creates ripples of bliss around him. He lives in bliss and he creates pulsations of bliss for others also. If you are around such a person you will suddenly be showered with great peace and love and silence and happiness - because he is happy. The moment you accept your uniqueness, your individuality, how can you be unhappy?

Just think of it in this way: God has never created anybody else like you and he will never create anybody else like you. God has created only one you - only ONE you, mind - and he is never going to repeat you again. This is your uniqueness. Feel grateful, feel thankful. once you start comparing you feel ungrateful. Why has he created somebody more beautiful than you, or somebody more intelligent than you? You are bringing misery upon yourself. He has created only you, he has conferred uniqueness on you. It is a gift. Uniqueness is a gift of God, speciality is your own effort.

Your effort is not going to be of much use, your doing always proves your undoing.

Ambitious persons become cruel and hard; ambitious persons become rock-like, they lose their softness, they become closed. Their heart is no longer like a flower. How can you be like a flower when you have to fight and struggle? And it is a very difficult world then - cut-throat competition everywhere. Everybody is at your neck and you are at everybody's neck; everybody is trying to destroy you and you are trying to destroy everybody. Where will you find a creative break? Where will you find a break-through? Where will you enjoy and how?

No, all your moments of so-called joy will only be when you are able to crush somebody, when you are able to destroy somebody. But how can destruction bring joy? It is not the law of life.

A grocer was delivering some groceries in his wagon one morning when he ran down and badly injured an old lady. The old lady sued him and collected big damages. A few weeks later he ran down an old gentleman. The old gentleman also sued and collected big damages, which almost ruined him.

One Sunday the grocer was sitting at home when his son came running through the door. 'Father!

Father!' the little boy cried. 'Mother's been run over by a hundred-and-eighty-horsepower touring car.'

The grocer's eyes filled with tears and, in a voice trembling with genuine emotion, he cried, 'Thank the Lord, the luck's changed at last.'

His wife is dying on the road but he says, 'Thank the Lord, the luck's changed at last.' Now he call sue somebody and get all the money back.

An ambitious mind, a greedy mind, a jealous mind, becomes hard, stone-like. And remember, if you are stone-like you will hurt others - but that is only secondary, you ill he hurting yourself continuously.

Only sometimes will your stone hurt others but your stoniness will hurt you continuously, twenty-four hours, day in, day out, year in, year out. The stone will be there in your heart pinching, hurting, wounding.

One is happy only when one is flower-like delicate. soft, a lotus: To remain a lotus one has to drop all Comparisons, all jealousies - and they are stupid anyway. meaningless .

The third question:

Question 5:

THIS is from Sambuddha.

The first thing, Sambuddha, you have not been just reading, just eating, just sleeping, just drifting. If you had been doing that you would have been enlightened by now. That is the ultimate relaxed state - just eating, just reading.... No, you must have done a thousand and one other things too. While reading you must have been thinking many, many things; while eating you must have been thinking; even while sleeping you must have been dreaming....

One thing: if you can really do this, then nothing else is needed - that is all. The very ultimate in SADHANA IS just to do the thing that you are doing in that moment with no other thought interfering.

Eating, you are simply eating.

Not a single thought moves in your mind. Eating, you are just an eater; walking, you are just a walker; listening, you are just listening.

But no, when you are listening you are not just listening, you are interpreting, criticising, appreciating, saying yes, saying no, agreeing, disagreeing. You are not listening, you are doing something else.

You are hearing, certainly, but you are not listening.

A small boy was brought to a psychoanalyst. The mother who had brought the boy talked for a long time and the psychoanalyst was getting bored. Then, when he got the chance, he talked about many things. The boy was getting very bored, and the psychoanalyst, seeing that the boy was not listening to what he was saying, was somewhere else, said, 'Have you some difficulty in hearing me?'

The kid said, 'No, I have no difficulty in hearing but I have much difficulty in listening.'

The hearing is perfect. If your ears are healthy you hear perfectly well - but hearing is not listening.

Listening has a depth to it; listening means that the mind is quiet, still, no thought wavers in it.

Otherwise you go on interpreting and you will certainly interpret in your own way.

An old lady, who was walking her dog, decided to go into the local supermarket which didn't allow dogs. She tied the animal to a fire hydrant. No sooner was the dog tied up when every dog in the neighbourhood that was loose started sniffing the defenceless animal. The cop on the corner, observing what was happening, called to the old woman and told her that she couldn't leave her dog there alone.

She asked him why and he replied, 'Lady, your dog is in heat.'

She answered, 'Eat, she'll eat anything.'

He countered, 'The dog should be bred.'

The old lady replied, 'She'll eat bread, cake; anything you give her, she'll eat.'

In complete frustration he said, 'That dog should be laid!'

The old woman stared directly into his eyes and answered. So lay her. I always wanted a police dog.'

How you listen depends on you. Your mind is conti-nuously creating its own interpretations.

No, Sambuddha, it is not possible that you have been just reading, eating, sleeping, drifting. If you could do that then nothing else is needed.

Second thing: I HAVE BEEN HERE TWO YEARS DOING NOTHING TO IMPROVE MYSELF. That's what I told Sambuddha not to do anything to improve. But he must have been watching out of the corner of his eye again and again to see whether any improvement is happening or not. When I say to you 'don t do anything to improve yourself you agree just to improve. You agree and yet you don't agree. You say, 'Okay, if that is the way to improve, I am ready.'

But you miss the point! You miss absolutely. You say. 'Okay, if that is the only possibility to improve....'

Deep in the unconscious that's how the logic goes. 'Osho says drop all ideas of improvement, so I will' and then you continuously watch what is happening. Then one month has passed, two months have passed, one year has passed, now two years have passed... and improvement has no happened .

It cannot happen because you are still looking for it. It can happen only when the whole idea has become simplY foolish, when you have dropped it. If the idea of improvement continues, no transformation is possible - because the very idea comes from the ego. The ego wants to improve.

Remember the difference between improvement and transformation. I am here to help you to be transformed, transmuted, you are here to improve yourself - that's where our languages are different.

You are here to add some more experiences to your life to become a little more loving, a little more meditative. You are here to decorate yourself a little more, to succeed in life, to have more pleasures.

You are here to improve, you are not here to die and be reborn.

My whole effort here is to destroy you utterly so that you can be created in a totally new way. I would like to create a discontinuity in your life - you want the same continuity. Sambuddha wants Sambuddha to improve, he wants some more decorations, some more gold medals - but the original centre remains the same. That's the problem and that's why transformation cannot happen.

Even if you improve, nothing will happen.

I have heard about an old woman who went to a theatre. Suddenly her ears started buzzing. She was an old woman and something went wrong with her ears so she stopped hearing anything. But she thought that it must be because she was sitting so far away from the stage that she could not hear.

So she changed her seat and went to the front, but there also she could not hear anything.

Naturally she thought, 'What is the matter? The acoustics of this hall are not good. Maybe the people in the balcony are hearing.' She looked up and the people were looking very interested so she changed her ticket and went to the balcony. Again she could not hear.

The manager, seeing that she had changed her ticket again and again, came to her and asked her what the matter was. She said, 'Something is wrong. The acoustics of this theatre are not good, because wherever I go I cannot hear.' And the manager said, 'Lady, maybe something is wrong with your ears.'

Now if something is wrong with the ears you can change your place but nothing will happen, no improvement will happen. You will have to change something inside you. If the ego is there you can improve - if you are poor, you can become rich; if you are immoral, you can become moral: if you are a sinner, you can become a saint. You call change seats, you can move from the ground floor to the balcony. but nothing will happen because the ego is there. You will remain in the same suffering.

The labels may change, names may change, but the suffering remains the same.

My effort here is to help you to drop the ego. And the greatest difficulty in dropping the ego is to drop this plan to improve. The ego exists by planning: how to improve. how to become more and more, how to become great, how to become a hero, how to become a Buddha. That's how the ego exists - by projecting.

I told Sambuddha to drop all projecting - just to be. Now, after two years, he says: I HAVE BEEN HERE TWO YEARS DOING NOTHING TO IMPROVE MYSELF.... No, you were doing nothing only to improve yourself. That's what you were doing and that's why you have failed and you will fail continuously .

Look into the whole phenomenon, go deep into your own mind and see what you have been doing.

On the surface you were not doing anything, but you were waiting for the transformation to happen.

What I am saying is: forget about the future and live the now. Now is the only time and here the only space. Live now and here.

Forget about improvement, forget about transformation. then one day it happens - but only when you have completely forgotten it, only then. If you remember it, YOU function as a barrier.

I HAVE BEEN HERE TWO YEARS DOING NOTHING. Doing nothing is not so easy. Sambuddha, doing nothing means allowing the whole to do thing, allowing Tao to happen. Doing nothing is the greatest thing in the world. If a man can do nothing then everything happens, then all is possible, because to do nothing means one becomes nothing, nobody, emptiness. And out of that emptiness arises all that is, all that is possible. all that is potential. Out of emptiness opens the lotus of being.

NOW I FEEL AS EMPTY AND LOST AS THE DAY I CAME. You have been changing seats but, because you are deaf, you can go to the balcony, you can go to the front seat, you can go to the back and nothing will change. Yes, in two years or two hundred years or two hundred lives, nothing will change. Change comes only when you are no longer interested in change, when you are no longer interested in any improvement, when you are in total acceptance, when 'suchness' happens.

But one thing has happened. When you came two years ago I knew well that you were not aware of your emptiness. Now you are aware. That is something that has happened. Now you are more aware of your emptiness, more aware of your misery, more aware that you are not going anywhere, that nothing is happening. This is good. This awareness will become more and more penetrating, will become more and more crystal-clear, and one day this awareness will come to a point, to a conclusion, where you will see that nothing ever happens.

Right now you think nothing is happening to you this is the beginning. One day you will come to understand that nothing ever happens. Nothing has ever happened - not only not to you, to nobody.

Nothing has ever happened. How can anything happen? All that is, is. What else can be? And in that moment all happens.

Buddha searched for enlightenment for six years. Remember, you have been here only two years.

For six years he searched hard and he did all sorts of things; whatsoever was said to him he did he fasted, meditated, did yoga, did everything that was told to him, did everything that he had heard, did everything that was traditionally available. He tried all. He went to many Masters and he was such a great seeker that each Master to whom he went became interested in him. And his search was so honest, he was so earnest, his thirst was so authentic, that even though he had not arrived at the goal, the Masters wanted him to succeed them, to be their successor.

Wherever he went every Master told him, 'Be here. Don't leave me. You will be my successor.' But he said, 'What am I going to do as your successor? I have not attained yet. I don't know exactly what life is. I am not interested in being a successor or becoming a great Master, I am interested in knowing. I am not even a disciple yet so how can I be a Master?' And he left.

After six years of hard struggle, of strenuous, arduous struggle, one day he came to understand that nothing is possible, nothing ever happens, nothing has ever happened to anybody, that he had been searching in vain, the whole search was futile. This was not a frustration, remember, this was not a hopelessness, it was a great understanding. A great light came to him - that nothing ever happens, what-soever is, is. What is, is, and what ain't, ain't.

So he sat under the Bodhi tree and forgot all about his struggles - and that very night he became enlightened. The moment he dropped all struggle and became non-tense, anxiety disappeared.

There was nowhere to go so he was there in that moment, total, no desire left, no nirvana, no moksha, no enlightenment. Nothing ever happens; whatsoever is, is.

He rested. After six years he slept without a dream because dreams come only because you desire.

Dreams are reflections of your desires. No dreams. The whole night he slept. He slept for the first time - it was almost samadhi. In the morning when he opened his eyes there was no effort even to open his eyes. Listen to it well: there was no effort, the sleep was complete so the eyes opened.

That's how the Buddhist scriptures say it he did not open his eyes, because he was no longer there.

With sleep complete, the eyes opened. The doer was gone, utterly gone. There was no one to open the eyes, it was a natural phenomenon - just as a bud opens in the morning because it is ready to open, the energy is ready to open. The tree does not try to open it. Buddha found his eyes opening and he looked at the sky and the last star was disappearing. And with that last star disappearing he disappeared utterly, forever.

And he laughed. It was so simple. He was making it difficult by his doing, by his effort.

Sambuddha, if you really leave your efforts, nobody is barring the path you can become enlightened this very moment. As far as I am concerned you are already enlightened, it is only your delusion that you are not enlightened. The day I became enlightened the whole existence became enlightened for me; from that day since, I have never come across a person who is not enlightened. You may think you are not but that is your thinking, it is not true, it is not the truth. I know you are enlightened, that's why I give you such beautiful names - Sambuddha. It means one who is enlightened. For me you are enlightened, Sambuddha; for you you are not enlightened. So drop your idea of your being and your ego, it is already the case.

And you say: I FEEL AS EMPTY AND LOST AS THE DAY I CAME. No, you are more aware of your hopelessness. The day you came you were full of desire, the day you came you were full of hope.

I remember very well, you may have forgotten. You came to me only because of hope, otherwise why should you come to me? For what? You came to me in the hope that you would attain. You were full of hope. And you were doing many things - meditations, groups - and you were enjoying the trip. And then I said, 'Don't do anything.' And you were very happy thinking that now you must have attained a very high state - that's why I was saying, 'Don't do anything.' But then you became depressed, then you became desperate - that I have been watching for two years. Now you are feeling very, very hopeless.

But things have changed. This hopelessness is good. That hope was illusory, this hopelessness is on the right track. If you really understand that nothing ever happens, that nothing can ever happen in the nature of things, that all is already there, then no improvement is possible. How can you improve upon God? How can you improve upon the whole? The perfect is perfect, how can you make it more perfect? There is no way.

When this understanding goes a little deeper.... The moment is coming. If you don't escape, the moment is coming. But remember, don't start hoping because I say that the moment is coming, otherwise again you will settle and you will start looking out of the corner of the eye to see if the moment is coming. The moment can come only when you stop all this nonsense of having to become something, to do something, to be something.

The situation is different. You are less hopeful. That's why you are saying: IS THERE ANY POINT IN STAYING LONGER? There was never any point. In the very beginning there was no point in staying here. But there is no point in going anywhere else either; in fact, there is no point! So if you want to go, you can go but there is no point, remember. If you want to stay, stay, but remember, there is no point. And you will have to be somewhere so why not here?!

But relax because there is no point. You can relax.

Mind is very cunning, very clever, and because of its cunningness it misses much.

In a discussion between Mulla Nasrudin and his friend Sheikh Abdulla, the Sheikh maintained that no one could pray without having his mind wander. However, the Mulla positively stated that his mind never wandered while he was praying .

'If you come to me next Saturday and tell me honestly that your mind did not wander once from your prayers on Friday,' said the Sheikh, 'I will give you one of the best horses from my stables.'

On the following Saturday the Mulla presented himself to get the horse.

'Are you sure, Nasrudin, that your mind didn't wander once during the prayers?' asked the Sheikh.

'Well, maybe it did, once, at the end of the last prayer,' was Mulla Nasrudin's reply, 'when I wondered whether you would give me a saddle too!'

Now when you are hoping for the horse the idea may come into the mind, 'I wondered whether you would give me a saddle as well.'

When you are waiting for something, ideas cannot stop. If you are not waiting for anything ideas can stop. I repeat it again: there is no point, life is pointless, purposeless. Existence is not going anywhere, it has no destiny, no purpose. It is. Simply, purely, it is. There is no why. It is because it cannot be, because it cannot not be.

Relax, and start enjoying. Rather than planning and thinking, start enjoying. Read, enjoy: eat, enjoy; listen enjoy: love, enjoy. These are small things but out of these small things arises the great understanding. The ego always says these are small things, seek the big, seek the huge, seek the great, seek God, seek Buddhahood and I say to you, there are no great things, only small things.

You love well, you love deeply; you sing well, you sing deeply: you dance well, you dance deeply.

Sleep well, go for a morning walk. do small things - cleaning, taking a bath. working in the ashram.

Enjoy small things. There is no other point and there is nowhere to go.

Drop hopes, drop desires, and be. And suddenly you will find you have always been a Buddha. It has never been otherwise. Buddhahood is our intrinsic nature.

But listening to me, even listening to me, you listen with ideas, with a mind standing just around the corner. You have a fixed desire, you never leave that.

A young suitor was being led through the voluminous pages of the old family album by his girl's proud father. After seeing scores of members of the clan, the young man was finally shown the picture of a solid-looking old gentleman. 'This,' said the father proudly, 'is the founder of the family.'

'What did he do?' asked the young man.

'He founded the family,' the older man said again.

'I mean, sir,' the suitor floundered, 'what did he do to distinguish himself?'

'He was the founder of the family,' the father rasped in exasperation .

'I understand that, sir,' the suitor sighed. 'I just wondered what the old gent did in the daytime.'

If you have a certain fixed idea, it has to come sooner or later.

Sambuddha has a fixed idea, a curiosity, a desire - a desire to become enlightened. So, I understand, it must have been hard for him to wait and wait and wait for two years with nothing happening. Nothing is going to happen ever.

Drop waiting, start being. Waiting is a thought process, being is existential. Live, live as much as you can, as intensely as you can, as passionately as you can. And through that passionate love for life, through that flame of passion of authentic living something burns down in you- the ego. And when the ego is burnt down, something happens. That happening has nothing to do with your effort.

It comes. It is a happening.

The seventh question:

Question 6:

The question is from Divya.

I have been missing her for many days. She is not in her seat. And it has nothing to do with possessiveness. She should not be worried about it. In fact, she has found the right spot for her, hence it is difficult for her to leave that spot. It has nothing to do with 'my seat', it has nothing to do with my'. When she sits in a particular place she is flowing. From that angle she receives me best.

And everybody has to find his particular seat by and by. Those who are permanently here, they have to find their seats by and by. They will have a certain angle from where they will be more capable of receiving me, a certain place where they will feel more relaxed.

Divya has found her place, so she need not be worried about it. And nobody should disturb her, let Shiva note it. For a few days she has not been in her seat, other people have been in her seat, and nobody has been flowing there. One day Sagar was sitting there and he was sitting like a thief.

Guilty! Ill at ease! When Divya sits there she sits like a queen. She creates a certain space around her.

And I also enjoy her sitting there. So, Divya, no need to worry. Not seeing you there I have been missing you.

And the last question:

Question 7:

To me religion is not religion but life; to me religion is not religion but love; to me religion is not a serious thing, it is fun. To me religion is more like laughter, like dancing, like singing. It is not a serious church thing.

I am not interested in the after-life, I am not interested in heaven and hell, I am not interested in virtue and vice - I am interested only in how to impart to you an understanding of living intensely, delightfully, because God is delight.

A talkative individual in a coffee house was demonstrating his ability to catalogue people as to their occupations. He had gone around the group with considerable success: a lawyer here, a salesman on the left, a banker in the corner. an editor by the window.

Finally, the self-announced expert's eyes fell upon the interesting face of Mulla Nasrudin, a little pale, slightly drawn, with a certain glassiness in the eyes. 'Here,' he said, 'is a religious man, a preacher.'

A moment's hush and then Mulla Nasrudin said softly, 'You got me wrong, sir. I am no preacher. I just have stomach ulcers.'

The preachers that you have known are really pathological people, ill people. They have lost their taste of life.

I teach you the taste. I don't teach you to be against life, because to me life is the very shrine of God. I don't teach you to go against the joys of life but to go into them as deeply as possible. I am affirmative, I am a 'yea' sayer. I am not negative. I don't want to deny anything to anybody.

Whatsoever God has given has to be accepted in deep gratitude and lived. To me God and life are synonymous. That's why whatsoever I am saying to you has a different quality to it the taste of Tao, the taste of life and love, the taste of delight.

'When I am sick,' Mulla Nasrudin was saying to me, expounding his views on the subject of illness, 'I go to see the doctor. For, after all, doctors have to live. He writes me out a prescription, which I take to the pharmacists. I pay the druggist willingly, for, after all, a pharmacist too must live. Then I go home and pour the medicine down the drain. For, after all, I have to live.'

So even if you go to a preacher, or to a church, remember that you have to live. Don't forget it. Even if you accept their medicine out of politeness, pour it down the drain. They have to live so they have to preach. You have to live - so never listen to their preaching.