In Existence There Is No Question

The first question:

Question 1:

It does not come from the answer, it comes from you, and it comes from you because you have not seen the answer yet, you have not heard the answer yet.

To know existence you have to be existential. You are not existential, you live in thoughts. You live in the past, in the future, but never here and now. And existence is right here now. You are not here, hence the question arises. The question arises because of you not meeting with existence. You think you live, but you don't live; you think you love, but you don't love - you only think about love, you think about life, you think about existence, and that very thinking is the question, that thinking is a barrier. Drop all thoughts and see. You will not find a single question there, only the answer exists.

That's why I insist again and again that the search is not really for the answer, the search is not really so that your questions can be answered. No, the search is only how to drop the questions, how to see life and existence with a non-questioning mind. That is the meaning of shraddha, trust.

This is the deepest dimension of shraddha or trust: you look at existence with a non-questioning mind. You simply look. You have no idea how to look at it, you don't impose any form on it, you don't have any prejudice - you simply look with naked eyes, absolutely uncovered by any thoughts, any philosophies, any religions. With eyes like a small child you look at existence and then suddenly there is only the answer. There are no questions in existence. Questions come from you. And they will go on coming, and you can go on accumulating as many answers as you like - those answers won't help. You have to attain to the answer, and to attain to the answer you have to drop all questioning. When there is no question in the mind the vision is clear, you have a clarity of perception; the doors of perception are clean and open, and everything becomes suddenly transparent. You can go to the very depth. Wherever you look, your look penetrates to the deepest core, and there suddenly you find yourself.

You find yourself everywhere. You will find yourself in a rock, if you look deep, deep enough. Then the looker, the observer, becomes the observed, the seer becomes the seen, the knower becomes the known. If you look deep enough in a rock, in a tree, or in a man or in a woman, if you go on looking deeply, that look is a circle. It starts from you, passes through the other and comes back to you. Everything is so transparent. Nothing hinders. The ray goes, becomes a circle, and falls back on you.

Hence one of the greatest secret sentences of the Upanishads: TAT TWAMASI SWETAKETU - 'Thou art that', or 'That art thou'. The circle is complete. Now the devotee is one with God, now the seeker is one with the sought, now the inquirer himself becomes the answer.

In existence there is no question. I have lived in it long enough now, and I haven't come across a single question, not even a fragment of a question. One simply lives it.

Then life has a beauty of its own. No doubt arises in the mind, no suspicion surrounds you, no question exists within your being - you are undivided, whole.

The second question:

Question 2:

There is none - and whatsoever seems to you to be extraordinary, is because you don't understand what ordinariness is.

Because you have never lived ordinariness, ordinariness itself has become extraordinary to you.

What do you see that is extraordinary in me? I live one of the most ordinary lives. When hungry I eat, when sleepy I sleep. I don't practise anything. I don't even do anything. Whatsoever happens, happens - I move with it, float with the river. But to you it can look extraordinary, because you don't know the taste of ordinariness. Once you know the taste, then you will understand.

Everybody is after being extraordinary. That is the search of the ego: to be someone who is special, to be someone who is unique, incomparable. And this is the paradox: the more you try to be exceptional, the more ordinary you look, because everybody is after extraordinariness. It is such an ordinary desire. If you become ordinary, the very search to be ordinary is extraordinary, because rarely does somebody want to be just nobody, rarely does somebody want to be just a hollow, empty space.

This is really extraordinary in a way, because nobody wants it. And when you become ordinary you become extraordinary, and, of course, suddenly you discover that without searching you have become unique.

In fact, everybody is unique. If you can stop your constant running after goals for even a single moment, you will realize that you are unique. It is nothing to be discovered, it is already there. It is already the case: to be is to be unique. There is no other way of being. Every leaf on a tree is unique, every pebble on the shore is unique, there is no other way of being. You cannot find a similar pebble anywhere on the whole of earth.

Two similar things do not exist at all, so there is no need to be somebody. You just be yourself, and suddenly you are unique, incomparable. That's why I say that this is a paradox: those who search fail, and those who don't bother, suddenly attain.

But don't get confused in words. Let me repeat: the desire to be extraordinary is very ordinary, because everybody has it; and to have the understanding to be ordinary is very extraordinary, because it rarely happens - a Buddha, a Lao Tzu, a Jesus have it. To try to be unique is on everybody's mind; and all these people fail and fail utterly.

How can you be more unique than you are already? Uniqueness is already there, you have to discover it. You are not to invent it, it is hidden within you; you have to expose it to existence, that's all. This uniqueness is not to be cultivated. It is your treasure. You have been carrying it for ever and ever. It is your very being, your very core of being. You have just to close your eyes and look at yourself; you have just to stop for a while and rest and look.

But you are running so fast, you are in such great haste to achieve it that you will miss it.

It is said by one of Lao Tzu's great disciples, Lieh Tzu, that once an idiot was searching for fire with a candle in his hand. Said Lieh Tzu: Had he known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice sooner. He remained hungry the whole night because he was searching for fire but couldn't find it - and he had a candle in his hand, because how can you search in the dark without a candle?

You are searching for uniqueness and you have it in your hand; if you understand you can cook your rice sooner. I have cooked my rice and I know. You are unnecessarily hungry - the rice is there, the candle is there, the candle is fire. There is no need to take the candle and search. If you take a candle in your hand and you go on searching all over the world, you will not find fire because you don't understand what fire is. Otherwise you would have understood because the candle was just in front of you, you were carrying it in your hand.

It happens sometimes to people who use glasses. It happens that they have the glasses on and they are searching for them. They may be in a hurry, and when they are in a hurry, they search everywhere - they completely forget that they have the glasses on. One can get in a panic. You may have had certain experiences like this in your life - because of the very search you become so panicky and so worried and so disturbed that your vision is no longer clear, and something which is just in front of you, you cannot see.

This is the case. You need not search for uniqueness, you are unique already. There is no way to make a thing more unique. The words 'more unique' are absurd. Unique is enough. There exists nothing like 'more unique'. It is just like the word 'circle'. Circles exist. There exists nothing like a thing more circular. That is absurd. A circle is always perfect, more is not needed. There are no degrees of circularity - a circle is a circle, less and more are useless.

Uniqueness is uniqueness, less and more don't apply to it. You are already unique. One realizes this only when one is ready to become ordinary, this is the paradox. But if you understand, there is no problem about it, the paradox is there, and beautiful, and no problem exists. A paradox is not a problem. It looks like a problem if you don't understand; if you understand, it is beautiful, a mystery.

Become ordinary, and you will become extraordinary; try to become extraordinary and you will remain ordinary.

The third question:

Question 3:

This is precisely what I want. You should become idiots. That is the greatest performance you can perform. That is the peak, the pinnacle, that intelligence can achieve.

This is the whole effort: you should be ignorant, you should drop all knowledge, all belief, all the rubbish that comes from accumulating words, theories, doctrines. They give you a sense of power and a sense that you are somebody and a sense of intelligence. When you stop carrying this burden of scriptures, doctrines, doctrinaires, suddenly you realize that you are an idiot, because now the ego is no longer on firm ground, it is trembling. In fact I'm trying to take the earth away from your feet. The moment will come when you will realize that you are an idiot - it is a beautiful moment, if you understand.

You can miss it. There is more possibility of missing it. Then you can fall back on your knowledge again, and cling to it. If you understand it, immediately there is a transformation because ignorance means a cleaning. Now your slate is clean, nothing is written on it. Now your mind is empty, hollow, nothing fills it. Now there is no furniture in the mind, now the house has space. Much is possible in this space but the moment you call it idiotic, or you say to yourself, 'I am feeling like an idiot,' you have already condemned it.

Soon we will come across Lao Tzu's saying: In this whole world only I am an idiot. Everybody seems to be so wise, everybody knows where he is going to, where he is coming from, only I seem to be bewildered. Everybody seems to be so intelligent, only I seem to be muddleheaded. Soon we will come across that saying.

So try to understand this state; this state is a great passage. From the rubbish that you call knowledge you are now entering the world of being and existence. In the interval, the interim period, you will feel like an idiot. Feel and enjoy it. Don't get disturbed. What is wrong in being an idiot?

The ego suffers. That's why you feel pain. I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING OR WHAT I WANT OR EVEN WHAT I LIKE. Beautiful! That means there is nowhere to go. You can only be here and now. The goal has disappeared, now you don't feel certain where you are going. Perfectly beautiful.

When the goal disappears you cannot go anywhere, you can only be here - and here now is the goal. You feel this state as very painful because the ego has to die. The ego would like to be a knowledgeable person, not ignorant; the ego would like to cling to mere words without any content in them, because still they give you a feeling that you know something and you know where are you going. You will feel painful if you are persuaded by the ego. If you are not persuaded by the ego you will feel happy and you will celebrate. You will be happy that you have attained something worthwhile.

Don't create suffering for yourself. Try to look at this ignorance with a totally different vision. That is what I am trying to impart to you - the vision to look at things in a totally different way. Ignorance is clean, cleaner than any knowledge; ignorance is silent, more silent than any knowledge. Knowledge is always noisy, knowledge is a market-place; ignorance is a cave somewhere deep in the Himalayas.

Knowledge is ill, ignorance is healthy. Knowledge is ill because of the ego - the ego is the greatest disease. You cannot feed the ego if you don't cling to knowledge. If you cling, you can feel that you are somebody - that you know something, that you are not an ignorant person; you can compare yourself to others - that you know more, that everybody else is ignorant, stupid, but you are very intelligent, you have degrees from the universities. And you exhibit them in your sitting-room, you frame them, you bring it to everybody's notice that you are no ordinary person; you are very cultured and cultivated, knowledgeable. You go on showing your knowledge everywhere. Wherever you can get a chance, even a slight chance, you jump in and you start showing your knowledge, your software. You start arguing; you start proving yourself right. The whole effort is egoistic.

Ignorance is healthy; ignorance is innocent, innocent like a child, a newly-born babe. Ignorance is never cunning, knowledge is always cunning. When you have knowledge you call it cleverness; when somebody else has it you call it cunningness - but cleverness and cunningness are the same.

Knowledge can deceive others. It is a criminal. Ignorance cannot deceive anybody - at the most it can be deceived by everybody else. Ignorance is never a crime. Knowledge is active, aggressive, male; ignorance is inactive, passive, female. Ignorance is receptive, a womb; knowledge is never receptive, it is always rejecting. Have you seen people who are knowledgeable? It is very difficult for them to say yes, it is very easy to say no. No is always ready on their lips. No gives them power, the feeling of power, that they can argue and they can destroy.

Knowledge does not know how to say yes, and it misses much, misses all. Because the existence is known only by one who has given a total yes to it, who has signed a blank cheque and given it to existence. Only in that trust are mysteries revealed. You become intimate. Ignorance is wonderful.

So be an idiot, and be one totally. Don't hesitate. Then there will be no pain, no suffering. The suffering and pain is not coming from ignorance, it is coming from the dying ego.

It is also very, very important that the second part of the question should be understood: I FIND THIS STATE VERY PAINFUL. AND IN ALL THIS SUFFERING I FEEL THAT I AM GROWING APART FROM, RATHER THAN CLOSER TO YOU.

Yes, that happens. When you come near to me for the first time it is through the ego that you are close because you don't know anything else. You come as an ego. The closeness is false. How can the ego be close? It can only pretend that it is close, it can never be close. How can the ego be intimate? It is always in conflict, it can only deceive, it cannot truly be intimate and close. Closeness means that the ego should disappear, only then can you come close. If you are surrounded by the ego, armored by it, how can you come close to me? Impossible. The ego gives you a feeling that you are coming close because that too becomes food for the ego. Now you are close to Osho. Now you are close to your master. There is always comparison in it - closer than others. It is not really closeness, it is the old game of the ego. It continues around me - people go on thinking: Who is closer?

People are even worried about who is going to be my successor. What foolishness! I am here. You cannot be intimate with me and you are worried about who is going to be my successor. People who are worried about it must unconsciously be angry deep down - they should be my successor. They are trying to pose that they are closest. But closeness needs no certificates, and a closeness needs no justification. It is simply there in its total naked beauty. There is no need for it to be claimed.

When you come near me for the first time, it is the ego that comes nearer and gives you the sense of nearness; and when the ego starts dropping, disappearing, dissolving, suddenly you see, for the first time the reality of how far you are from me.

But don't be worried. Closeness through the ego is no closeness and even a great distance with no ego is closeness. Let the ego die. Then you will understand the real closeness. A real closeness is not a comparison. You simply feel exactly with me, as if you are not even near. But let the ego die completely. It is still alive - it may be on the deathbed, but it is not dead yet. Don't give it an oxygen cylinder, and don't feel pity for it. Let it die. Help it to die, because that is your disease. Even if it is painful, let it be, because no rebirth is possible without pain. If it is suffering, rejoice that the moment of suffering has come for you, because only through suffering does one reach to the blessing, to the benediction.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

You will have to become a Buddha, otherwise there is no way of knowing about it.

A Buddha cares in a totally different way. His care is not a worry. When you care about somebody, you worry about him - a Buddha cannot worry, that has to be remembered. When you care about somebody, you are tense, anxious, in anxiety. A Buddha cannot be anxious so a Buddha cannot care in your way. When Buddha cares.... It is wrong to say that he cares because he is care, he is caring. It is not good to say that he cares because that gives the feeling that sometimes he does not care. No, care is not an act for a Buddha, it is his being. It is his whole way: he is a caring. When he is a caring, it is natural to him that he cares and loves. It does not create any tension and anxiety in him.

It creates tension and anxiety in you because it is not natural to you. That point has to be understood - it is something unnatural. When you love, when you care, it is something unnatural to you. Hate seems to be easier, natural; anger seems to be more easy than compassion. Not to care seems to be more natural and easy for you than to care. So whenever you care, it creates a tension. It is an unnatural thing - you are pretending to be a Buddha. That pretension creates the tension, and your caring becomes poisonous. If you care with tension and anxiety, your anxiety and tension will enter into your care also, and you will force the other, knowingly or unknowingly, directly or indirectly, to feel obliged to you. You have done a great work, you have been a martyr - you will brag about it, and you would like the other to feel and show and say that he is very, very much obliged to you.

This is an ego game. And remember, if this is the way you care, the other may show that he is obliged but deep down he will never forgive you, never. He will never forgive you, and you cared and you loved and you were so helpful, and you served him - but he will never forgive you. In fact, some day, if the opportunity arises, he will want to take revenge. It was not pure care, it was poisonous.

Your love always has something of hate in it, your sympathy has something of antagonism in it, your care has something of indifference in it.

It is difficult for you to understand how a Buddha cares; it is not in your way, not at all. If that is the only care you know, then a Buddha does not care. But I tell you he cares, and he cares so much that it is no longer an activity, it is his being. It is just like a fragrance of a flower. In fact, if you are not there and a Buddha is sitting alone, then too he is caring. It is just like breathing to him. It is not that he cares for you... he CARES. That is the problem. You would like him to care for YOU. Then the ego is fulfilled. If he simply cares, and cares for everybody, and caring is his nature - he cares about a rock and about a tree and about you also - then you are not something special. And the ego is always hankering to be special. If that hankering is there you will not be able to see the caring of a Buddha.

For him existence is one; for him individualities have dissolved. You don't exist as islands. A whole continent of consciousness exists; you are just parts.

He cares, but he is not caring for someone is particular, even though sometimes it may seem that he does. That again will be a false attitude on your part. It happens sometimes that a person who is more receptive of his care receives more. It is not that he cares more, but that the person who is more open to his caring and love, receives more. The person who is closed does not receive at all and then the person who is closed will throw the responsibility on the Buddha. He will say that he is caring more for A and not caring for me at all. You never see your own closedness.

A Buddha is like an open invitation: he does not address his invitation to anybody, it is an open invitation for all, for everybody. He is like a river flowing - anybody who is thirsty can come and share.

But the river cannot jump into your mouth. You will have to bend down, fill your hands with the water, and then it can satisfy you, it can quench your thirst. But of course it will depend on you how much water you can take from the river. The river is not giving anybody more or less, the river is simply a giving, a sharing. If you are closed, antagonistic to the river, if you are doubtful, skeptical, if you stand on the bank and you don't bend, you don't relax, you don't surrender to the river, you go on standing there - you will remain thirsty. Those who are ready to surrender, their thirst will be quenched.

So it depends on you. When I say Buddha cares for everybody, in fact for him nobody exists; there is only one consciousness, one oceanic consciousness. Still, a few people are benefited more, a few are benefited less, and a few are not benefited at all. That is because of you, not because of a Buddha.

You will be able to understand the whole phenomenon when something, a ray of Buddhahood, enters into your being. Then only will you be able to understand the language. The whole phenomenon is so qualitatively different from all that you know, that all the words that we use are somehow not enough.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

You have caught me right - and red-handed. Try to understand it. Not only by my hands, by every gesture I am saying something, if you can decipher it and decode it. When I am talking, I am saying something, when I am not saying anything, then too I am saying something. When my hands are moving I am saying something, when they are not moving then too I am saying something.

You will need to be more and more alert so that you can listen to me as a totality.

The sixth question:

Question 6:

This question is from Pratima. I see the first layer, the Pratima which is not real - the pretension, the effort to show something that is not there.

Then at the second layer I see another Pratima, which is there, but which the first layer is trying to hide, to suppress, to push into the dark.

Then I see the third layer which is so unconscious that the first two layers are completely oblivious of it.

The first layer is consciousness, the second layer is subconsciousness, the third layer is unconsciousness - you are not aware of it. Sometimes the third layer comes into your dreams and talks to you and tries to convey some messages which in the morning you either forget completely or you remember fragments which mean nothing. Or you go to a Freud or a Jung or an Adler for interpretation, which is going to be false because nobody else can interpret your unconscious because it is an individual script. They can have generalized ideas about it but they won't be of much help. That's why every psychologist and every psychoanalyst has his own way of decoding it - and they are all right. Nobody can be proved wrong.

Only you can decipher it really: it is your unconscious talking to you, it is as individual as your thumbprints. Nobody else can do that work for you. Interpreters are not needed, more awareness is needed, more mindfulness is needed.

And then I see the innermost core, the deepest place, where no Pratima exists - the emptiness, the being as non-being.

When I see into you I see all these things, and you are also to become alert and to see all these things.

Become alert of the first Pratima.... The word Pratima is beautiful. It means image. Become aware of the first image which is false, a facade, a showpiece for the outer world, a show-window. You know it. It is not true.

Become aware. I am not saying you should drop the image immediately, because untruths can be dropped only when you have become mature enough to drop them - otherwise they are needed.

I'm not saying you should drop them abruptly. You cannot. If you do it will be suicidal. Let them be there, but you become aware and alert that they are false. When you are talking to somebody just see when your face becomes false; when you are smiling and there is no smile within; when you are showing that you are attentively listening and you are completely unlistening; when you show that you are sympathetic but not even a flicker of sympathy passes through your being. Be aware of this first layer. This is all that people know about each other.

Then the second layer, which you are suppressing, is continuously forcing its way up. It wants to come up, it is part of you - and it is truer than the first. The first is social, the second is natural, more authentic than the first.

I'm not saying you should allow it complete freedom - you will go mad or you will become a criminal and you will be caught and imprisoned. First become aware about it. Then when you become mature enough you can give it by and by a little more freedom, and that freedom will not lead you to anarchy. Then by and by, when you have become aware of the first two layers, your consciousness will be intense enough to penetrate the third layer, the unconscious.

To penetrate the third layer is very difficult because it consists of all your past lives, all the millions of past lives you have lived. You lived like a rock, then dissolved and became a plant; you lived like a tree, then died and became an animal; you lived like an animal, then died and became a man - millions of lives. Hindus say that everybody has passed through eight hundred and forty million lives in all. The third layer consists of all these lives, the whole cumulative effect - all the SANSKARAS, all the conditionings, all the karmas.

When you have dealt with the first two layers and you have become aware, not only aware, but master of them, now they are no longer masters of you but servants - as servants they are beautiful, they have much utility, but as masters they are dangerous - then your consciousness can penetrate the third layer. The third is the real struggle, and without passing the third, passing through it, one can never reach to the innermost core which you are in reality.

But I see all the four layers within you. That's why I sometimes call you fools - when I'm talking to your first layer, and I sometimes call you Buddhas - when I am talking to your fourth layer, which is not a layer really but the ground of your being.

The seventh question:

Question 7:

Cats are always willing - but you have to be ready to be mice. Cats can speak only to mice. Become rats, and cats will deliver discourses. They always will, but the whole point is of your being receptive at that level. Trees are speaking: become a tree and you understand. Birds are speaking: become a bird and you understand. And you cannot understand me if you don't become a buddha.

I am delivering the discourse but don't be deceived by it, don't think that you are understanding it also. I am talking - that is certain. But are you hearing me? That is not so certain. You appear to listen to me, but that's more or less appearance. Sometimes I talk for one and a half hours, but rarely you listen - sometimes for a single second or two seconds or three seconds, then again you are fast asleep. The words go on falling on your ears.

You appear to be listening but listening is of no use if you are not understanding. Listening is not listening if you are not understanding it. If you are not transformed through it, what is the point of listening? The tape-recorder goes on listening to me and recording better than you can record, but the tape-recorder is not going to become a buddha.

Just by listening to me you are not going to become buddhas. Listening should penetrate. It should be so total that when you are listening you are completely dissolved in it. Then every word goes into your very core, hits you deep down, penetrates you. Understanding arises through that penetration - it is not verbal.

The last question:

Question 8:

The sutras are beautiful.

The first sutra:

It is like a flower. It does not mean anything. What does a flower mean? It just is.

Meaning is something of the mind, meaning is something imposed by the mind. Truth is not something of the mind. When the mind is no more, truth is. So how can the truth mean anything? It just is.

IF YOU EXPERIENCE IT, IT IS THE TRUTH.

THE SAME THING BELIEVED IS A LIE.

Yes, absolutely true. If you experience it, only then it is truth, because truth is an experiencing, it is not believing. Belief means you don't know, you have a borrowed knowledge. You know something about it but not it. Something about it is something very far away. It is a lie. All things said about truth are lies. Only truth is true.

The truth cannot be said; it can only be experienced. So what do masters go on doing? The lead you from one lie to another which is nearer to the truth. Then they lead you from that lie to another lie which is again nearer to the truth. But all lies are lies; nearer or not nearer does not make any difference. When you take a jump from all the lies, it is from the mind, the liar. When you take a jump out of the mind, the truth is, it simply is, and only then it is truth.

What Jesus said was true for him, but for Christians? All those beautiful sentences are dead lies, something to be believed in. Just by believing you cannot attain to truth.

IF YOU EXPERIENCE IT, IT IS THE TRUTH.

THE SAME THING BELIEVED IS A LIE.

OBVIOUSLY THE TRUTH IS WHAT'S SO.

NOT SO OBVIOUSLY, IT'S ALSO SO WHAT.

I will repeat it so you can follow:

OBVIOUSLY THE TRUTH IS WHAT'S SO. Nothing can be said about truth, only this much: that it is so. It cannot be compared. There can be no analogy for it. You cannot say: It is like this. Truth is only like truth, but that will be a tautology: to say that truth is truth will be a tautology, because it does not add anything more to your knowledge. But this is the fact. Truth is a tautology because there is nothing in existence which can become an analogy for it. We cannot say: 'Truth is like that' because only truth is. No other exists. OBVIOUSLY THE TRUTH IS WHAT'S SO.

So remember that truth is truth, God is God, Love is love. If you ask for definitions, these are not definitions because a definition means you say something which can become an analogy. What can be said about love? What can be said about truth? What can be said about God? Whatsoever you say will become a tautology. You don't say anything new, you simply repeat God is God, so what is the point in repeating it? If to the person who does not know God and asks, 'What is God?' you say, 'God is God,' how is he helped? He will think you a fool. But this is what all the great scriptures have been doing. Nothing else can be done, everybody is helpless there. All language, all logic falls short.

OBVIOUSLY THE TRUTH IS WHAT'S SO.

NOT SO OBVIOUSLY, IT'S ALSO SO WHAT.

If it is obvious, it is okay, if it is not so obvious, then too it is okay, because both are truth. When you attain to truth, when you experience it, much becomes obvious and much is not so obvious. Nobody attains to truth completely: nobody can ever attain to truth completely, It is such a vast ocean.

I will tell you a small anecdote about the Sufi master, Jalaluddin Rumi. Riding on a horse he was coming back to his home from his college where he used to teach his disciples. His disciples were following him on the road - he must have been a very loved master.

Then suddenly there came a fakir who stopped the horse and asked a question. The question the fakir asked was: I have heard that you have become awakened. I have travelled long to ask you one question: Who do you think is greater - Hazarat Mohammed, the founder of Islam, or the great Sufi mystic, Al-Hillaj?

Al-Hillaj was killed, murdered by Muslims because he was thought to be an iconoclast and to be rebellious and to be sacrilegious because he asserted, 'anal hak,' - 'I am the truth.' Mohammedans said that it was too egoistic to say, 'I am the truth.' Had he been in India we would have worshipped him as a teerthankara or a Buddha, but in Mohammedan countries he was murdered.

He was the greatest Sufi. And to ask Rumi, who was a Sufi himself and followed the same path as Al-Hillaj, was really creating trouble.

Rumi asked the fakir: Why do you ask? The fakir said: Before he died Mohammed said - and these are almost his last words on this planet earth - he said: 'My God, I could not know you as you deserve to be known. I fall too short.' The fakir said: This is Mohammed's last verdict - he could not know God totally. And he himself says, and he himself bears witness to the fact that he falls too short. Then there is Al-Hillaj who said: 'When I saw God I became him, he became me.

We dissolved into each other, I have known him totally, I have seen him totally, I have become him totally.' So who is greater? That's why I ask.

Jalaluddin Rumi gave such a beautiful answer - nobody would ever have suspected it. He said:

Hazarat Mohammed is greater than Al-Hillaj.

The fakir could not believe it. He said: Why? Why do you say this? Answered Rumi: Because Mohammed's thirst was so great that although he came to know God, came to know him more and more and more and more, his thirst was so great that it could not be quenched. Al-Hillaj's thirst could not have been so great - just a drop of God satisfied him completely. That's why I say Hazarat Mohammed is greater.

If you ask me, I will also say that those who have known him will always know that something still remains to be known. God never becomes totally known, his very quality is unknowability. You touch him, you feel him, you become him, but still his unknowable mystery surrounds you. Everything never becomes obvious, much remains which is not obvious at all. IT IS ALSO SO WHAT.

HAPPINESS IS A FUNCTION OF ACCEPTING WHAT IS. Beautiful. HAPPINESS IS A FUNCTION OF ACCEPTING WHAT IS. If you accept what is, there is no possibility of your being unhappy.

I have been observing thousands of people, seekers, non-seekers, this-worldly, that-worldly, and every day I come across the phenomenon that I don't see that people are really interested in being happy. Nobody seems to be interested in being happy because they are ready to sacrifice happiness for any nonsense: for jealousy, for possessiveness, for anger, for hate - for any nonsense they are ready to sacrifice happiness. But they are not ready to sacrifice anger, possessiveness, jealousy, for happiness. So how can I say that people are interested in being happy? They are interested in being unhappy. Whatsoever they say is not the point; I see them continuously trying to be unhappy, trying to find ways and means of how to be unhappy. This is really a tremendous phenomenon - in a world where unhappiness doesn't exist man has created so much unhappiness. He has really proved to be a creator.

Where no possibility of unhappiness exists, how do you create it? You are simply wonderful. You are past-masters in creating unhappiness, you are very creative - except that you create hell.

Happiness is a simple phenomenon, nothing is needed to do it. One just needs to be there and be happy.

HAPPINESS IS A FUNCTION OF ACCEPTING WHAT IS. If you don't accept what is, you will be unhappy. You go on saying that you want to be happy, but you go on rejecting. How can you be happy? Just accept, and then see from where unhappiness can arise. You may wait for lives and unhappiness will not arise because you have cut it from the very root.

But you want happiness on your conditions and on your terms. In fact you are not interested in happiness - otherwise why should you put conditions and terms to it? You could say: 'I am ready to be happy, howsoever one can be, because I want to be happy,' but instead you say: 'No. My conditions must be fulfilled.' And you put such impossible conditions, they cannot be fulfilled.

You have a lover, a beloved - you could be happy right now. But you have a condition that the lover should promise that forever and forever he will love you. Why bring this in? How can anybody promise? Nobody knows the future. Your lover is not a God, how can he promise? Even Gods cannot promise because a promise means that the future is settled right now. And the future is not settled. It goes on moving in infinite ways. So the person must say something which is impossible - he says: 'I promise' - but you know that this is false. He is deceiving. You know because you are also a human being and you know that you yourself cannot promise for the future.

You are asking something impossible and in the very asking of it you are destroying happiness. If he promises, you know that this promise is false. How can it be given? First you ask - if it is not given you are unhappy, if it is given then you are unhappy because the man is lying. Then you will be continuously in search of how to prove that you have been deceived. The promise was false.

As I watch you more and more, the more and more the fact that nobody seems to be interested in being happy becomes a reality. For any nonsensical thing you are ready to lose happiness; you will sacrifice it for any rubbishing idea.

But you need never sacrifice anything for happiness - the mathematics is so simple!

HAPPINESS IS A FUNCTION OF ACCEPTING WHAT IS.

LOVE IS A FUNCTION OF COMMUNICATION.

LOVE IS A FUNCTION OF COMMUNICATION. What is communication? Communication is a dialogue in which two persons are in deep sympathy with each other; in which two persons are trying to understand what the other is and what the other means. But if you see lovers, husbands, wives, and others, you will find them continuously fighting, never communicating. They say they are in love but they cannot understand a single thing; a single thing between them cannot pass without misunderstanding. The husband says something, the wife immediately understands something else, and then the husband goes on saying that he doesn't mean that. But she will not listen, because whatsoever she understands, she says is your real meaning; she will go on proving that this is your real meaning. The same is true with the husband - whatsoever the wife says he immediately interprets it in a certain way. And he says something else.... And this goes on, and this you call communication!

This is not communication. This is avoiding communication; it is a conflict. Communication is when two persons really, authentically, try to understand each other. It need not always be verbal; if it is always verbal it will be superficial. Sometimes two persons sit in silence, holding hands, just doing nothing, just meeting and merging in silence. Then communication becomes communion. Then it is being to being.

So this is the situation: a discussion, a debate, a conflict, is between head and head, a communication is between heart and heart, a communion is between being and being. Communion is silent, communication is poetic, discussion is logical.

Logic is the most superfluous and superficial thing in the world. The deeper you go, the more will you find poetry, sympathy, heart to heart feeling - every effort to understand the other. With the head there is every effort to misunderstand the other, all the energy is put into misunderstanding.

With the being all words stop; only silence flows between two beings.

LOVE IS A FUNCTION OF COMMUNICATION.

HEALTH IS A FUNCTION OF PARTICIPATION.

The more you participate in existence, the more healthy you will be; the more you remain standing on the bank uncommitted, non-participating, just a spectator, the more unhealthy you will be. To be healthy is to be whole, to be with the whole, to participate.

HEALTH IS A FUNCTION OF PARTICIPATION.

SELF-EXPRESSION IS A FUNCTION OF RESPONSIBILITY.

Ordinarily people misunderstand self-expression for ego-expression. Ego-expression is irresponsible, self-expression is responsible. Self-expression is responsible for the whole because you understand you are part of it, you participate in it; whatsoever you do, the whole will be affected.

The ego never worries about the other or the whole. The ego thinks: I am an island. My whole concern is centered within me. I exist for myself and the whole also has to be forced to exist for me.

The ego is irresponsible; self-expression is responsible, because you participate, you feel and whatsoever you do you always feel how it will fit with the whole, how it will affect the whole. Will it bring a benediction or will it become a curse?

IT IS EASIER TO RIDE A HORSE IN THE DIRECTION HE'S GOING.

Perfectly true. That is the way of let-go - move with the river.

IT IS EASIER TO RIDE A HORSE IN THE DIRECTION HE'S GOING. You need not even learn to ride. The riding and the learning are needed when you want the horse to move somewhere other than where he wants to go.

Once Mulla Nasrudin was going on his donkey somewhere, fast. He passed a market place. People asked: Nasrudin, where are you going so fast? He said: Ask the donkey. I have learned that it is futile to fight. If I want to go somewhere else, he resists. But he is a donkey and can be forgiven - I am an understanding man. If he cannot go on my way, I can go on his. So ask the donkey.

That is what all the wise ones have said - 'Ask the donkey.' And let the donkey go wherever the donkey is going, you simply move. Your body is the donkey, the horse. Ask the body, float with it, and you will reach. Don't fight with the body. The body is just symbolic: the world is your body. Don't fight with it. Float. Don't even swim because that too is a subtle fight - just flow with the river.

LIFE IS A RIPOFF WHEN YOU EXPECT TO GET WHAT YOU WANT.

LIFE WORKS WHEN YOU CHOOSE WHAT YOU GET.

ACTUALLY WHAT YOU GOT IS WHAT YOU CHOSE.

SO MOVE ON, CHOOSE IT.

LIFE IS A RIPOFF WHEN YOU EXPECT TO GET WHAT YOU WANT. You create problems when you start expecting, wanting, desiring. That means that now you are not moving with the horse - you have your own goal, you have your own private game to play, you are not moving with the whole.

Then there is trouble, then there is disease, then there is neurosis. Then all sorts of anguish arise in you.

LIFE WORKS WHEN YOU CHOOSE WHAT YOU GET. It works when you like whatsoever you get.

It seems just a small difference on the surface, but it is a tremendous difference. Whatsoever you have got, like it, accept it, enjoy it, rejoice in it - then life works beautifully. It functions with a beautiful humming.

ACTUALLY WHAT YOU GOT IS WHAT YOU CHOSE. SO MOVE ON, CHOOSE IT. If you know the secret mechanism of life, you will know that whatsoever you have got, you chose it some day, somewhere, some time in the past. So now don't fight with it: move on, choose it, like it. If you can like that which you have got, there is no trouble - no problem, no anxiety arises. Things are so easy and so simple. All problems disappear.

IF YOU'RE NOT ALRIGHT THE WAY YOU ARE IT TAKES A LOT OF EFFORT TO GET BETTER.

REALIZE YOU'RE ALRIGHT THE WAY YOU ARE, AND YOU'LL GET BETTER NATURALLY.

IF YOU'RE NOT ALRIGHT THE WAY YOU ARE IT TAKES A LOT OF EFFORT TO GET BETTER.

No. I will not agree with that. Even with a lot of effort you will not get better. There I disagree. Even with a lot of effort you will not get better.

REALIZE YOU'RE ALRIGHT THE WAY YOU ARE, AND YOU'LL GET BETTER NATURALLY. That is the only way to get better. The only change that is possible is to accept whatsoever you are, wheresoever you are. Through acceptance is revolution, not through effort. Try to understand it.

Who will make the effort? You will make the effort, and you are not right, so the effort is going to be made by a wrong man. How can the effort be right? You will be in a greater mess through it.

A man is violent and he wants to be non-violent. Who will make the effort? The violent man will make the effort to become non-violent? Then in the very effort there will be violence. You are sexual and you would like to become a BRAHMACHARI, a celibate. Who will make the effort? You who are sexual? The very energy which is sexual will make the effort to become celibate? Your celibacy will be a perverted sexuality, nothing else. Accept. Accept your sexuality, don't fight with it, rejoice in it, enjoy lt, participate in it - it is part of life. You have to live through it. Don't be wiser than the whole.

You cannot be. If the whole has given you sexuality, it means something. Enjoy it, don't complain, and one day you will find that through rejoicing in it, understanding ripens and you go beyond it. Only acceptance gives you understanding. If you reject a certain thing you cannot understand it because you have already become the enemy. How can you understand the enemy? When you rejoice in a thing you are friendly, sympathetic: then understanding is possible.

So here I disagree: IF YOU'RE NOT ALRIGHT THE WAY YOU ARE IT TAKES A LOT OF EFFORT TO GET BETTER. No, even a lot of effort will not help: it will mess you up more.

REALIZE YOU'RE ALRIGHT THE WAY YOU ARE, AND YOU'LL GET BETTER NATURALLY.

LIFE IS A GAME.

IN ORDER TO HAVE A GAME SOMETHING HAS TO BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOMETHING ELSE.

IF WHAT ALREADY IS, IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT ISN'T, THE GAME IS OVER.

SO LIFE IS A GAME IN WHICH WHAT ISN'T IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT IS.

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!

Life is a game. Don't be serious about it. If you get serious you miss the point. Hindus have always called it a LEELA, a play - not even a game. Hindus call it a play, not even a game, because a game is when a play has become serious. Children play; grown-ups 'game'. Children simply play with no result in the mind, with no effort to win. The very play is beautiful. It is an end in itself, it is not a means to something else.

LIFE IS A GAME. Accept it, and soon you will find it has become a play, and when life is a play, it stops - you have understood the whole point. You have become a grown-up. Then there is no coming back.

IN ORDER TO HAVE A GAME SOMETHING HAS TO BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOMETHING ELSE. A game needs rules, a game needs comparisons, a game needs somebody to be defeated in it and somebody to be victorious in it. IF WHAT ALREADY IS, IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT ISN'T, THE GAME IS OVER. If you accept yourself and enjoy yourself and you become so celebrating that nothing could be better than this, then the game is over - because then for what to play the game? That's why Hindus say: Those who know, they don't come back. To come back is to come back into the game - a Buddha doesn't come back. For what? The game is over.

SO LIFE IS A GAME IN WHICH WHAT ISN'T IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT IS. That's why you always hanker for that which is not. If you have it, it becomes meaningless immediately and you are again moving towards something which you have not. Life is a game. The game exists through the desire for that which is not. If you already have that, the game is finished. LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL.

THIS IS IT. When a game becomes a play and good times are allowed to roll - this is it!

THERE ARE NO HIDDEN MEANINGS. In fact, there are no meanings, hidden or not-hidden.

Meaning is a futile, meaningless word, it is a mind-creation. Don't ask what meaning life has; it has none. Don't ask what meaning existence has; it has none. It is a purposeless play.

THERE ARE NO HIDDEN MEANINGS.

ALL THAT MYSTICAL STUFF IS JUST WHAT'S SO.

A MASTER IS ONE WHO FOUND OUT.

Perfectly true. There are no hidden meanings. And you become enlightened when you have found that there are no meanings in life. In fact when you have found that there is nothing to be achieved, you have become enlightened. When you have come to realize that there is nowhere to go, you have arrived.

A MASTER IS ONE WHO FOUND OUT. A master is not one who has achieved anything, a master is one who has found out that there is nothing to achieve. This will be very, very difficult for you because you are all achievers. Even if you are here with me, you are here to achieve something, some spiritual nonsense.

And I am here to by and by seduce you to become a non-achiever - because then you are enlightened.

IF YOU COULD REALLY ACCEPT THAT YOU WEREN'T OKAY YOU COULD STOP PROVING YOU WERE OKAY.

IF YOU COULD STOP PROVING THAT YOU WERE OKAY YOU COULD GET THAT IT WAS OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY.

IF YOU COULD GET THAT IT WAS OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY YOU COULD GET THAT YOU WERE OKAY THE WAY YOU ARE.

YOU'RE OKAY, GET IT?