This is the Whole World I Have

Question 1:

It is impossible, absolutely impossible to have an original thought. Because mind is memory, mind is the past, mind is that which you have already known, it is a borrowed thing, and whatsoever the mind can do can only be a repetition; new combinations of words, notions, concepts; but deep down all will be borrowed. Mind can never be original. The very nature of the mind is such - it is a bio- computer. Before it can give you something you have to feed it. And that which you feed in comes out of it. Sometimes you can have some combinations of thoughts which appear to be original but are not - for example, you can imagine a golden horse flying in the sky. Looks original. It is not.

There are no golden horses of course, and no horse flies, but you have seen a horse, you have seen flying birds, you have seen gold; now this is a new combination. But everything is old, of the past, of the known.

Originality is not possible, only fictitious originality is possible. Mind remains dead, it is memory.

Then, am I saying that there is no possibility to be original? No, I am not saying that. Thought cannot be original, no thought can be, originality in thinking is not possible. Originality in being IS possible.

You can be original, but you cannot think originally. A Bertrand Russell is not original, cannot be - a very profound thinker, but not original. A Buddha can be original - not in his thinking, in his being; the way he is, absolutely virgin ground. No one has travelled there before. He is absolutely fresh, just born, moment to moment changing, alive, never allowing deadness to settle on him. Being can be original, thought cannot be original. Thinkers are never original, only no-thinkers are - if you will allow me the term. Deep inside if you attain to emptiness you will be original. Out of that emptiness whatsoever arises is always new. But the distinction has to be remembered.

Even a Buddha when he talks becomes unoriginal. His being is original, but when he uses language, again, the mind has to be used, the memory has to be used. The language belongs to others, not to you; you have not brought a language into the world, you have brought a fresh being, of course, but the language has been given by the society, by others, so even a Buddha has to use a borrowed language.

The moment Buddha says something originality is lost. And, if you listen to Buddha, not to his words, but if you can have a glimpse through the words of his being, then you will feel originality, then THERE IS the lotus flower, every petal fresh, just like a morning's dewdrops - but then you have to penetrate the language, the words.

When Buddha communicates he is also communing. He is saying something and he is also being something. If you listen to his words you can find them in the Upanishads, in the Vedas, somewhere, but if you listen to his being, not to his words, if you listen to his heart, the beat,.the rhythm of his being, if you listen to his breathing, the way he is, just now this moment, the miracle that he is, the magic that he is - if you listen to that, then no Upanishad can report anything about it. This man has never been there! For the first time he is there; he is original.

I am talking to you, I have to use language. If you listen only to that which I am saying and not also to that which I am being you will miss my originality. Listen to the gaps between the words. Listen to the emptiness between the lines. Listen to me, not to what I say. Then an understanding will arise, and suddenly, like a flash of lightning, you will be able to see me - and the original that is right now happening before you.

But it is not part of mind. Mind is a mechanism. It cannot be original; it is not even alive - how can it be original? It is social. Hence the insistence of all the awakened ones that unless you drop the mind you will not be able to know the truth, because truth is always original. Mind: always borrowed; truth: always original. Mind and truth cannot meet.

Meditation is to attain to a no-mindness, to a state of no-thought. In that opening of no-thought, in that kind of space, suddenly you become pure, innocent, uncorrupted. You have never been like that before nobody has ever been like that before nobody is going to be like that again. Unique.

And to know that is to realize one's self. To know that is to know all. If you have not known that, whatsoever else you know is just rubbish, garbage.

If you know that ONE, the original within you - the nameless, because the original cannot have any name; the formless, because the original cannot have any form; unknown, because the original cannot be known; unchartered, unpenetrated, virgin, only then you come to feel the ecstasy of existence, the beauty of it.

It happened once, in a police station; a Sufi mystic entered; he was naked, and a crowd was following him. To the police officer he said: I have been robbed. All that I had has been stolen, and as you can see, I am standing naked; my coat, my clothes, my bed, my quilt, my cushion, my pillow, my umbrella - everything has been stolen; but he was very calm and quiet. The police officer wrote down the whole list - it was very long.

And then suddenly there appeared a man who was following the crowd, and he threw an old blanket before the police officer, and he said: This is all, a wretched old blanket, that I have stolen from this man, and he is saying it was his whole world!

The Sufi took the blanket, covered his body, started moving out of the police station - the police officer stopped him, he said: First you will have to give an explanation because you have given such a big list, it is false!

The man said: No? because this is all that I have. When it is raining I use it as an umbrella.

Sometimes I use it as a bed. And this is my only clothing. In the cold this is my coat. In the day I use it as a cushion. In the night, sometimes as a pillow. These are the functions of my blanket, but this is the whole world I have and the list is not false.

This is a deep message. The Sufi is saying that if you attain to one you attain to the whole. It is a parable. Then that one blanket covers all. It becomes your umbrella, it becomes your bed, it becomes your clothing, it serves you in millions of ways. Just to know that one which is hidden behind you is to know all. To know that, to be that, is to be all. And if you miss that you have been robbed of the whole world. You have nothing, you are standing naked.

That one is original. You must try to penetrate the word ORIGINAL, what it means It means - that which comes from the source. It does not mean new, it does not mean novel, it means that which comes from the source, from the very origin; that which comes from the very beginning, which belongs to the very base of existence - that is original.

Thoughts cannot be original, only you, because you belong to the very source. You were there in the beginning, and you will be there in the end, because you ARE existence.

Thinking is a learnt thing. You can learn it, you can unlearn it. It is acquired. You can drop it any day you want to drop it. But your nature, what Lao Tzu calls Tao, your original nature, is not acquired, it has always been there, it is the source.

No thought can be original, but NO-THOUGHT can be original. Remember that.

Question 2:

A great difference, a vast difference, and people always remain confused about it. People think to age is to become mature, but aging belongs to the body.

Everybody is aging, everybody will become old, but not necessarily mature. Maturity is an inner growth.

Aging is nothing that you do, aging is something that happens physically. Every child born, when time passes, becomes old. Maturity is something that you bring to your life - it comes out of awareness.

When a person ages with full awareness he becomes mature. Aging plus awareness, experiencing plus awareness, is maturity.

You can experience a thing in two ways. You can simply experience it as if you are hypnotized, unaware, not attentive to what is happening; the thing happened but you were not there. It didn't happen in your presence, you were absent. You just passed by. It never struck any note in you. It never left any mark on you. You never learnt anything from it. It may even have become a part of your memory because in a way you were present, but it never became your wisdom. You never grew through it.

Then you are aging.

But if you bring the quality of awareness to an experience the same experience becomes maturity.

There are two ways to live: one, to live in a deep sleep. Then you age, every moment you become old, every moment you go on dying, that's all, your whole life consists of a long slow death. But if you bring awareness to your experiences - whatsoever you do, whatsoever happens to you, you are alert, watchful, mindful, you are savouring the experience from all the corners, you are trying to understand the meaning of it, you are trying to penetrate the very depth of it, what has happened to you, you are trying to live it intensely and totally - then, it is not just a surface phenomenon. Deep down within you something is changing with it. You are becoming more alert. If this is a mistake, this experience - you will never commit it again.

A mature person never commits the same mistake again. But just an old person goes on committing the same mistakes again and again. He lives in a circle. He never learns anything.

You will be angry today, you were angry yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and tomorrow also you are going to be angry, and the day after tomorrow also. Again and again you get angry, again and again you repent, again and again you take a deep decision that you are not going to do it again, but that decision makes no change. Whenever you are disturbed the rage takes over, you are possessed. The same mistake is committed. You are aging.

If you live an experience of anger totally, never again will you be angry. One experience will be enough to teach that it is foolish, that it is absurd, that it is simply stupid - not that it is a sin, it is simply stupid. You are harming yourself, and harming others, for nothing. The thing is not worth it. Then you are getting mature. Tomorrow the situation will be repeated, but anger will not be repeated. And a man who is gaining in maturity never decided that he will not be angry again, no, that is the sign of a man who is not getting mature. A man of maturity never decides for the future.

The maturity itself takes care. You live today. That very living will decide how the tomorrow is going to be - it will come out of it.

If the anger was painful, poisonous, you suffered hell through it, what is the point of deciding, or taking a vow and going to the temple and saying before the Master: Now I take a vow that I will never be angry again? All this is childish. There is no point! If you have known that anger is poisonous - finished! That way is closed. That door no more exists for you. The situation will be repeated tomorrow but you will not be possessed by the situation. You have learnt something - that understanding will be there. You may even laugh, you may even enjoy the whole thing of how people get so foolish. Your understanding is growing through every experience.

You can live life as if you are in a hypnosis - that's how ninety-nine per cent of people live - or you can live with intensity, awareness. If you live with awareness you mature, otherwise you simply become old. And to become old is not to become wise. If you have been a fool when you were young and now you have become old, you will be just an old fool, that's all. Nothing. Just becoming old, you cannot become wise. You may be even more foolish, because you may have attained to mechanical habits, robot-like.

Life can be lived in two ways. If you live unconsciously you simply die; if you live consciously you attain to more and more life. Death will come, but it never comes to a mature man, it comes only to a man who has been aging and getting old. A mature one never dies, because he will learn even through death. Even death is going to be an experience to be intensely lived, and watched, allowed.

A mature man never dies. In fact before a mature man, on the rock of maturity, death struggles and shatters itself, commits suicide. Death dies, but never a mature man - that is the message of all the awakened ones: that you are deathless. They have known it, they have lived their death. They have watched, and they have found that it can surround you but you remain aloof, you remain far away.

Death happens near you but it never happens to you.

Deathless is your being, blissful is your being, divine is your being, but those experiences you cannot cram in the mind and in the memory. You have to pass through life and attain them.

Much suffering is there, much pain is there. And because of pain and suffering people like to live stupidly - it has to be understood why so many people insist that they should live in a hypnosis; why Buddhas and Christs go on telling people to be awake, and nobody listens. There must be some deep involvement in hypnosis, there must be some deep investment. What is the investment?

The mechanism has to be understood, otherwise you will listen to me and you will never become aware You will listen and you will make it a part of your knowledge that: Yes, this man says be aware and it is good to be aware. And those who attain to awareness become mature... But you yourself will not attain to it, it will remain a knowledge. You may communicate your knowledge to others, but nobody is helped that way.

Why? Have you asked this question ever? Why don't you attain to awareness? If it leads to the infinite bliss, to the attainment of SATCHITANANDA, to absolute truth - then why not be aware?

Why do you insist on being sleepy?

There is some investment - and this is the investment: if you become aware, there is suffering. If you become aware, you become aware of pain, and the pain is so much that you would like to take a tranquillizer and be asleep.

This sleepiness in life works as a protection against pain. But this is the trouble - if you are asleep against pain, you are asleep against pleasure also.

Think of it as if there are two faucets: on one is written 'pain' and on another is written 'pleasure'. You would like to close the faucet on which pain is written, and you would like to open the faucet on which pleasure is written. But this is the game - if you close the faucet 'pain', the pleasure immediately closes, because behind both there is only one faucet on which 'awareness' is written. Either both remain open or both remain closed, because both are two faces of the same phenomenon, two aspects.

And this is the whole contradiction of mind: mind wants to be more and more happy; happiness is possible if you are aware. And then mind wants to be less and less in pain, but less and less pain is possible only if you are unaware.

Now you are in a dilemma. If you want no pain - immediately pleasure disappears from your life, happiness disappears. If you want happiness, you open the faucet - immediately there is pain also flowing. If you have to be aware, you have to be aware of both. Life is pain, pleasure. Life is happiness, unhappiness. Life is day and night. Life is life and death. You have to be aware of both.

So remember it. If you are afraid of pain you will remain in hypnosis, you will age, become old and die. You missed an opportunity. If you want to be aware, then you have to be aware of both, pain and pleasure. They are not separate phenomena. And a man who becomes aware becomes very happy, but also becomes capable of deep unhappiness, of which you are not capable.

It happened, a Zen Master died, and his chief disciple - who was a famous man on his own, even more famous than the Master, in fact the Master had become famous because of the disciple - the chief disciple started crying; sitting on the steps of the temple he started crying with tears flowing down. A million people had gathered; they could not believe it because you never see any awakened man crying and weeping, with tears rolling down. They said: We cannot believe it. What is happening? You are crying, and you yourself have been saying to us that the innermost being never dies. Death does not exist. We have heard you say millions of times that death does not exist - so why are you crying? Your Master is still alive in his being.

The disciple opened his eyes and he said: Don't disturb me. Let me cry and weep. I'm not crying for the Master and his being. I am crying for his body. His body was also beautiful. Never again will that body exist.

And then somebody tried to persuade' him that this would create a bad name for him: So many people have gathered, and they will think that you are not enlightened. The disciple said: Let them think whatsoever they want to think. But since the day I became enlightened I have become infinitely blissful, but I have also become infinitely sensitive to pain and suffering.

It seems to be as it should be. If you hit Buddha, Buddha will suffer more than you will if somebody hits you. Because he has become infinitely sensitive. His sensitivity is very delicate. He is just like a lotus petal. Your stone will hit him very deeply. It will give him deep suffering.

Of course he will be aware of it. Of course he will be aloof from it. Of course he will be transcendental to it, he will be knowing it, that it is happening, and he will not be a part of it, he will be a cloud-like phenomenon surrounding it - but it is happening.

You cannot be so sensitive to pain, you are so fast asleep. You move like a drunkard - the drunkard falls on the street, hits his leg, his head in the gutter - nothing happens. If he was aware there would have been pain.

A Buddha suffers infinitely, Buddha enjoys infinitely. Always remember, whenever you reach to a high peak, simultaneously near the high peak a deep valley is being created. If you want to reach to the heavens, your roots will have to go to the very hell.

Because you are afraid of pain you cannot become aware - and then you cannot learn anything.

It is just like - you are afraid so much of enemies that you have closed the doors of your house. Now even the friend cannot enter, even the lover is Left out. The lover goes on knocking on the door but you are afraid, maybe it is the enemy. So you are closed - that's how I see you all: closed, afraid of the enemy, and the friend cannot enter. So the friend you have turned into an enemy. Now nobody can enter, you are so afraid.

Open the door. When the fresh air enters the house there is every possibility of dangers also entering. When the friend comes, the enemy comes also. because day and night enter together, pain and pleasure enter together, life and death enter together.

So don't be afraid of pain otherwise you will live in anaesthesia. Afraid of pain, you take anaesthetics.

The surgeon gives an anaesthetic before he operates on you, because there is going to be much pain, you will not be able to tolerate it. Your consciousness has to be dimmed, darkened. Then he can cut your whole body and you will not suffer.

Because of the fear of pain you have forced yourself to live in a dim consciousness, in a very dimmed existence almost not alive. This is the fear - you have to drop that fear, you have to face pain, you have to move through suffering, only then the possibility opens for the friend to enter.

And when you know both you immediately become the third. When you know both, pain and pleasure, the duality, the day and night - suddenly you have become transcendental. This is what I was talking about yesterday. 'The sixth' which transcends all.

Maturity is awareness. Aging is just wasting yourself.

Question 3:

You may be sitting before a Buddha or a Lao Tzu, but just by sitting before a Buddha or a Lao Tzu you cannot become a Buddha or a Lao Tzu. Even just the opposite can happen. Looking into a Lao Tzu you can get so afraid - because he is an abyss. You can get such a shock that you can turn about, and escape.

This is my observation with many people. They come to me with strong desire, with a longing heart, and when they come to me and they look into the abyss. they become afraid.

They had come to achieve something, and suddenly they realize that they have to lose everything.

They had come here to attain something and suddenly they realize that the only way to attain themselves is to lose all, to be nothing. A fear grips their heart. They start thinking of escaping, or they escape.

This is exactly what has happened. This question is from Deva Ninad. This is exactly what has happened. As I have been studying him, he is a result-oriented mind, not in the present, but in the future. A very subtle ego in search to attain something. Intelligent, knowledgeable, with many possibilities, but if this ego goes on functioning he will miss.

He had come to attain something. And here he finds that he has to lose all.

The fear has taken possession, now he wants to escape. He will rationalize why he Is going to the West, he will find a way to rationalize the whole thing, but it is a sheer escape.

But it is natural. And it happens to many people, and the more intelligent they are, the more it happens, because the intelligence immediately shows them that they have come to a wrong place.

But this is going to happen to everybody when he comes to me. When you start coming towards me of course you come to achieve something: enlightenment, moksha, God, and all sorts of nonsense.

The ego is always a seeker, out to find something. The ego is always in search of gratification. The ego is greedy. It desires God. And the ego itself is the barrier. But the ego says: I desire God, I don't desire anything of this world. The ego condemns the worldly; but the ego is very tricky. Be alert to the trap, because the ego is the barrier, otherwise who has told you that you have ever missed God?

Who told you that you are not already enlightened? You are!

That's the problem. When you come to me you come to seek something. When you listen to me, when you become aware of my reality, you start feeling that there is nothing to be achieved, there is no future. This moment is all. And my insistence is this - that you are already that which you are searching for.

The ego cannot concede to it, because if it concedes to it, it is going to commit suicide. The ego will disappear. Nothing to achieve in the future - the ego cannot exist. No goal in the future - the ego drops: flat, dead. The ego needs props to achieve something. The ego is the achiever, the result-oriented, goal-oriented thing. It creates illusions in the future to achieve, and through those illusions it is fulfilled.

When I say you are already that which you are trying to find, are asking for, I'm cutting the very root of the ego. If the ego disappears - and it disappears only when you drop future - you are God.

But I am not saying God is to be achieved. I am not saying there is any goal to be achieved. I am not saying life is purposive. I am saying life is a play. Enjoy this moment because there is no other moment, there is no tomorrow. Future is illusory. Only the present is real.

Listening to me, being with me, your ego feels afraid. The ego starts creating rationalizations. It says: Go! Go home! At least there were some possibilities there to achieve, and this man is dropping the whole future, and you have not yet become the most famous man in the world, you have not yet become the greatest in the world, you have not yet become anything, and this man is saying - drop all search; and this man is saying - seek and you will lose, don't seek and it is already there. The ego feels that the ground, the very ground underneath is being pulled away. It will create new rationalizations in the mind. It will say: Go West. Go home. Do something else. Go to some other Master who can help you to attain something, who can help you to be something. Here I teach only being nothing. That is the problem.

And remember, Ninad has asked another question He has asked: If I go to the West I would like to have the mala, I would like - to continue with the name you have given me, but I would like to drop orange. What is the use of orange? - it is an outward thing. Sannyas should be an inner thing.

Then why the mala? Mala is not outward? Then why the sannyas name? Is not the name also outward? Why do you want to cling to name and mala and just drop the orange? Is the mala something inner? Is name something inner?' No, these are the tricks of the mind; that's what I say rationalizations.

Now? orange will Create trouble, mala you can hide. The name is not going to be great trouble, but in the West moving in orange you will look mad.

And if you are to be with me you have to be mad, Less than that won't do.

If you want to drop sannyas, that is nothing - you can drop it, but don't create rationalizations. Then simply say: I am afraid. Why create so much philosophy around it? In and out! - and who knows what is out and what is in? Is there a demarcation? From where does the inside start and th Can you demarcate the line where your inside is?

What is inside? What is outside? They are one! The outside is part of your inside and the inside is part of your outside. The outside is nothing but the outermost layer of the inside. The inside is nothing but the innermost layer of the outside. They are not two things.

When you are hungry do you say - hunger is inside, why should I eat food which is outside? Hunger is inside, food is outside. But there is a miracle - you eat outside food and inside hunger is satisfied.

Somewhere the food enters into the inside, it becomes your blood and your bone.

You breathe in, the air is outside, why do you breathe? Drop it! What is the point of breathing something which is outside? You remain inside, then you will know within seconds that it is foolish, it cannot be done. The breath goes in, becomes inside; the same breath goes out, becomes outside.

Inside and outside are two polarities of your being, just like two banks of a river - you flow between.

You are neither inside nor outside, you are either both or neither.

So please if you want to drop sannyas, drop it simply; at least be simple, don't try to be cunning and clever. All rationalizations are cunning. Don't try to satisfy yourself that you are doing something great which others are not doing because you have understood what is inside and what is outside.

And Ninad is in orange here. Is there any difference between East and West about inside and outside? If it is outside it is outside here also. You should drop it here!

But here there is no problem for a Westerner. Nobody bothers, nobody knows you. Here it is a problem for Indians. They think much before they take sannyas. They try to escape.

A Westerner can take sannyas easily, because here you are nobody. Your family is not here, your acquaintances, the people who know you, nobody is here. You are a stranger.Whether you are in orange or black or green makes no difference.

Back home you have a prestige, a certain name around you, an identity, you have to protect that.

But I am not saying don't protect it. If you want to protect it, protect it. But be simple. At least don't try, to be cunning because cunningness will be very destructive for you. Simply say: I am afraid. I can understand. It is natural to be afraid. But don't bring big words and philosophies in, that this is outward.

You may be in front of a Lao Tzu or a Buddha, and you may not be ready for him. Lao Tzu says that he is ready. If you want to enter me I am ready. But to enter me is to dissolve. To be with me is to lose boundaries. To be with me is by and by to become faceless, nameless. To be with me is by and by to become a nobody - I am a nobody, and I am infectious.

If you want to be nobody, be here. If you want to be somebody - escape, as fast as possible, and never look back, because even that looking back will create trouble for It will show that a desire is still clinging around you, that you would like to come near to me. Escape and forget about me.

Whenever again you want to die I will be awaiting here for you. If you are not ready - remain alert, move away. If you are ready - then don't waste time, move in. One should be very clear what one is doing otherwise you will create confusion for yourself.

If you don't want to become a nobody and you remain with me, you will become confused. If you want to become nobody then don't go away - forget that anywhere else exists, then just be here.

One should be clear what one is doing. If you are not clear you become divided, confused, a chaos.

Question 4:

There is no other communion, not only with a Master - there is no other communion with anybody except love.

There are three ways to be related. One we call communication. It is mind to mind. You talk. Words meet, not you. Intellects grope, try to understand each other, but you remain far away. It is a very guarded relationship. Not really a relationship, just a groping, trying to find whether you would like to come closer or not.

Intellect is very suspicious, non-trusting. In ordinary life ninety-nine per cent of your relationships remain intellectual. You talk to judge You talk to protect. You talk to avoid. In fact when you are talking to people you are not saying much, in fact you are trying not to say much.

Words create an illusion that you are saying many things. It may be just otherwise, you may be hiding. Have you watched? When you don't want to say something to somebody you talk MUCH. Not about that thing, about many other things. Because if you don't talk, the silence may be revealing.

A husband comes homes, he does not really want to talk with his wife but he talks about many trivial things, this and that - he is avoiding some fact. If he remains silent the wife may start feeling something. the wife may be able to penetrate the silence, she is intuitive; he has to create a smoke around him of words so his real face is hidden.

People talk not to communicate but to avoid communication.

This is your ordinary relationship with people. Only rarely in this relationship are there contacts, otherwise there is no contact.

Everybody is suffering, starving for human contact, but cannot come out of his armour, and cannot spread his hands. Everybody is waiting under his shell for somebody to come and break the shell.

But the others are also afraid. Everybody is hiding in his cocoon, deep in need of love, deep in need to be related - because man is not an island; you cannot exist alone. A relationship is nourishment, you need to be related.

If you move into aloneness for a few days, it will be good. Then you will start feeling starved. A subtle energy is missing. When you come in contact with people, you become again alive.

Now researchers say that the mother is not only feeding the child with the breast, she is feeding it with her love - and love now is a nourishment; a subtle quality of her warmth, of her love, acceptance, is being transferred to the body of the child.

It is very subtle energy, but if a child is not given that... food can be given, milk can be given, care can be given, and if a child is not given love he shrinks in himself, dies.

If love is given, just the feeling of love - now they have been experimenting on plants: you can take two plants of the same size, of the same age, and for one you sit every day for thirty minutes. forty minutes, with a deep feeling of love - touch the plant, feel for it, have a little talk, say something to the plant, talk about the weather, the clouds, say that: Today the sun has not arisen but don't be afraid, it will be coming soon - just spread your warmth around the plant. And the other plant - you give exact nourishment to the other plant, but no love. You give fertilizers, water, sun, everything - the same of these to both - but no love; and suddenly you will see - the first plant is going higher; within weeks it has doubled; and the other plant is shrinking, struggling hard to grow - but something is missing.

You can do it with three plants; the third plant every day you curse, say bad things, discouraging things, such as: Don't think that this cloud is going to leave, it is going to remain for ever, you are doomed.... And these are now scientific facts - the cursed plant will die. With every care you cannot revive it. And the loved plant will grow, and bigger flowers will come to the loved plant. It will be almost double the size of the other plant which has not been loved.

A subtle aroma surrounds love. It is a food. Go into isolation. For a few days you will feel good.

Then suddenly an urge arises to move and to go to the people, because there are your roots. That's why I am not in favour of total renunciation, I am not in favour of renouncing life, because you have been born here, you are part of this continent, you cannot be islands.

For a few days it is beautiful because sometimes to be in the crowd is too much, too tiring - because you don't have the space. And everybody needs a certain space around him, a certain territory, where he is totally free.

These are the two needs: love, which is not possible when you are alone, and space, which is not possible when you are in a crowd - and both are needs.

You need space, otherwise you feel suffocated. Look at people going in a train - crowded, everybody is standing in a SHRUNK state, suffocated, even if others are touching you you are not feeling the touch. You have to become insensitive, you have to become hard, closed.

If you are too much in the crowd you will need space. If you go to the Himalayas, move to the desert, you will have infinite space, but then suddenly, after a few days, when the need is fulfilled for space and freedom, you will want to come back to the world.

Life should be a rhythm between opposites. That's why I say - remain in the house, remain in the market, and become a sannyasin. Move sometimes to the lonely world, again come back to the market. Between meditation and market there should be a rhythm. Then you will be nourished by both. You will thrive more. You will attain to abundance of life.

The second type of relationship is communion. Communication is of the head. Communion is of the heart. You don't say much, you mean much. Two lovers sitting by each other's side holding hands - they don't say much, they mean much. Ordinarily you say much but you don't mean much.

Two lovers, just sitting, nothing to say in fact, what is there to say? Love is enough when it is there; nothing else needs to be said - deeply merging into each other, losing their boundaries, becoming part and members of each other, just being silent, feeling, sensitive, alert, merging, in that moment, to talk will be a disturbance, to say something will not be a communication, it will be a hindrance, an obstacle. Silence is enough, it encompasses them both, they both become part of a deeper silence, a higher silence. That silence takes possession. This is communion, from heart to heart. This is love.

And then there is a third for which no name exists because it is so rare: being to being.

Communication: head to head; communion: heart to heart; and then there is a third phenomenon for which no word exists, because it is so rare - after centuries sometimes one or two persons attain to it - being to being. Even silence is a disturbance.

In that moment the music of silence is a noise. Absolute emptiness is needed.

That must have happened When Buddha gave the flower to Mahakashyap.

Buddha came one day with a flower in his hand. People were waiting and he wouldn't speak - he looked at the flower, and he continued looking at the flower. Minutes passed, it became heavy, hard. The time looked like infinity - and it had never happened before. Half an hour passed, the whole hour passed. people were feeling restless now. What has happened to Buddha? Then one unknown monk - not known up to that time, a certain Mahakashyap, started laughing.

Buddha called him, gave him the flower, and told the audience: All that can be said I have given to you, and that which cannot be said I give to Mahakashyap.

That day, that morning, two beings met. It was not head to head, not heart to heart, it was being to being.

The Master can transfer his keys only from a contact which is being and being. Now for centuries Buddhists have been asking: What was given to Mahakashyap? It has become a koan in Japan:

What was transferred? What did Buddha give to Mahakashyap that Mahakashyap gave to somebody else and it then passed on? And then Bodhidharma went to China in search of somebody to give the same thing to. It was given to Hui-neng. It has continued - a chain, being to being.

That happens in a state of samadhi.

So - ordinary communication; then the communion of love, and then the union of being. These are the three phenomena. When you become a disciple you have to attain to the second - heart to heart; if you are a student - to the first. A few are students here, who listen from head to head. A few are disciples who listen from heart to heart. And I hope some day somebody will listen from being to being, will be a Mahakashyap to whom I can give my flower, so that it can be carried from century to century.

Question 5:

If you try to avoid it you will be in danger, because anything avoided always remains like a hangover.

Madness has to be lived through, not avoided. If you avoid it it will remain a part of your unconscious.

If you avoid it you will not be able to encounter your total being, a part will always be suppressed.

Madness has to be passed through and through. You have to move through it. Fear is there - the fear is not of madness, remember, the fear is of getting identified. Madness cannot do anything. If you remain unidentified, alert, you can enjoy it, it is a beautiful experience. It happens around you, it never happens to you. But if you get identified, then there is danger.

That's what I was saying yesterday. On the third layer, the chaos layer, the possibility of madness is there - if you get identified. So before you get identified you have to learn awareness. And all my meditation techniques are such that they teach you two things: one: to be aware, and another: to be chaotic. They create chaos in you, and simultaneously they create awareness in you, they have an inbuilt safety. So don't be afraid. And anyway, I am here!

You go through the madness, remaining alert. Never say: I am mad. If madness happens just say:

Madness is there, I am a witness. That will do. Soon everything will subside, you have passed the layer - how can you avoid it? It is there, just on the way. If you try to avoid, you will cling to the second layer, the layer of games and roles. And, afraid of the third - chaos, you will cling more and more to it. No need to be afraid! Learn how to be aware, that's all; how to be mindful.

Start with small things - eat, but eat with alertness. Walk, but walk with awareness. Talk to people, but talk with awareness. Listen to me, but always remain alert that you are listening. Don't get lost in it. Just learn to be aware, and then the madness can be released. And you will enjoy it - nothing like it! It is a storm, but a great phenomenon.

When everything goes into chaos within you that means everything moves to the original source - manmade rules, regulations are lost. The games of the society disappear; all definitions are meaningless. You move into the undefined, with no map. It is a beautiful experience, an experience of the unknown. But dangerous! If you become lost you become mad.

That's why I insist before one enters into the third layer one should choose a Master. Never enter alone. There must be somebody who can SHOCK you out of your identification; who, if you get lost, can pull you out of the mess. But one has to go through it.

And my meditation techniques ARE dangerous. In fact there cannot be any meditation techniques which are not dangerous. If they are not dangerous, they are not meditation techniques, they are tricks. Just like Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They are mental tricks. Just consolatory. No danger. At the most they can give you good sleep, that's all. If you miss, you don't miss anything, you remain the same. If you attain, you attain to good sleep, that's all. No danger involved. That's why TM has had such a universal impact; people are so much attracted to it because it is so impotent, it does nothing, it is just like homeopathic medicine. Homeopaths say that their medicines are such that if they help, they help - otherwise they never harm. TM is homeopathic.

But what I am saying is allopathic. It is poison. Play carefully. It helps tremendously, it can harm also. And this is the criterion: Whatsoever helps can also harm. If something cannot harm it cannot help either. The possibility is always of both. It is dangerous because it is powerful. If something is not dangerous, it means it is powerless, it has no potency.

Yes, they are dangerous. Before you decide to enter, think twice. And don't enter into my meditations as students - that can be dangerous. Enter as disciples. Don't enter into my meditations curiously.

No, curiosity can lead you to dangers. If you are really ready, ready to face madness, only then you are welcome. Otherwise - remain normal. Cling to the second layer and the first layer. At least you are not in danger. You will not attain to anything but you will also not lose anything. You can waste your life easily, with comfort. You can live comfortably, and you can die comfortably.

With me, there is danger. If you succeed with me, you can live tremendously. If you fail, you go mad.

But you can fail only if you don't listen to me. If you listen to me there is no question of it.

I am not talking of anything theoretically. Whatsoever I am saying, I have done, I have passed through it, I know what is possible, what is not possible. what can happen, what can go wrong.

Every inch of the territory is known to me, so if something goes wrong that means only that you have not been listening to me.

If you listen to me, trust me, nothing can go wrong; that is how trust, a deep trust and surrender are needed.