Now Is Not Part Of Time

The first question:

Question 1:

PRAYER is not a technique, it is not a ritual, it is not a formality. There is no pattern to it. It is a spontaneous outpouring of the heart, so don't ask how, because there is no how and there cannot be any how to it. Whatsoever happens in the moment is right. If tears come, good. If you sing, good. If you dance, good. If nothing comes and you simply remain silent, good. Because prayer is not in the expression; it is not in the container, it is in the content. Sometimes silence is prayerful, sometimes singing is prayerful. It depends on you, it depends on the heart. So if I say sing, and you sing because I have told you to sing, then the prayer is false from the very beginning. Listen to your heart, feel your moment, and let it be. And whatsoever happens is good.

Sometimes nothing will happen, but that is what is happening. You allow it, you don't impose your will on it. When you ask how, you are trying to impose your will, you are trying to plan. That's how prayer has been missed. That's how all the churches and religions have become rituals. They have a set prayer, a set form: the authorized version, the approved. But how can anybody approve prayer? How can anybody give you an authorized version?

Prayer has to arise in you, it has to flower in you. And each moment has its own prayer, and each mood has its own prayer. Nobody knows what is going to happen to your innermost world tomorrow morning. How can it be fixed? A fixed prayer is a false prayer: this much can certainly be said. A ritualized prayer is no longer prayer: this can be said in absolute terms. An unritualized, spontaneous gesture -- that's what prayer is.

Sometimes you may feel very sad, because sadness also belongs to God. Sadness is also divine. There is no necessity to always be happy. Then sadness is your prayer. Then let your heart cry and let your eyes pour down tears. Then let sadness be offered to God.

Whatsoever is there in your heart, let it be offered to the Divine Feet -- joy or sadness, sometimes even anger.

Sometimes one is angry with God. If you cannot be angry with God, you have not yet known love. Sometimes one is really in a deep rage. Then let anger be your prayer. Fight with God -- He is yours, you are His, and love knows no formality. Love can survive all fights. If it cannot survive a fight, then it is not love. So sometimes you don't feel like praying; then let that be your prayer. You say to God, "Wait! I'm not in the mood, and the way you are doing things, it is not even worth praying." But let it be a spontaneous pouring of your heart.

Never be inauthentic with God because that is the way of not being with Him. If you are insincere with God -- deep down you are complaining, and on the surface praying? -- then God will see the complaint, not the prayer. You have been false. He can look directly into your heart. Whom are you trying to deceive? The smile on your face is not going to deceive God; your truth will be known to Him. He can only know your truth; lies don't exist for Him. So let the truth be there. You simply present your truth to Him and say that today you are angry, you are angry with His world, you are angry with Him, you are angry with your life: "I hate it! And I cannot pray, so you will have to remain without my prayer today. I suffer much; now you suffer."

Talk to Him as one talks to one's lover, one's friend, one's mother. Talk to Him as one talks to a small child.

I was staying with a family, and the mother ordered the small child to pray. He was very interested, and he was not ready to go to sleep, and he wanted to be with me a little longer. But the family was very disciplinarian, so they said, "Now it is nine o'clock. You go and sleep, and don't forget your prayer." He was angry; I could see it. He went into his room. I followed just to listen to what he was going to pray. In the darkness I heard him say, "God, make bad people good and good people nice." He knows his mother is good, his father is good, but not nice.

I have heard about another child. He was staying in a guest house with the family. The first night he prayed. He always used to sleep with a small light on, but there was no light and the electricity had gone. Suddenly, as he prayed the electricity disappeared. He was just getting into his bed, and he told his mother, "Let me get up again and let me pray again more carefully, because the night is going to be dark." First he had just prayed by the way, but now the night was going to be dark and there was no light and he was more afraid. He said, "Let me pray again. Let me get out, and let me pray more carefully, because now there is more danger."

Listen to children's prayer and become a child.

All the religions say that God is Father. In fact, the emphasis should be that man is the child. That is the real meaning when we call God 'the Father'. But we have forgotten; God is the Father but we are not His children. Forget whether He is Father or not. You just be a child -- spontaneous, true, authentic. Don't ask me and don't ask anybody how to pray.

Let the moment decide, let the moment be decisive, and the truth of the moment should be your prayer.

That's my answer: the truth of the moment, whatsoever it is, unconditionally, should be your prayer. And once you allow the truth of the moment to possess you, you will start growing, and you will know tremendous beauties of prayer. You have entered on the path. But if you simply go on repeating a certain prayer, a technique, then you will miss.

You will never enter on the path, you will just remain outside.

The second question:

Question 2:

A disciple has to steal much from the Master, because there are a few things which cannot be given; only you can take, I cannot give. The nature of the thing is such that it cannot be given, but you can take. A disciple has much to steal from the Master. The question is very significant, and I bless you.

But prayer alone won't do, because prayer belongs to one path, and enlightenment belongs to another path. Prayer is part of the path of the devotee, the BHAKTA, the Sufi.

He says, "I don't want any enlightenment. I just want to be playing with you continuously my Lord -- a thousand and one games in a thousand and one worlds in a thousand and one lives. I don't want to get out of the game, I don't want to get out of this LEELA; it is beautiful. I want to remain a part of it. Make me worthy so I can remain always here and now, playing the game of hide-and-seek with you."

Prayer is part of the path of the devotee, the lover. The lover loves the bondage of love; he's not in any way trying to get out of it. In fact, his only prayer is that he should be thought worthy so that God continues the game He is playing. The play is beautiful; he's not asking for freedom from it.

The word 'enlightenment' belongs to the path of meditation. The meditator says, "Enough is enough. Long have I suffered; now let me be free." In fact, he cannot ask. He tries, but he cannot pray -- because to the man on the path of meditation, even prayer is a bondage.

Mahavir never prayed, Buddha never prayed. Prayer was meaningless for Buddha; he made all efforts to get out of it. So if you want enlightenment then don't pray because prayer will create a bondage. It is a most refined love. The bondage is very golden, but it is a bondage. If you choose it that way, then it's okay. But then enlightenment is not the right word.

I have heard....

The indignant mother asked her young son, "Why didn't you tell me you wanted to go fishing?"

"Because I wanted to go fishing," said the small boy.

If you really want to go fishing, don't ask, go. Asking won't help. Then you are alone if you want to be enlightened. Then there is no God; then there is nobody who can help you. Because if you need anybody's help, that very help becomes a bondage. If I help you to become free, you will start depending on me. Then without me you will not be able to be free. No help is possible on the path of meditation, only indications. Buddha has said, "Buddhas only show the path. They cannot help in any substantial way. You have to go on your own, you have to be your own light."

I have heard an anecdote:

"I am going away for a few days, Nasrudin," said the master of the house. "And I am going to leave with you all my keys. They're to my closets as well as those to my chests and jewel boxes. I know they will be safe with you but of course, I expect you not to touch them."

When the master returned, the Mulla said to him, "Master, I am going to leave you."

"Why, Nasrudin?"

"Because you don't trust me."

"How can you say that when I left you with all my keys?"

"That you did, master, but not one of them fits."

If you really want to steal enlightenment from me, no key is going to fit -- not because I am giving you wrong keys, but because the door is open and there is no lock...and you are looking for the lock. Because you have a key you are looking for a lock, and the lock does not exist. So you can go on looking for the lock because of your key, and you will miss. The door is open; you just enter me and it is there. Nobody is barring the path.

But prayer will not be helpful, meditation will be helpful. Meditation will give you the clarity to see.

There is a very beautiful incident in the life of Houdini, the great magician. His whole life was a tremendous success; he was a miracle-monger. He did so many miracles that if he was a man to cheat humanity, he could have cheated very easily. But he was a very sincere man. He would say, "Whatsoever I am doing is nothing but skill; there is no miracle in it." No magician has ever done as much as Houdini has done. His power was almost impossible to believe. He was thrown in almost all the great prisons of the world, and within seconds he would be out. He was chained, locked, and within seconds -- the chains wouldn't work, locks wouldn't work -- something would happen, and he would be out. He would be out almost within seconds, not even a minute.

But in Italy he failed -- only once in his life. He was thrown in the central prison of Rome, and thousands of people had gathered to see him come out. Minutes passed and there was no sign of him. It was almost half an hour, and people started getting restless because it had never happened: "What has happened? Has he gone mad, or died, or what happened? Or has the great magician failed?" After one hour he came out perspiring and laughing loudly. And the people asked, "What happened? One hour? We were thinking that you had either gone mad or you were dead! Even the authorities were thinking to go in and see. What happened?"

He said, "They tricked me; they made me a fool. The door was not locked! All my skill is to open the lock, and I was trying to find out where the lock is, and there was no lock.

The door was not locked at all, it was already open. Tired, exhausted, worried, puzzled, I fell, and when I fell and struck the door, the door opened. That's how I am out; not because of my skill."

Exactly the same is the case with me.

The question has been asked by Bodhidharma; he has many keys. Nothing will fit, and he is collecting more and more keys. He is very calculating, clever. Now that those keys are not fitting he is asking for my blessings. My blessings are there whether you ask or not, but keys are not going to fit. Throw the keys! The door is open. Nobody is barring the path. But if you seek enlightenment, the path is of meditation. If you seek eternal play, then there is no need to think in terms of enlightenment.

These two terms are different, totally different. The ultimate result is the same. The BHAKTA, the devotee, finds his enlightenment in this beautiful play of God, and the meditator finds this game beautiful when he reaches his enlightenment. But they approach in different directions with different methodology, with different attitudes. One has to decide it very clearly, otherwise you can get confused. Love or meditation has to be chosen very clearly, and then stick to the path. Finally, everything that has happened on the other path will also happen to you, so don't be worried. But it will happen only on the peak. All the paths meet when they reach to the peak of the mountain, but all the paths move differently.

The third question:

Question 3:

THERE is no need: all that is past is already illusion. There is no difference between illusion and the past. All that is gone is no longer real. Now this is something to be understood very deeply.

Yesterday is no more. Now what is the difference between a real yesterday and an imagined yesterday? There is no difference because both will exist only in your mind -- the real and the imagined. Both will be imaginations of a sort. What will be the difference between a real yesterday and an unreal yesterday? There is no difference because both are unreal. They both exist only in your mind and nowhere else. All past is illusory; all future is illusory because it is not yet; and between the two is the present. Hence in the East we call the whole existence illusory, MAYA -- because between two illusions how can reality exist? And today is also going to be yesterday; today is continuously passing into yesterday. The present is continuously becoming past. How can the real become illusory?

The future is passing into past, and the present is just a gate, nothing else. Future is illusory, past is illusory; just on the gate things appear, for a single moment, to be real.

What type of reality can this be? That too is illusory. Hindus say it is only appearance, not real.

Real is that which subsists. Real is that which is always eternally there. Real is that which is beyond time. Unreal is that which is within time. The past is within time. It will be difficult to think of the present as unreal, but start from the past. It is easy to think of the past as unreal, because whether it happened or not, what difference does it make? It may not have happened at all. It may be just in your mind, it may be just your idea that it happened. It is very easy to think about the past as unreal, and about the future also.

Between the two is the narrow bridge of the present. How can something real be between two unrealities? How can the middle be real when the two ends are unreal, and when this real also is continuously turning into unreality and illusion? No, all that is experienced is imagination; it is dream stuff. Only the experiencer is real, only the observer is real. The observed is dream; the observer, the witness, is real.

That is one of the greatest discoveries of human consciousness in the whole of human history. There is nothing to compare with it. All other discoveries are just childish. This one discovery is the base of all religion: that you are -- you as a witness. Even for a dream to exist, a dreamer is needed. The dream may be a dream, but the dreamer cannot be a dream. Even to be deceived I would have to exist; even to fall into error, I will be needed. Without me the error cannot exist. This witness is the search of meditation.

So don't be bothered about how to recognize past life experiences from illusion, madness.

There is nothing to recognize. There is no need.

I have heard....

Mulla Nasrudin was telling his wife about a dream he had experienced the night before.

"It was terrible," he said. "I was at a birthday party at Joe's house. His mother had baked a chocolate cake three feet high, and when she cut it everybody was given a piece that was so large that it hung over the sides of the plate. Then she dipped up some homemade ice cream. She had so much of it that she had to give each one of us our share in a soup bowl.

"What was so terrible about that dream?" asked his wife.

"Oh," said Nasrudin, "I woke up before I could get the first taste."

We are continuously waking up from the past. Each moment is a wakening. But we are continuously falling asleep into the future, so each moment is again a moment of stumbling into darkness and sleep. So the real distinction that has to be made is between waking and sleeping. No other distinction is of any value.

Try to be so wakeful that you don't fall asleep again. Remain so alert that the future is not allowed to deceive you again as you had allowed it before. What has become past is nothing, but once it is your future then you get deceived by it. Now it is past; now another future is arriving. Every moment future is arriving, and future can deceive you only if you are asleep. Then again it will become past. Now let me tell you one thing: if you remain alert and you don't allow the future to deceive you in the present, the past disappears. Then there is no memory left of it, no trace of it. Then one is just a clean slate, a sky without any clouds, a flame without smoke.

That's what the state of enlightenment is -- so alert that only the witness is real and everything else is nothing but ripples on the surface of the water. Everything is passing, everything is a flux. Only one thing remains and remains and remains, and that is your consciousness, your awareness.

But we are caught in the net of the past. That which passes somehow remains in the mind. It passes, it is no longer there, but somehow the mind clings to it.

I have heard....

A man in the upstairs apartment yelled to Mulla Nasrudin downstairs, "If you don't stop playing that clarinet I will go crazy!"

"Too late now," said Nasrudin. "I stopped an hour ago."

People are continuously worried about things which have almost gone and disappeared.

The past makes you crazy. You go on brooding, you go on playing with the wounds, you go on hurting yourself again and again. You go on feeding your ego again and again. The past seems to be your treasure. It is nothing -- just bubbles, air bubbles. And the same is the future; and between the two is this moment of the present. BE ALERT, be awake. No other distinction is of any significance. Only one distinction is of significance, and that is of being alert or unalert.

Now I can tell you this: if you are unalert, then whatsoever happens is imaginary. If you are alert, then whatsoever happens is real. Were you alert in the past? If you were alert, then it was real. Are you alert right now? If you are alert then whatsoever is happening before you IS real. Will you be alert tomorrow? Then whatsoever will happen will be real. So forget about reality and unreality; just try to become more and more alert.

Reality and unreality are not qualities of the objective world, they are qualities of subjective consciousness. For Buddha everything is real. For you, fast asleep, snoring, everything is unreal. Just think of it in this way: you are sleeping in a room and somebody is sitting by your side alert and awake. The room is the same. Both are in the same room, in the same space. One is fast asleep, the other is sitting by the side. Are they in the same room? Can they be in the same room? Because one who is asleep is dreaming, dreaming of a thousand and one other rooms except this one. Have you ever dreamed about the same room in which you were sleeping? -- no, never. A dream is always somewhere else. That's the function of the dream: to take you somewhere else.

The man who is asleep is dreaming. He is not aware of this room and the reality of THIS room. He has his own imaginary reality. The man who is awake and sitting by his side is in this room. His alertness gives him a totally different quality of reality.

Buddha, walking, moving from one village to another village, and by his side is his disciple, Anand; both are in two different worlds. Anand is fast asleep, dreaming; Buddha is awake, non-dreaming. When you are not dreaming, you are encountering reality. When you are dreaming, you are encountering only your dream, unreality. What is the criterion for reality, alertness?

Become more alert; the world becomes more real. Become even more alert; the world becomes even more real. When you are at the peak of your awareness, the world is so radiantly real that it is difficult to call it matter. One has to call it God; nothing else will do. It is so radiantly real, it is so eternally real that one has to say that time has ceased.

Reality is neither past, nor present, nor future; it simply is. It is herenow. Now is not part of time. In fact, you should not use the word 'now'. Only enlightened people should be allowed to use it, because your now is just not there.

What do you call 'now'? The moment you call it 'now' it is already past. Or, if you call it 'now' before it is past, then it is in the future. You are so asleep that by the time you come to recapture it, it is already gone. It is very slippery. Now is possible only when you are so alert that there is not a single dream in your mind, not a single thought, no ripples arising. Then you are totally present. When you are present then reality is present. It is your presence that reveals the presence of reality. Then you are in the now, and the now is eternal. Then it never comes and goes, it is simply there. Then nothing comes and nothing goes.

One of Buddha's great disciples, Bodhidharma, used to say that, Buddha never existed; he was never born, he never walked on the earth, he never talked. One of his disciples told him that what he was saying seemed simply absurd. "Buddha was born in Kapilvastu to a certain king, to a certain woman. He renounced the world. These are historical facts, and you go on denying them? And you yourself are a follower of Buddha. If he never existed, if he was never born and he never walked on the earth, then whom do you follow?"

Bodhidharma said, "I follow that one who was never born, never walked on the earth, never uttered a single word, never died. I follow that. He is the real Buddha. And all else which you call history is nothing but dreams seen by sleepy people."

Now this has to be understood. I am talking to you; it is a fact. I am talking to you, you are listening to me, but still Bodhidharma is perfectly true: it is still a dream because you are not awake. If you are awake you will see that I have not uttered a single word. Then you will see a totally different reality where words are not uttered, where silence reigns, where wordless reality is encountered. If you are awake you will see me directly, and you will see total stillness, but that will depend on your silence, that will depend on your non- dreaming state, that will depend on your awakening. Then you will see that this man who is sitting in front of you is not the real man. Then something else, something totally different, diametrically different, will be revealed to you.

That's the meaning when we call Buddha 'Bhagwan'. It is not a reality for everybody, but only for those who became alert; they recognize. That's what we mean when we call Jesus 'Son of God'. It was not revealed to all, because everybody knew that this man was nobody else but the son of Joseph the carpenter. And he was just claiming nonsense, that he is the Son of God. But those who loved him and those who were tremendously alert about his reality became aware that the son of Joseph the carpenter was just a reflection in the world of unreality, in the world of dreams.'Son of God' is the reality. But you can see that reality only to that extent to which you have become real. More than that you cannot do.

Facts are not truths. Something may be a fact and may not be true, and something may be true and may not be a fact. This word 'fact' is derived from a Latin root which means 'to do', FACERE. This is beautiful. A fact is that about which you can do something. But our doing is nothing but dreaming. You can do many things in your dream also; they are facts. You become so obsessed with your dream that sometimes it has happened that you had a nightmare, and then you awake, but you still go on trembling, you still go on perspiring. The fear is still there, the heart beats faster. Now you know that it was a dream, now you know that it was just a nightmare, nothing to be worried about, but still you are trembling. The dream has affected you so much that it even penetrates your reality -- your body, your mind.

But we go on living in two sorts of sleep: one is in the night which we call sleep, and the other is in the day which we call waking. It is a waking sleep, just for name's sake. Our eyes are open, but unless thinking stops completely, your real eye remains closed.

"How to recognize past life experiences from illusion?"

There is no way and there is no need, and one should not waste time in foolish things.

The gone is gone; the gone is already illusion. Only one thing remains and that is your witnessing. Catch hold of it, don't lose track of it. It will be difficult to catch hold of it; again and again you will lose track, but again and again remind yourself to catch hold of it. Many times you will miss the goal, many times you will have glimpses. But by and by, more and more possibility will open. And if you can remain alert even for a few minutes together, a new man will be born unto you. You will be totally different. The old will be gone, and then you will not be worried with past, or future, or present. You will simply live in a different dimension, the dimension of eternity -- where nothing passes, nothing is born, nothing dies, everything remains.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

BE playful about that too. Don't make it a serious thing. Talk playfully, and if nobody is listening, take it playfully -- because there is no necessity that somebody should listen.

Don't feel offended. If it comes easy for you to talk, talk. If the other is not in the mood to listen, that is his problem. But don't feel offended. Just remain alert to what is happening in you, that you want to talk. It will happen to many people.

When meditation releases energy in you, it will find all sorts of ways to be expressed. It depends on what type of talent you have. If you are a painter and meditation releases energy, you will paint more, you will paint madly. You will forget everything, the whole world. Your whole energy will be poured into painting. If you are a dancer your meditation will make you a very deep dancer. It depends on the capacity, talent, individuality, personality. So nobody knows what will happen. Sometimes sudden changes will happen: a person who was very silent and was never talkative suddenly becomes talkative. He may have been repressed. He may not have been allowed ever to talk. When the energy arises and flows, he may start talking.

But there is nothing to be worried about. Don't repress it. If you feel it is getting too heavy for others, then just sit in your room and talk alone. There is no need for somebody else to listen to you. In fact, who listens? You can talk to the wall and it will be more human, because you will not be creating any suffering for anybody. You will not torture, you will not bore anybody.

Somebody has sent me a beautiful anecdote.

Pat Reilly was confessing his sins. "Sure, Father, I had sex seven times last night."

The priest asked, "How many women?"

"Ah, Father, there was only one woman," answered Pat.

To which the priest said, "Well, it is not as bad as I thought. Who is the woman?"

"My wife, Father."

"Well," said the priest, "there is nothing wrong with that, son."

"I know, Father, but I just had to tell someone," replied Pat.

There are moments when you just have to tell someone. If you don't tell, it becomes heavy on you. If you tell, you are released and relaxed. If you can find a sympathetic listener, good; otherwise just talk to yourself. But don't repress it. Repressed, it will become a burden on you. Just sit in front of the wall and have a good talk. In the beginning you will feel it a little crazy, but the more you do it, the more you will see the beauty of it. It is less violent. It does not waste somebody else's time, and it works the same way, it does the same: you are relieved. And after a good talk with the wall you will feel very, very relaxed. In fact, everybody needs to do it. The world would be better and more silent if people started talking to the walls.

Try it. It will be deep meditation -- knowing well that the wall is not listening. But that is not the point.

I have heard about a great psychoanalyst who became very old but still continued to practice six, seven, eight hours per day, listening to the patients. He had a young disciple, an apprentice, who became tired after three or four hours -- listening to nonsense, neurotic obsessions, fixations, the same thing again and again. He asked his old master one day, "How do you manage? Because I see you as fresh in the evening as in the morning when you come to the clinic. You are as fresh as when you go -- seven, eight hours of nonsense. You never get tired. I get tired after two, three hours -- and I am a young man!"

The old man laughed and said, "Who listens?"

Freud arranged it very well. He did not even face the patient. He would tell the patient to lie on a couch, and there would be a curtain, and behind the curtain he would sit. And the patient lying on the couch looking at the ceiling, had to talk. It was really very meaningful. One: when a person is Lying down he is more relaxed. He talks of deeper things than when he is sitting. He goes deeper into his unconscious. Talk to a man standing, and he will be very superficial. Sit down, and he goes a little deeper. Let him lie down and then listen to him; he goes very deep.

And then: he was not facing anybody. When you are facing somebody the very presence of the other functions as a repressive force. Then you start saying things which he would like. Then you start saying things in such a way that he is not offended. Then you manage somehow to say things which will be approved by him. Then there is much repression; then the truth never comes out. When the man is not facing you and you are just facing the ceiling, you have nothing to manage. The ceiling will never be offended, you can say anything you like. By and by, one goes deep into associations.

There is no need for the Freudian couch, simply your bedroom will do. And there is no need for anybody to sit there, you can just talk and listen to yourself. Talking and listening to yourself will give you a depth, a great understanding about your own mind.

So talk to the wall, and listen. Be both the talker and the listener. Don't analyze, don't judge, don't say 'this is good and that is bad','that should not be said and this should be said', no. And don't make any refinement, don't polish. Simply blurt out whatsoever comes to the mind -- ugly, absurd, irrelevant. Let the mind have full play and you simply watch. It will be a very great meditation.

The new groom was pushing the praises of married life to his bachelor friend. "Yes, it is wonderful. Breakfast before I go to work is large and delicious. When I go off after that the little woman gives me a big hug and kiss at the door. I return home at night, supper is on the table. After that I sit in the living room reading the paper while the missus cleans away the dishes. Then she changes into something more comfortable and sits down beside me, and talks to me. And she talks, and talks, and talks, until I wish she would drop dead."

Don't give such an opportunity to anybody that he starts thinking, "When are you going to drop dead?" It is your problem. Or, you can make a good arrangement if somebody has the same problem. This is Amida's problem. In this ashram there are so many mad people; you can find somebody else who has the same problem. Then you can make a good arrangement: one hour you talk, one hour you listen to him. No need to be connected with each other, no need to be relevant, and no need to follow any rules of conversation. It is not a conversation. One hour you blurt whatsoever comes to your mind, and of course, then you have to pay -- one hour you have to listen. And it will be valuable for both.

But one thing should be remembered: don't repress it. Anything repressed becomes poisonous. And talking is just innocent; the wall will do. Go to the trees and they will feel very happy; nobody talks to them. They are always waiting. They will feel grateful. Or go to the river or to the rocks, but don't repress. By and by, things will clear up and talking will disappear. It is just the beginning. Then deeper layers of being will be touched. Talk is the most superficial layer of your life, just a very superficial layer. When energy is flowing deep, that layer starts trembling, ripples arise. Allow them. Soon, when the talk is exhausted and you have thrown out all the rubbish that you have been carrying for your whole life, silence will come. And that silence will be completely uncorrupted, virgin.

You can force your talking, you can repress it and you can look silent, but your silence will not be real silence. Deep down the tremor will continue; deep down the volcano is getting ready to erupt any moment. You are sitting on top of it.

People look silent but they are not silent. I would like you to become really silent, and the way is a deep catharsis.

I know Amida is feeling great energy. Her energy sources are tapped, and she is getting connected with her very ground of being. So in all ways she will feel too powerful. Talk also is one of the most basic ingredients of a human being. A human being is a human being because he can talk. No other animal has that capacity. And then Amida is a woman, not even a man.

I have heard....

A woman was saying to her husband that the new priest was a great talker. And she said, "I have never known a man to talk so fast. It is almost impossible to understand what he is saying. His words overlap."

The husband said, "I know the reason for it. His father was a politician and his mother was a woman."

Now, the perfect combination. So Amida is a woman; talking is easy. There are many reasons for it.

Have you watched? -- small girls start talking before boys. Boys lag behind. In colleges, schools, universities also, as far as language is concerned, girls are always better than boys. They always get higher marks, they are more articulate.

Something seems to be different between the feminine mind and the male mind: the male mind is a better doer, the female mind is a better talker. Maybe because much energy is taken by doing as far as man is concerned; no energy is taken by doing as far as woman is concerned, so the whole energy pours into one direction.

But there is nothing wrong about it. A good talker has something valuable: he can communicate better. To be articulate is beautiful because communication is more possible. And a good talk is an aesthetic value in itself. But first, let the flood be thrown out. Then things will sort themselves out, then things will settle.

After this flood is gone, Amida will find very small sentences coming into her consciousness, but diamond-like, each sentence a value in itself. But first this flood has to go. If the flood is repressed, then those diamonds will be lost forever. That's why all the great scriptures of the world are written in sutras, aphorisms: because the people who wrote them went through this flood of catharsis. When the catharsis was complete, then diamond-like, small sentences -- simple, aesthetic, beautiful, complete -- started bubbling in the consciousness. It is from that consciousness that the Vedas were born, and the Koran. And it is from that consciousness that the beauty of the language of the Bible arises. Never again has it been surpassed.

Jesus was illiterate, but nobody has ever surpassed that clarity, that penetrating reality of his assertions. Behind it is great meditation. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or the Brahma Sutras of Badraina or the Bhakti Sutras of Narad -- small sentences, the smallest you can conceive, almost telegraphic -- but so much is pressed into them that each sentence has atomic energy. If it explodes, if you lovingly take it into yourself, to your heart. It will explode and you will become luminous through it.

But first the flood has to go. It is a good symbol that the flood has come. Allow it. If you can find some sympathetic ears, good. Otherwise, trees, rocks, but don't repress it.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

DEATH is a problem. You can avoid it, you can postpone it, but you cannot completely dissolve it. You have to face it. It can be dissolved only by going through it to the very end, all the way. It is very risky and it will give you great fear. Your whole being will start shaking and trembling; the very idea of dying is unacceptable. It looks so unjust and it looks so meaningless. If a person is to die then what is the meaning of life? Then why am I living, for what? If only death is finally to happen, then why not commit suicide now? Why get up every day, work hard, go to bed, get up again, work hard, go to bed -- for what? Just to die in the end?

Death is the only metaphysical problem. It is because of death that man starts thinking. It is because of death that man became a contemplative, a meditator. In fact, it is because of death that religion was born. The whole credit goes to death. Death stirred everybody's consciousness. The problem is such; it has to be solved. So nothing is wrong with it.

The question is from Vidya.

"I am confronted by death"...everybody is confronted by death. Martin Heidigger has said, "Man is a being towards death." And that is the priority of man. Animals die but they don't know that they die or that they are going to die. Trees die, but there is no confrontation with death. It is the priority of man that only man knows that he is going to die. Hence, man can grow beyond death. Hence, there is a possibility to penetrate into death and overcome it.

"I accept or so I think"...no, acceptance is not possible. You can deceive: you can think that you accept because it is so troublesome even to look at it. Even to think about it is so troublesome that one thinks, "yes, okay, I'm going to die -- so what? I'm going to die, but don't raise the question. Don't talk about it." One keeps it away, goes on putting it by the side so it does not come in the way, keeps it in the unconscious.

Acceptance is not possible. You will have to face death, and when you have faced it you need not accept, because then you know there is no death.

"And then many people get sick and death happens and hospitalization and I get this enormous knot of fear in my stomach"...that is where the problem has to be solved. That enormous knot in the stomach is exactly the place where death happens. The Japanese call it HARA. Just below the navel, two inches below the navel is a point where body and soul are connected. It is there where disconnection happens when you die. Nothing dies, because body cannot die, body is already dead. And you cannot die because you are life itself. Just the connection between you and the body disappears.

That knot is exactly the place where the work has to be done, so don't try to avoid that knot. I would like to say to Vidya that whenever you feel that knot, it is such a valuable moment. Close your eyes, go deep into the knot. That is hara. Feel it, allow it; it has some message for you, it wants to say something to you. If you allow it, it will give you the message. If you relax into it, if you go into it, by and by, you will see the knot has disappeared and there is, instead of a knot, a lotus flower, something flowering there. It is a very beautiful experience. And if you go still deeper you will see that it is a bridge, that flower is a bridge. On this side is the body, on the other side is your reality, your soul.

And that flower is connecting both; the flower is the bridge.

The flower's roots are in the body, and the flower's fragrance and the petals are in the soul. It is a link. But if you are afraid and you don't go there, it feels like a knot, a tension, a stress.

"I am so scared of death and dying. I get so freaked out"...There is no need to freak out; freak in. It's perfectly natural that when somebody dies, somebody is hospitalized again and again, again and again, you remember your death. Nothing is wrong in it.

I have heard....

A beatnik visited a psychiatrist and pleaded, "You have got to help me."

"What is your problem?" asked the head-shrinker.

"Lately," said the beat, "I have had the most compelling desire to shower and shave."

Now if you don't shower and you don't shave, one day or other there is going to be a very compelling desire to shower and shave. It is not a problem; just go and take a shower.

You are avoiding death. It has to be faced, it is part of life's work. It is one of the greatest lessons one has to learn. There is no need to be freaking out; that is not going to help. Go in, face it. Remember that yes, one day or other you will be hospitalized, one day or other you will be ill, and one day or other, you are going to die. So there is no point in postponing it. It is better to understand it before it is too late.

Mulla Nasrudin got sick and worriedly sent a hurried call for the priest, and insisted that he call on him every day to groom his neglected soul for the hereafter. One day when the priest made his daily call, he found Mulla Nasrudin in high spirits.

"I am getting along fine, sir," chortled Nasrudin. "My doctor says I will live for ten years yet, so you don't need to come back for a while. But how about dropping in again in about nine years, eleven months and twenty-nine days?"

One day it has to be faced. Don't be foolish; don't postpone it. Because if you postpone it to the very end, it will be too late. It is not certain when the last day will happen. It can happen today, it can happen tomorrow, it can happen any moment. Death is very unpredictable.

We live in death, so any moment it can happen. Face it, encounter it, and that knot in the stomach is the right place to encounter it. That is the very door from where you enter into life and from where you go out of life.

The last question:

Question 6:

IT is from Prem Purnima. My answer is: being in love with you, Purnima, is even more scary, and I accept.