Be a Joke unto Yourself

The first question:

Lynne Stevens, do you know what truth is? Otherwise, how can there be a commitment?

Commitment is possible only if you know. The sannyasin is one who knows that he knows not, the sannyasin is one whose commitment is not to truth but to the inquiry into truth. And the inquiry is possible only with someone who knows, who has arrived. The sannyasin is one who is committed to the person, or to the no-person, around whom he feels the vibe of truth, the vibe of authenticity.

Lynne Stevens, your commitment to truth is just an idea. Your truth is just a word, a mind trip. If you want to make it a real pilgrimage you will have to be a disciple -- and to be a disciple is to be a sannyasin.

To be a disciple means to be ready to learn, ready to go into the unknown with someone who has been in it. Alone, very rarely one has attained to truth. Not that it has not happened -- alone, also, it has happened, but very rarely, just an exception; otherwise one has to learn in communion with a master.

Then too, it does not happen easily. It is an arduous journey. Dropping the clinging to the known is not easy. That is our whole investment, that is our whole identity. Dropping the clinging to the known is dropping the ego, is committing a kind of spiritual suicide; alone, you will not be able to do it. Unless you see somebody who has committed that suicide and still is -- in fact for the first time is.... You will have to look into those eyes which have seen truth, and a glimpse of the truth will be caught through those eyes. You will have to hold hands with someone who has known, receive the warmth and the love...

and the unknown will start flowing into you.

That's what it means to be with a master, to be a disciple. If you are really committed to truth you are bound to become a sannyasin. If your commitment to truth is an inquiry then you will have to learn the ways of learning. And the first thing to learn is to surrender, to trust, to love.

The sannyasin is one who has fallen in love with a person, or a no-person, where he feels a gut feeling: "Yes, it has happened here." To be with someone who has known is contagious -- and truth is not taught, it is caught.

Your truth is nothing but an idea in your mind -- maybe a philosophical inquiry, but a philosophical inquiry is not going to help. It has to become existential, you have to give proofs in your life that you are really committed. Otherwise you can go on playing the game of words, beautiful games of theories, systems of thought -- and there are thousands. You can also make a private system of thought of your own, and you will think this is truth.

Truth is not of your making, truth has nothing to do with your mind. Truth happens, and it happens only when you have become a no-mind. But how are you going to become a no-mind? On your own you will remain the mind. You may think about the no-mind, you may philosophize about the no-mind, you may read the scriptures about no-mind, but you will remain a mind. On your own, seeking and searching, your ego will feel very good -- but that is the barrier. It is like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.

If somewhere you find help is available, don't miss it -- because the opportunity is rare, the buddhafield is rare. Only once in a while, somewhere, a buddha arises, a bodhichitta happens. Then don't miss the opportunity. If your commitment is really towards truth, you cannot avoid becoming a sannyasin. It is inevitable, because no-mind is learned only by sitting by the side of a no-mind.

If you sit by my side, slowly slowly your mind will start dispersing like the morning mist.

Slowly slowly a silence will start penetrating you -- not of your doing, but coming on its own. A stillness will pervade you.

And the moment you are utterly still, not even a thought moving inside you, that is the moment of illumination. For the first time you have a glimpse of truth -- not the idea of truth, but truth itself.

The second question:

William, there are two kinds of knowing. One is from a distance: you remain aloof, you remain an observer, a spectator. That's what scientific knowing is; you need not get involved in it, in fact you should not get involved. You should be very objective, you should not allow your subjectivity to interfere with your observation. You should simply be there like a mechanical watcher. You should not be a human being, you should be just a computer.

And this is certain, that sooner or later science is going to be taken over by computers, robots, because they will be more scientific. There will be no subjectivity in them, they will simply see the fact. The fact will not be interfered with in any way, it will remain utterly objective.

That is the way of science -- knowing from a distance, keeping aloof, detached. That's how the scientist will know a rose flower, that's how the scientist will know the sunset, that's how the scientist will know the beauty of a woman or a man.

But the problem is, something essential is bound to be missed, something very fundamental, something which is the core of the whole thing. The scientist can know the roseflower -- he can know of what it is constituted, he can know all the chemicals, etcetera, but he will never know the beauty of it. He will remain blind to the beauty; his very approach, his methodology, prohibits him.

If you are detached you cannot know beauty. Beauty is known only when you fall en rapport, when the observer becomes the observed, when there is no wall between, when every wall has been transformed into a bridge. When there is a kind of melting, when you become the flower and the flower becomes you, then there is a totally different kind of knowing -- the way a poet knows. He will know beauty, he will not know the chemicals.

He will not know the objective flower, he will know something far deeper. He will know the spirituality of the flower, the spirit of the flower.

And the mystic, his knowing is the highest form of poetic knowing, the ultimate form of poetic knowing. The poet is there only for moments. Sometimes he is a poet, he meets, he mingles, merges into the flower; sometimes he becomes a detached observer. Hence poetry is a kind of mixture of both the knowledges.

Scientific knowledge is purely objective, mystic knowing is purely subjective, poetic knowing is between the two, a mixture of both -- a little bit of science, a little bit of religion. But basic knowing can be divided in two, the scientific and the mystic.

Now it depends on you, in what way you want to know me.

You say: "My feelings tell me that until I know you I can't trust you."

These are not feelings -- there you are misunderstanding yourself. These are thoughts, these cannot be feelings; that's a sheer misunderstanding. This is the way thoughts speak.

Thoughts always say, "Be careful, cautious, move logically" -- and of course this is very logical: how can you trust me if you don't know me? It is a logical statement. It is not a statement from your gut level; it cannot be, because gut feelings are very illogical. Gut feelings will say to you the same as I am saying: trust and you will know.

So the first thing to be said is: these are not your feelings, these are your thoughts. You watch again, you go into these so-called feelings again, and you will find they are not coming from the heart, they are coming from the head. The head says, "First know, then trust."

And this is a great strategy, if you believe in the head and its dictation -- "First know, then you can trust." Then you will never trust, because knowing cannot happen without trust, mystic knowing cannot happen without trust. Scientific knowing is possible, but scientific knowing is not applicable here.

You can know me scientifically. My doctor comes to examine my body; he knows me in a way. You don't know me in that way, you know me in a totally different way. My doctor is afraid to come to listen to me, because he does not want to lose a patient. If he listens to me, then I will be the doctor and he will be the patient! He comes and he is in a hurry to escape.

Once it happened that he was holding my hand -- I had some trouble with my thumb -- and something happened to him which was not scientific. Outside the room, he told Vivek, "He is God, he IS God!" -- but since then I have not seen him, he has simply disappeared. Something nonscientific, something which was not of the head.... He felt me for a moment but became frightened.

Watch. If your head is saying these things, these are not feelings. Feelings cannot say these things, because this is not the language of feelings. Feelings say: "Fall in love, and then you will know." Thoughts say: "Doubt, inquire, make certain. When everything is absolutely proved and you are convinced, rationally convinced, then you can trust." And the logic appears very, very clean, there seems to be no trick in it. There is! The trick is that through scientific knowing you cannot know the mystery that is confronting you, you cannot know the poetry that is showering on you, you cannot see the beauty and the grace that is available to you.

You will see my body, you will listen to my words, but you will miss my silences. And they are my real messages. You will be able to see me as I appear on the surface, but you will not be able to penetrate into me as I am at the center.

Knowing the circumference is possible scientifically, but by knowing the circumference of a person love does not arise. And the relationship between the disciple and the master is the crescendo of love, the highest peak of love. Love cannot go higher than that; that is the ultimate in love.

These are your thoughts, not feelings. And if you listen to thoughts you cannot have any communion with me. You will listen to my words, you will listen to my arguments, you will become more knowledgeable, you will go perfectly satisfied that you have something with you. And all that is nonsense. Those words that you have accumulated, the knowledge that you have gathered, are of no use at all.

It is not a question of gathering information here, it is a question of imbibing the spirit; the only way is to trust. It is only through trust that knowing happens.

Science uses doubt as its method, religion uses trust as its method. That is their fundamental difference. Doubt is irrelevant in the world of love, just as trust is irrelevant in the world of things. In the world of I-it, only doubt is significant: you cannot trust things, the scientist cannot just sit there in trust waiting for something to happen. Nothing will happen. He has to doubt, inquire, investigate, dissect. He has to use his mind, his logic, then only some conclusions can be arrived at.

And those conclusions will always remain approximate, they will always remain conditional, because in the future more facts may be known and the whole thing would have to be changed again. They cannot be categorical.

So trust is not the point, it never arises in the world of science; doubt remains the base. If sometimes you come to a conclusion, the conclusion does not become your trust, does not become your faith. It remains an hypothesis.

An hypothesis means that up to now whatsoever has been known supports this theory. It is only up to now; we can't say anything about tomorrow. Tomorrow more facts may be known, and certainly when more facts will be known the hypothesis will have to be adjusted, and the theory would have to be changed.

Science goes on changing every day; it is temporal, it lives in the world of time, because mind is time. Mind cannot live without time; mind is momentary, temporal.

The world of religion functions in a totally different dimension, on a different level. It begins in trust, in love, then a totally different kind of knowing happens.

When you love a woman, you know her. You know her not as the gynecologist knows her, you know her in a totally different way. You don't know her physiology, you don't know her material existence, but you know her spiritual presence. Love, only love, is capable of knowing the spiritual presence. You fall in love not with the physical body, you fall in love with the spiritual presence of a person. But that is available only in trust.

In science, trust is utterly useless. In religion, doubt is utterly useless.

So, William, it is up to you. If you have come here to study what is happening here scientifically, then you are welcome. You can go according to your own thoughts -- don't call them feelings, please. You can go on according to your head -- don't call it your heart, it is not. You are welcome: be here, study, observe, come to certain conclusions -- but they will remain hypotheses.

But if you have come to be transformed, not to be informed only, then you will have to understand that there is a different door. And that door is trust. Trust is an absurd phenomenon, logically absurd. That's why logic always says love is blind, although love has its own eyes, far more deep-going... still, to logic it is blind.

Logic ridicules love, and love smiles knowingly at the whole foolishness of logic.

If you have come here with a logical approach... study, observe, come to some conclusions, but they are not going to transform you; that much you must be aware of. If you have come to be transformed, then fall in love. Then forget the head, then let there be a contact heart-to-heart, spirit-to-spirit. Then there is no need to be too much concerned with what you see, your whole concern should be with what you feel. Then you should not be too much concerned in collecting information, but being in celebration with me.

Then don't take much note of what I say, take note of what I am. Listen to my silences, the pauses, the gaps, the intervals -- I am more there. Then you will become aware of a totally different world existing here, the buddhafield. It is an energy field; you have to be open and vulnerable to it, only then it can permeate you, pervade you, overwhelm you.

The third question:

Subhuti, the first thing to remember is, for three hundred years religion has been losing its territory continuously. First, religion tried to destroy science. It was unable to do it -- because you cannot destroy truth, and science was truer, as far as the objective world is concerned, than religion. In fact religion has no authority to say anything about the objective world.

When you are ill you go to the physician, you don't go to the poet. The poet has no authority; he may be a great poet but that is irrelevant when you are ill. He may be a great poet, but when something goes wrong in your bathroom you don't call him, you call a plumber. The plumber may not be a poet at all, but the plumber is relevant there. You don't call Albert Einstein -- he may be a great physicist, but what does he know about plumbing?

Religion was proving to be utterly wrong. It was wrong about the objective world. Once science started investigating the objective, organized religion was very much afraid. If there had been a Jesus he would not have been afraid, he would simply have said, "About the objective, listen to science." If a Buddha was there he would have said, "Listen to science."

But there was no buddha in the West where science was growing. And people like Galileo and Copernicus and Kepler were tortured in every possible way because organized religion, the church, became very much afraid: what they were saying was going against their scriptures.

The scientists were saying that the sun does not go around the earth -- and The Bible says it does. The scientists were saying the earth goes around the sun... now, if The Bible can be wrong in one thing, then why not in others? That was the problem, that was the fear.

The person who said that the earth goes around the sun was called to the court by the Vatican. Galileo had to appear, in his old age -- he was more than seventy, ill, on his deathbed, but he was forced to come to the court to declare there that whatsoever he had said is wrong.

He must have been a man of great humor. He said, "Yes, if it offends you, I declare that whatsoever I have said is wrong -- that the earth does not go around the sun, but the sun goes around the earth."

Everybody looked happy, and then Galileo said, "But sir, nothing will change by my statement. The earth will still go round and round the sun -- my statement makes no difference! If you are offended by my statement I can take it back, I can refute it. If you want me to write another treatise, I can write that too. But nothing will change by that.

Who cares about my statement? Neither the sun nor the earth."

Organized religion tried to kill science -- they could not, because truth cannot be killed.

Slowly slowly science has possessed the whole territory of the objective world. Then the natural tendency of mind... science started claiming that which could not be claimed by it.

Science created the same fallacy as organized religion, which was saying, "About the objective world also, we are right." They were not. They are right about the subjective world; about the interiormost being of existence they are right. But they are not right about the circumference of it, that is not their dimension. But they were claiming that they are right about both.

The same started happening with physicists, chemists and other scientists. In the beginning of this century, science became very arrogant -- the same type of arrogance, just the authority shifted from the priests to the scientists. The scientists started saying, "There is no God and there is no soul and there is no consciousness, and all that is rubbish."

This type of arrogance has always remained with man. We have not yet learned anything.

This is again the same game being played. When science became very arrogant, naturally religion became defensive. It was losing, it became defensive. So anything that is discovered by science religion tries to appropriate. It tries somehow to make it fit with itself, because the only possibility for it to survive now is if it proves itself to be scientific.

In the beginning it was just the opposite. If a scientist was to survive, the only way was to prove that whatsoever he has found is according to the scriptures, that it proves the scriptures, that it is not against.

Now the whole thing is just vice versa. Now if religion wants to exist in the world, it has continuously to look up to science. Whatsoever science discovers, religion immediately jumps upon and tries to prove, "This is what we have been saying all along."

This "Big Bang" theory has nothing to do with the religious attitude and the religious theory of creation. In the big bang theory there is no God, it is all an accident; it is not creation, remember, because there is no creator in it.

But religion is very defensive, continuously searching for anything to cling to. The big bang theory says that in a sudden explosion, in a great flash of light, the world was created. Jump on it; you can always find some way, some logical way. You can say, "Yes, this is right, this is what we have been saying all along. God in the beginning said, 'Let there be light' -- and now the theory says there was a great explosion, the world was suddenly created."

But the basic thing is missing -- don't be deceived. Religion has been saying that God said, "Let there be light." The base is not the light, the base is God saying, "Let there be light." That God is missing in the big bang theory: there is no God, it was a sudden accident, not creation.

And one more thing: this big bang theory is not totally accepted, there are many other theories. These are all guesses; they are not proved yet, nothing is proved. In fact I don't think that it can ever be proved how the world came into existence. It is impossible, because nobody was there to witness it, you cannot find an eyewitness, so all that they can do will be just guesswork.

And it happened fifteen or twenty billion years ago. You cannot even be certain whether Krishna ever existed or not, just five thousand years ago. You cannot be certain even about Jesus, whether he was really an historical person or is just a myth -- and he was only two thousand years ago. Do you think you can be certain about something that happened twenty billion years ago? All guesses.

And still I say the world was never created, there was no beginning.

Why do I say that there was no beginning? Subhuti, it is so simple. Even if you believe in the big bang theory, there must have been something that exploded. Do you think nothing exploded? If there was something, x, y, z, -- any name, I am not much interested in such nonsense things, x, y, z, whatsoever it was that exploded -- if something was there before the explosion then the explosion is not the beginning. It may be A beginning but it is not the beginning.

And when I say there has never been any beginning, I mean the beginning. Something was always there -- whether it exploded or whether it grew slowly, in one day or in six days or in one single moment, doesn't matter. There must have been something before it, because only something can come out of something. Even if you say there was nothing, and it came out of nothing, then your nothing is full of something, it is not really nothing.

Hence I say there has never been any beginning and there will never be any end. Maybe a beginning, maybe many beginnings and maybe many ends, but never the first and never the last. We are always in the middle. Existence is not a creation but a creativity. It is not that it begins one day and ends one day. It goes on and on; it is an ongoing process.

That's why, Subhuti, I say that all these guesses are useless and there is no need for them and they serve no purpose. This was Buddha's approach too. Whenever somebody would ask a question like, "Who created the world?" -- whether the world was ever created or is uncreated -- Buddha would answer by other questions. He would ask, "If who created the world is decided, is it going to help your enlightenment? Is it going to help you become more silent, more meditative, more aware?"

Certainly the person would answer, "It is not going to help. Who created the world doesn't matter. It will not help my enlightenment and it will not make me more meditative."

Then Buddha said, "Then why bother about all this? Think of things which can help you to become more meditative, think of things which can help you become free of all the ego-clinging, think of things which can ultimately lead you into the state of samadhi."

My approach is also the same: these are all irrelevant questions. And because of these irrelevant questions there has been so much controversy down the ages and thousands of people have wasted their lives discussing who created the world, when exactly, what was the date -- and so on, and so forth.

I think these people were neurotics. I don't think them healthy, normal, sane people. Who cares? For what? It does not matter at all, it is immaterial.

The fourth question:

The sudden unexpected turn, that is the secret of a joke -- the revelation. You are expecting something and it doesn't happen; what happens is so totally absurd and yet has a logic of its own... it is ridiculous and yet not illogical. That's what suddenly becomes a laughter in you. You see the ridiculousness of it, and also the logic of it. It is unexpected - - if it is expected, then it doesn't bring laughter to you. If you know the joke then it doesn't bring laughter to you, because now you know, everything is expected.

Two insects were living in a cemetery. One said to the other: "Want to make love in dead Ernest tonight?"

Now, poor dead Ernest...!

An Englishman on his first trip to America went to one of those stand-up comic nightclubs for the first time. After he had had a couple of drinks, the lights dimmed and Henny Youngman stepped into the spotlight and greeted the crowd with his famous trademark gag: "Take my wife... please."

The crowd belly-laughed. The Englishman was impressed. "By Jove," he said to himself, "I must remember that and try it on the chaps back home."

Now, when somebody says, "Take my wife," you are expecting he will say, "for example." "Take my wife, for example." But he is saying "Take my wife," and then the silence, the little pause..."please." That is unexpected.

Some weeks later, back in London, he stepped to the microphone at a meeting of his club and, with great confidence, snapped out: "Consider my wife. Please."

Now the whole thing is lost. Just a single word makes it a beauty.

The secret of the joke is that it brings you to a point where you are expecting, expecting, expecting that this is going to happen; then it never happens. And what happens is so sudden... and because you were expecting something you were coming to a tension, and then suddenly something else happens, and the tension has come to such a climax that it explodes. You are all laughter. It is a tremendous release, it is great meditation. If you can laugh totally, it will give you a moment of no-time, no-mind. Mind lives logically with expectations, laughter is something that comes from the beyond. Mind is always guessing what is going to happen, groping. And something happens which is absolutely contrary to its expectations: it simply stops for a moment.

And that is the moment when the mind stops, when laughter comes from your belly, a belly laugh. Your whole body goes into a spasm, it is orgasmic.

A good laugh is tremendously meditative.

An English gentleman went to his surgeon saying, "Old chap, I have this damned desire to be an Irishman. Can you perform some operation to make me one?"

"Well," replied the surgeon, "it is a fairly risky business, you know. We have to remove ninety percent of your brain."

"Do it," replied the Englishman.

When he awoke from the operation he found his bed surrounded by long-faced doctors.

His surgeon stepped forward, saying, "Terribly sorry, old chap, but during the operation the old scalpel slipped and we accidentally removed one hundred percent of your brain!"

"Ah, na fuckin' worries mate!"

The fifth question:

Parinirvana -- better known in the commune as Paribanana -- Buddha's message in short is: Be a light unto yourself. And mine? Be a joke unto yourself!

The sixth question:

What else is there to think about? Money is power. Everybody else is thinking of money, don't be worried. Even those who are thinking of the other world... they have different coins but they are also thinking of money. Money represents power, with money you can purchase power.

Your saints are also thinking of money -- they call it virtue. By virtue you can purchase a better house in heaven, a better car, a better woman. A few people are not that greedy, they are thinking only of the money that is current in this world. A few people are more greedy, they think of the other world. And if you are thinking of virtue to attain to paradise, what is it except money?

A man stops thinking about money only when he starts living in the present. Money is the future; money is security for the future, a guarantee for the future. If you have a good bank balance your future is safe. If you have a good character, even life after death is safe.

The whole world is thinking in terms of money. Those who think in terms of power politics are thinking in terms of money, because money is nothing but a symbol for power. That's why you can go on accumulating more and more money, but the desire never leaves you to have still more -- because the thirst for power is unlimited, it knows no end.

And people are thirsty for power because deep down they are empty. Somehow they want to stuff that emptiness with something -- it may be money, power, prestige, respectability, character, virtue. Anything will do; they want to stuff their inner emptiness.

There are only two types of people in the world: those who try to stuff their inner emptiness, and those very rare precious beings who try to see the inner emptiness. Those who try to stuff it remain empty, frustrated. They go on collecting garbage, their whole life is futile and fruitless. Only the other kind, the very precious people who try to look into their inner emptiness without any desire to stuff it, become meditators.

Meditation is looking into your emptiness, welcoming it, enjoying it, being one with it, with no desire to fill it -- there is no need, because it is already full. It looks empty because you don't have the right way of seeing it. You see it through the mind; that is the wrong way. If you put the mind aside and look into your emptiness, it has tremendous beauty, it is divine, it is overflowing with joy. Nothing else is needed.

Only then a person stops thinking about money, stops thinking about power, stops thinking about paradise -- because he is already in paradise, because he is already rich, because he is already powerful.

But ordinarily, Ramdas, it is not just to do with you; everybody thinks in some way or other about money.

Two mothers were talking. One said to the other, "I haven't seen you in a long time. How is your son and what is he doing?"

She replied, "My son is a famous actor in Hollywood and he's making a fortune. He just built a new home that cost three hundred thousand dollars. What is your son doing?"

Said the other mother, "My son is doing even better. He is gay and lives in Hollywood; he just moved in with an actor who has a three-hundred-thousand-dollar home."

A young woman has decided to put aside some money for a rainy day and informs her husband that each time they make love she will expect him to put five dollars in the piggy bank.

That night, as he begins to make advances, she reminds him of her requirement. He finds that he has only four dollars in his wallet and so the wife agrees to only four-fifths of a love affair. However, as her passion mounts, she offers to lend him a dollar until the next day.

Rachel is pregnant and Sammy, her husband, a very temperamental man, suffers from the pains of celibacy.

Rachel, who manages the household, takes pity on him and gives him a hundred liras to visit the red-light district.

When Sarah, the neighbor, sees Sammy running out of the house, she calls him, "Where are you running to like that? You look so very happy!"

Sammy shows her the money and tells her that he is going to spend it on a beautiful young girl.

"Give me the money!" proposes pretty Sarah. "You won't regret it, you will see!"

Rachel soon comes to know about it. Very indignant, she explodes, "The bitch! When she was pregnant last year, I did the same for Isaac, her husband, for nothing!"

People are continuously thinking of money and money and money. It is nothing special to you, Ramdas, you are a normally abnormal person, as neurotic as everybody else.

But please come out of this neurosis. Live the moment, drop the future, and money loses its glamor. Live the moment with such totality and abandon, as if there is no other moment to come to you again, as if this is the last moment. Then all desire for money and power simply leaves you.

If suddenly you come to know that today you are going to die, what will happen? Will you still be interested in money? Suddenly all desire for money will leave you. If this is the last day, you can't waste it thinking about tomorrow, having more money in the world; there is going to be no tomorrow.

Because we live in the tomorrows, money has become very important. And because we don't live, we only imitate others, money has become very important. Somebody makes a house, and now you are feeling very inferior. You were not at all dissatisfied with your own house just a few days before, but now this man has made a bigger house: now comparison arises, and it hurts, it hurts your ego. You would like to have more money.

Somebody has done something else, and your ego is disturbed.

Drop comparing and life is really beautiful. Drop comparing and you can enjoy life to the full. And the person who enjoys his life has no desire to possess, because he knows the real things of life which are worth enjoying cannot be purchased.

Love cannot be purchased. Yes, sex can be purchased. So one who knows what love is will not be interested in money. But one who does not know what love is, is bound to remain interested in money, because money can purchase sex, and sex is all that he knows.

You cannot purchase the starry night. One who knows how to enjoy the night full of stars won't bother much about money. You cannot purchase a sunset. Yes, you can purchase a Picasso -- but one who knows how to enjoy a sunset will not be interested at all in purchasing a painting. Life is such a painting, such a moving, alive painting.

But people who don't know how to see a sunset are ready to purchase a Picasso for millions of dollars. They will not even know how to hang it, whether it is upside down or right side up, but they want to show to others that they have a Picasso painting.

I have heard that once a rich man came to Picasso; he wanted two paintings, immediately, and he was ready to pay as much as was demanded. Picasso demanded a fabulous price -- thinking that he would not be able to pay it -- because only one painting was ready. But the rich man was ready to pay. So Picasso went in, cut the canvas in two, and the rich man thought they were two paintings.

I have heard another story: in an exhibition, a Picasso exhibition, people are appreciating his paintings. All the critics have gathered around a certain painting which looks the most absurd, hence the most appealing -- because when something is absurd it is a challenge to your intellect, and every critic is trying to prove that he understands what it is.

And then came Picasso, and he said, "Wait. Some fool has hung it upside down. Let me put it right first." And they were expressing great appreciation for the painting!

If you know how to enjoy a roseflower, a green tree in your courtyard, the mountains, the river, the stars, the moon, if you know how to enjoy people, you will not be so much obsessed with money. The obsession is arising because we have forgotten the language of celebration. Hence money has become the only thing to brag about -- your life is so empty.

I will not tell you to renounce money. That has been told to you down the ages; it has not changed you. I am going to tell you something else: celebrate life, and the obsession with money disappears automatically. And when it goes on its own accord, it leaves no scratches, it leaves no wounds behind, it leaves no trace behind.

The seventh question:

Stephen Crane writes: I met a seer, he held in his hands the book of wisdom. "Sir," I addressed him, "let me read.""Child..." he began.

"Sir," I said, "think not that I am a child, for already I know much of that which you hold."

"Ah, much!" he smiled. Then he opened the book and held it before me. Strange, that I should have gone so suddenly blind.

Wisdom is not knowledge. The knowledgeable person cannot see it, he is blind. Only the innocent person can see it, only a child, one who knows nothing, one who functions from the state of not knowing, can know what wisdom is. Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledge, not at all; it has something to do with innocence. Something of the purity of the heart is a must, something of the emptiness of being is needed for wisdom to grow.

"Only those who are like small children will be able to enter into my kingdom of God."

Yes, Jesus is right.

Knowledge comes from without, wisdom wells up within. Knowledge is borrowed, wisdom is original. Wisdom is your insight into existence -- not Buddha's insight, not Atisha's insight, not my insight, but your insight, absolutely your insight into existence.

When you are able to see with no dust of knowledge on the mirror of your soul, when your soul is without any dust of knowledge, when it is just a mirror, it reflects that which is. That is wisdom. That reflecting of that which is, is wisdom.

Knowledge gratifies the ego, wisdom happens only when the ego is gone, forgotten.

Knowledge can be taught; universities exist to teach you. Wisdom cannot be taught, it is like an infection: you have to be with the wise, you have to move with the wise, and only then will something start moving inside you.

The movement in the disciple is not caused by the master, it is not under the law of cause and effect. It is what Carl Gustav Jung calls "synchronicity." The master is so full of silence, so overflowing with innocence, that his presence triggers a process in you, simply triggers a process in you. Nothing is transferred; your inner being starts remembering that "I also have the same treasure as my master, I had simply forgotten about it. I had moved into the without, keeping the within at the back. The treasure was not lost but only forgotten; I had fallen asleep."

And the asleep person at the most can dream that he is awake. But that too is a dream.

That dream is knowledge. The person who is asleep and thinks that he knows... that is knowledge. But the person who really awakes is wise. Knowledge is a false, plastic substitute for wisdom.

Wisdom is true knowledge -- rather knowing than knowledge, because it has no full point to it. It goes on growing, it goes on flowing. The man of wisdom goes on learning; there never comes a stop.

Don't be knowledgeable, be wise.

And the last question:

Krishna Prem, I am not, and I am not doing anything at all. But something is happening, something tremendous is happening -- that is another matter, it has nothing to do with my doing it.

"I am not." When I say this, I mean that there is no personality, no person, but just a presence. And the presence without the person looks almost like an absence. It is. The person is absent.

I am only a hollow bamboo, and if you hear some music then it must be from God, it is not from me; it has nothing to do with me. I am not there, I have utterly disappeared.

That's what enlightenment is all about. That's what Atisha calls bodhichitta.

But things are happening, they always happen. Whenever a person disappears and becomes a presence, immensely valuable things happen around him. A great synchronicity starts functioning. Those who are courageous enough to come close to such a presence start changing, with no effort, just sheer grace, start becoming totally different beings by just being in the buddhafield, in the energy field of a master.

I am not doing anything, Krishna Prem, and I am not. But still you see me coming, going, talking to you, doing this and that. For that, I will tell you a story.

A Hollywood director once sent out word that he was looking for an actor to play the role of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The actor was to be over six feet tall, young and vigorous and have an excellent command of the language.

On the day of the casting call, many fine tall young men showed up, but among them was a little old Jewish man with a heavy Yiddish accent. The director picked him out immediately and asked, "What do you want?"

The man answered "I vant to be an hector. I vant to play Hemlet!"

"Are you kidding or just crazy?" the director asked. "You are only five feet tall and you have an accent so thick I could cut it with a knife. What can you possibly do?"

The little man said, "I vant to hect. Giff me a chance."

Finally the director gave in. "Get up on stage and try it."

The little man stepped out onto the stage. Somehow he looked much taller and full of energy. He began to speak with a booming voice and the perfect king's English: "To be or not to be...."

When he was finished, there was a hush. Everyone was amazed. The director said, "That's unbelievable."

The other actors said, "That's wonderful."

The little Jew just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Dat's HECTING!"

Enough for today.