Nothing is lacking

Question 1:

THE FIRST THING TO BE UNDERSTOOD - the 'more' has already happened, and there cannot be anything more; but it is very difficult to accept it because you can always imagine more. The problem arises out of imagination, and it is going to remain unless you drop imagination as such.

You have ten thousand rupees - you can imagine more; you have ten million rupees - you can imagine more. There is no end to imagination. The 'more'

comes out of the faculty of imagination.

The trees are not in any way hankering for more; the animals are not in any way hankering for any growth, they are not going anywhere. The reason is simple - they have no imagination. Buddhas are also not going anywhere, they are also not part of this mad game, because they have dropped the imagination.

Unless you drop imagining, you cannot drop 'more'. 'More' simply means you can imagine. You are in love - you can imagine that more could have happened, more can happen. That's why man remains in a continuous dissatisfaction; it is imagination that creates it.

The way is, either you become idiotic, fall back.... Idiots are not troubled. You will find idiots always in a happy mood. They cannot imagine. They are incapable of imagination. And many have tried to become idiots in the name of religion, many have tried practising things which make you idiotic.

If you escape from the world and you live a monastic life, a life of no relationship, a life absolutely lonely, with yourself, monotonous, then by and by your mind becomes dull, you lose imagination, you become crippled. You can do it in many ways, you can use many methods.

You can stand on your head for hours together; that will destroy your subtle faculties of the mind. The so-called yogis have been doing that. When blood rushes too much into the brain it destroys many tiny nerves, and by and by one becomes dull, stupid.

You can go to drugs - by and by you lose your subtle faculties, your receptivity; you become stale, you become aloof, distant, indifferent. You start withdrawing into yourself. You become closed, and imagination is lost.

This seems easier to people - to lose imagination - because you are going downhill. But this is not the way to become blissful, because blissfulness is possible only when you are utterly intelligent. The trees are not hankering for more, but they are not blissful either, because they are not aware. How can blissfulness happen when you are not aware? They look blissful to us because we can see and watch, because we can observe.

Flowers look beautiful to us, children look beautiful to us - so silent, so innocent - because we can observe and we can be aware. But in themselves they are simply below the threshold of awareness. Nothing is happening there, because happening starts only with awareness.

So you can fall into a dull existence, monotonous, stale, flat, and then the game is no more there. Or, you can rise above, you can move upwards, and you can come to a point from where, from the hilltop you can look at the valleys, and the whole game seems meaningless. Not that you stop playing it; you continue to play - because it is meaningless but beautiful. You continue to play with no idea of any goal in it. You participate in it, but you are no more a participant.

That is the meaning of the zen saying: 'Be in the world but be not of it.' Be in the world but don't let the world enter in you. Move in the river but don't be touched by the water, don't allow the water to touch you.

There is nothing wrong in the game if you understand that it is just a game; then you can play it. The problem arises when you become very serious about the game. And you can watch people - even playing cards they become very serious. Even playing chess they become very serious and very tense. They know they are playing a game but they go on forgetting again and again. The game becomes serious.

It is beautiful to participate in it. Chess is beautiful, a good sharpener of intelligence. But to become serious, it creates anxiety. To become very serious about it can create madness.

I have heard about one emperor of Egypt. He went mad because he was such a serious player of chess. His whole life was nothing but a concern about chess.

When he went mad his physicians were very much worried. They enquired all over the country. They asked old wise men what to do. One sufi mystic suggested, 'If some good chess player is ready to play with him he will be okay.

But you will have to find a very serious player, and really a match for him.'

They were ready to pay whatsoever was demanded. One of the greatest, a world champion, came and accepted the offer. One year continuously he played chess with the mad emperor. After one year the emperor was back to his sanity - but the other fellow went mad.

There is nothing wrong in being playful, but don't get serious about it. And it seems - the question is from Prabha - it seems she is serious about it. Let us dissect the question step by step.

First: WHY CAN'T WE LET ONE ANOTHER BE? Because we are not ourselves, so how can we allow others to be themselves? You can allow the other only that which you have allowed yourself. You cannot allow more than that, remember it.

If you are not free you will not allow freedom to anybody else. If you are repressed you will not allow expression to others.

Whatsoever you are, you go on trying to enforce it upon others. You would like everybody to be just an image of you. That gives you a very egoistic feeling - that everybody is imitating you, everybody is a carbon copy of you. And it puts you at ease - that everybody is like that. If somebody is free and you allow freedom and you yourself are not free, you will feel very much depressed by the comparison. That's how repression has been perpetuated down the ages.

The parents were repressed by their parents, they have repressed their children, and these children will repress their children. And it is a chain, and it is very difficult to break it. Only rarely somebody gathers so much courage and becomes so individualistic that he jumps out of the chain.

To jump out of this chain is to jump out of the world. Then you are no more conditioned by anybody, and then you never condition anybody. Then you live in freedom and you impart freedom.

But you can give only that which you have. Being, you have not. How can you allow others? You are constantly finding ways and means how to destroy the freedom of the other, how to dominate, how to possess, how to command, how to force obedience. You are not at ease, you have not yet come home. You are not fulfilled, you cannot allow anybody else to be fulfilled. You are like a barren tree - you cannot allow other trees to have fruits, because that will hurt you very much.

You ask: WHY CAN'T WE LET ONE ANOTHER BE? Because you are not. So start from the very beginning. First, be! First allow yourself to be, then you will be capable of allowing others also.

I can give you utter freedom. I have no discipline here to teach to you, because I have tasted utter freedom, and I know that if you can taste - even a little bit of it - your whole life will be transfigured.

You would like me to give you discipline. People come to me and they say, 'Give us some discipline, give us clearcut rules - what we should do and what we should not. You never give us clearcut rules. You talk in vague terms.' It looks vague to them. I am talking in terms of freedom - it looks vague. They say, 'You talk in an ambiguous way. We cannot decide what you mean. Why can't you give us clearcut ways? Why can't you reduce whatsoever you want to teach?

Why can't you put it in a few commandments, like the ten commandments? Then it will be easy for us to follow and we will not be confused. Why do you confuse us?'

I am not confusing you, I am simply giving you total freedom - and of course, freedom is confusing. Confusing, because you have to decide every moment. I am not going to decide for you. Who am I to decide for you? Anybody who decides for you is a murderer. And you are in search of your murderers. You want somebody to take the whole responsibility.

That's what you ask - clearcut rules so that you need not be aware, so that you need not be responsive, so that you need not be responsible. Whatsoever happens you can look in the book of commandments and follow the book. By and by you can learn the book by rote, memorise it, and then you can function through the memory. And then there is no need to function through your center.

Wherever rules are given, remember - the man himself has not attained freedom. If he has attained freedom then he will know, he must know, that freedom starts at the first step. It is not something that happens in the end; it begins from the beginning. You have to sow seeds of freedom, then only will you be able to harvest freedom, liberation, nirvana.

WHY CAN'T WE LET ONE ANOTHER BE?

Because you are not. You are a non-entity. You yet exist not. You are just a dream, and that too very hodge-podge. You don't have yet any integration, you are not one. You jump on others, whosoever falls under your territory - your children, your wife, your husband, your mother, your father, your friends - whosoever is available to you, you jump and crush his or her freedom. Once you have crushed the freedom you feel at ease; now there is no danger.

If you really want to give freedom to others, you will have to begin at home.

Everything begins at home. Be free, become a being. Enjoy this tremendous freedom that life gives to you. Don't follow any rules. Just follow one thing, and that is your awareness. And let your awareness decide each moment fresh what is to be done.

There is no need to function through memory and through past knowledge, experience. Just function with fresh, virgin knowing, virgin awareness. And then you will see how beautiful it is to be free, and then you will see how beautiful it is to live with free people. Because to live with prisoners is to become a prisoner oneself.

Have you watched? A jailer is not a free man, cannot be. A jailer is more jailed than the prisoners. If you force so many people to be prisoners, how can you be free? That enforced imprisonment reflects in your being also; you become a prisoner yourself. Never enforce any imprisonment on anybody. Allow freedom and you will be free. You be free, and you will be able to allow more freedom.

They work together.

WHY CAN'T WE JUST SIMPLY ACCEPT OURSELVES AND OTHERS JUST THE WAY WE ARE?

Because you have been conditioned to reject, not to accept. You have been conditioned to deny, you have been conditioned to say 'no'. You have not yet known how to say 'yes'. You have been conditioned to condemn. You were condemned and the same you are doing to others. You go on condemning yourself also, and of course the same you have to do with others. You cannot do otherwise.

Your parents were telling you, 'You are wrong, this is not right, this should never be done,' and a thousand and one times they have repeated it. And you have gathered one message: that you are not accepted as you are, you are not loved for your simple being.

If you fulfill their desires they love you; their love is a bargain. If you follow them like shadows, they appreciate, they approve. If you just become a little free and you try to be an individual, they are against you - their eyes, their behaviour, everything changes. And every child is so helpless - just to survive he has to be political, he has to accept whatsoever the parents are saying.

Then there is society, then there is the establishment of education. And by and by you go deeper and deeper into the mess, and everybody is there to force you to follow him. Then there are priests and politicians, all do-gooders, and they all want you to follow them, and they all have trained you. Your mind is a conditioned mind. That's why you cannot accept yourself and you cannot accept others.

But the possibility exists. If you understand this - that this is just conditioning - you can drop out of it clean, right now! Don't get identified with it, that is the only way. Don't think that this is you; just remember that this is society speaking through you. Don't call it your conscience, it is not your conscience. It is a pseudo-conscience created by the society. It is a trick, it is a very dangerous trick.

But the society has put inside you its own ideas and they function as your conscience. In fact, they don't allow your real conscience to surface, they don't allow your own consciousness to come and take charge of your life.

Society is very political. Outside it has posted the policeman and the magistrate; inside it has posted the conscience. That is the inner policeman, the inner magistrate. And it is not even satisfied with this arrangement - above it has posted a god, the super-policeman, the head constable. So he is looking from there; even in your bathroom he is watching you. Somebody is following you continuously, you are never left alone to be yourself.

Drop this - this is your idea, you are clinging to it. It has been given to you by others. It has been given so early that you don't remember, but it is a political arrangement. It is not religious.

Religion is an unconditioning. The very process of religion is to make you unconditioned, to free you of all conditions, and to allow you whatsoever you are meant to be, to allow you your destiny.

Drop out of this conditioning. That's what a real drop-out has to be. It is not just dropping out of the society - that won't help because where will you go? Even if you become a hippie and you drop out of the society, you will create an alternate society, and again there will be rules, and again there will be conditionings.

If you move in the ordinary society, the establishment, you are expected not to have long hair. And if you move amidst hippies you are expected not to have short hair. But it is the same.

If you are moving in the established society, you are expected to take a bath every day. And if you are living with hippies and you take a bath every day, they will think something is wrong with you. But it is the same thing, upside down.

You cannot move out of the society. Many times it has been tried, but only alternative societies are created, and they become their own establishments.

You can move out of the society only in a very subtle way, there is no gross way.

The subtle way is to drop inside, out of the layer of conditioning. Just remember that now you are mature enough,..you need not bother what others say; you have to be yourself. And enjoy, start enjoying this freedom, and then you will be able to impart freedom to others also. Because if you want your freedom to grow you will need people who are free around you, because freedom can prosper only with free people.

WHY THIS PERSISTENT 'CHASING-THE-TAIL GAME OF TRYING TO BE DIFFERENT - MORE OPEN, MORE AWARE, MORE? YOU HAVE SAID OFTEN THAT EVERYTHING IS FINE THE WAY IT IS...

I have said it but you have not heard it. What I say is not going to change you unless you hear it. Hence I have to go on repeating in different ways. My message is the same. I am not saying a new truth every day. I'm saying the same truth in so many forms, in so many expressions.

Now I have to hammer you from different directions because I see you so fast asleep. I can hear your snoring. I say it and in a way you also hear it, because you are not deaf - but you have not yet heard it.

Once you have heard it - that means, once it has hit home, once it has reached your heart - then this question will not arise. Then you will not ask why. Then suddenly you will be able to see and the clarity will happen to you. You will see the whole game is this: you have been taught to improve, to go on. You have been taught to remain discontent. You have been taught that unless you are discontent you will never be progressive. If you are not discontent you will vegetate. Be discontent! Ask for more! And go on asking for more. If you don't ask, nobody's going to give you anything.

ISN'T IT ABOUT TIME WE STARTED PLAYING A NEW GAME?

But the new game will be the same if there is not a new mind. You can play the new game, that's what you are doing. What is this orange colour and mala? You are playing a new game; with a new name, you are playing a new game. But if the mind has not changed, if there has not been a revolution within you, then this game will also become, sooner or later, an old game. There are old sannyasins here who have settled. Now they have accepted this new role - the revolution has not happened.

It is very easy to change your clothes, very easy to change your name; it is very difficult to change your attitude, your vision. What will you do, Prabha? Even if you start a new game you will be the same. Only the name of the game will change, nothing else will change. If you are the same, the result is going to be the same with the new game also.

There is no point in changing the game. The point, the basic point is to change yourself. Then you can play the same game if you like, or you can play a new game if you like, but that is not relevant. The relevant thing is - you change.

Have a totally different vision.

What do I mean? There are two types of vision in the world. One, of the unenlightened person. That vision is: accumulate more, whatsoever it is - money? okay; meditation? okay - accumulate more, have more of it.

The unenlightened person is interested in having. He knows only one way of being and that is having - have a big house, have a big car, have more money, have more virtue, have more bank balance - in this world and the other also - have more... more women, more men, more love affairs - have more. His only idea of being is having more.

Having has nothing to do with being. You can have the whole world - being is not going to result that way. You can have the whole world at your feet, and you will remain empty, because there is no way to change having into being.

Then there is another vision - the vision of the enlightened person, of the Buddha. It is a shift, it is a radical change. Being is important, having is not important. Then there is no question of progression - you are already, you cannot be more than you are. You can have more, but you cannot be more.

Let me repeat it: you can have more - you can have a bigger house, there is no problem about it. Certainly you can have more money. Even if you are a Rockefeller you can have more money. Even if you are a president of a country you can have more power. Even if you are a great saint you can have more virtue.

But the whole... the dimension of having is always the dimension of discontent.

You can always have more. Imagination has continuous work, imagination is applicable.

The dimension of being - you are already that which you can be. The goal has already been arrived at. There is nowhere to go.

The dimension of having is the extrovert dimension, the dimension of being is the introvert dimension. You go within yourself just to see who you are. Let us first know who we are, what we are. I'm not against having things, you can have, but first have your being. I'm not against living in a big house - live, nothing is wrong in it, but first live in your inner being, then everything is okay. Then even if you are a beggar, it is okay; even if you are an emperor, it is okay. I am not insisting that you be a beggar.

My whole emphasis is first be! - then everything is okay. But if you are not, then nothing is okay. Then you can have as much as you desire and still you will remain unsatisfied, unfulfilled.

So don't change the game; change your dimension, change your vision, have a radical revolution. The word 'radical' is very good; it means 'of the roots'. When I say have a radical change, I mean change your very roots. Changing leaves won't help, pruning the branches won't help. Change your roots, change your very soil.

Be! Celebrate! Nothing is lacking. Sing, dance, love, laugh, cry - nothing is lacking.

I'M GETTING VERY EXHAUSTED BY THIS OLD GAME.

You can get exhausted by the old game, and you can change to a new game.

Again you will get exhausted with the new, because everything new will become old someday. Who is exhausted with the old game? It is the mind which always gets exhausted with the old and always hankers for the new.

Prabha is asking the question but she has not understood it, what she is asking. If you are exhausted by the old and then you are seeking for the new, you are seeking again for something more. Fed up with the old you want something new - a new sensation, a new thrill. But sooner or later the new will become old, then what? Everything new will become old, because everything that is old was new one day.

Try to understand it. It is not going to help by changing the game from A to B, from B to C. You can go on jumping. The change has to happen within you. You become new, and then everything remains new, then never is anything reduced to boredom. Then one is never fed up. YOU become new, not the game. You bring newness to you.

And being is always new because it is always happening... always dying and always being born. Each moment your breath is fresh; the moment it becomes stale it is thrown out - new breath is rushing in. In the same way god rushes in you. Every moment the stale god is thrown out and the new god enters you.

Your river is flowing; just become acquainted with this inner river of consciousness, this stream of consciousness which is always fresh.

By its very nature it is fresh, it cannot be old. Mind is always old, consciousness is never old; mind is always bored, consciousness is never bored.

I AM GETTING VERY EXHAUSTED BY THIS OLD ONE. AND LIFE AND LOVE AND FEAR AND INSECURITY IS SO EXQUISITE JUST THE WAY IT IS.

Then who is preventing you? Jump into life, Prabha. Jump into life, love, fear, insecurity. Who is preventing you? At least not I.

For whom are you waiting? For whose permission? Why are you asking me this?

Again you need somebody's approval. Then again you are trying to throw responsibility on me. Then if it is not really so, not as exquisite as you say, you can say, 'Osho, you told me to move into love, and now... I am having a hell of a time. You told me to be insecure, and now I am trembling - now what to do?' If it is really exquisite, as you say, if you have understood the point, then why waste time in asking the question?

Jump into life, because it is slipping by. Before the time is gone jump into the stream, splash around.

And in the end again the question remains the same. COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE MORE?

How can it be proved that there is not anything more? In fact, you come to listen to me just to find out - is there something more? And when I say there is nothing more, you don't believe me. I know it, you don't believe me. You say, 'This man is playing.' You know there is something more, you are missing it - but you are missing it not because there is more and you have not grown up to it; you are missing it because you are too much obsessed with the more and it is right here now already available.

You are missing, that I know. And because you are missing you cannot believe me that there cannot be anything more. You look into my eyes and you know that there is something more. You feel me and you know that there is something more. So you cannot believe it.

If I say there is something more and you have to attain it and much effort is needed, you will nod your approval. You will say, 'Right.' That's how you get caught by the gurus. Otherwise no guru can catch hold of you. Your desire for the more is your readiness to be caught - that functions as a bait. And anybody who can shout loudly that there is more can get followers - because everybody is missing and this man says there is more; maybe he knows, so follow him.

It is very difficult to be with me because I am not promising you anything more, I am not promising any rose gardens to you. And I know you are missing, that is true. But you are not missing because it is far away, you are missing because it is so obvious.

If you ask a fish about her life experiences, she will tell about everything except the ocean. She will talk about her love affairs, children, husband, family matters, her psychoanalyst, her guru, and things like that, but she will not mention the ocean because it is obvious. The fish ordinarily never comes across the ocean. She lives in it, but she has been born into it. It was already there before she came in. It has been so close that it is very difficult to know about it. There is no distance.

God is like the ocean. It is just sitting by your side, hand in hand.

You are missing him not because he lives on a distant star. You are missing him because he follows you like a shadow, here on this earth.

You are missing him because he is sitting within you and you are looking out.

You are missing him because he has become you and you are searching somewhere else. He is in the seeker; the sought is in the seeker.

Any day it can happen. Any day you decide to trust me, it can happen. I am not here to show you a path, I am here only to show you the goal. Because a path means one has to travel far, far - the goal is somewhere else. My whole effort is to call you away from your so-called paths because the goal is here; where are you going?

Question 2:

It is from Swami Anand Prashanta. Good, congratulations to you. At least you were shocked, something happened.

Once I was telling a joke to four persons. The first never heard it, he was asleep.

He was a great professor, so fast asleep in his knowledge. The second heard it but could not understand it. He was a politician - stupid. The third heard it, understood it, but misinterpreted it - he was a psychoanalyst. And nothing can be said about the fourth, because he had been dead for many years - he was a priest.

Prashanta was shocked. Good, very good. At least he was not asleep, at least he is not dead. Because you cannot shock a dead man. He understood. Of course, he misinterpreted. He is in the profession of psychoanalysis. He assists Nirgrantha in his psychotherapy.

Yes, that is the very purpose. If you are alert I will stop telling jokes to you.

When I feel that now I am going too far away and you are going too far in, I have to tell a joke - so that you are jogged, shocked, so a shiver goes in your spine and you become a little more alert and you can listen to me. And of course all jokes are shocking, otherwise they are not jokes. The whole purpose is to shock you.

You live covered with many buffers. Some sort of shock-therapy is needed. Yes, many jokes are crude - it depends on you. If I see you are really fast asleep I have to tell you a very crude joke. There is no other way. A soft joke will simply pass over you. It will not give you any shivering in the spine.

But good - that at least one person is not asleep here, Prashanta. But he misinterpreted. It is natural because interpretations come from our own mind.

He misinterpreted because he thought that they are crude and racist, because I joke so much about Jews.

I love Jews! I am myself an old Jew, so it is difficult for me to forget them. They are the most beautiful people on the earth, hence so many jokes exist about them.

And jokes exist because Jews are so intelligent. You joke only about a certain community because you cannot compete with it. The joke is a compensation.

Jews are really intelligent, one of the most intelligent races in the world, and everybody feels incompetent with them - then you take revenge in your jokes.

Jokes are very indicative. They don't say anything about the object of the joke, they simply say who has created the joke; they say something about who has created the joke. Wherever Jews exist people joke about them - because there is no other way to take revenge; in actual life they are far superior. It happens always.

So your interpretation is your interpretation. You think that I am against Jews or something? I am a lover. But I can understand. Prashanta says, 'These are the stories I told when I was a boy. And when I told them it was with cruel intentions.' So of course you must be projecting your own cruel intentions on me.

The stories may be the same, but the storyteller is not the same. Remember that, don't forget it.

Ordinarily Buddhas have never joked. It is for the first time a Buddha is joking. It is something very new, so you are a little puzzled. But to me everything is sacred. There is nothing profane. From sex to sahasrar, I accept everything. My acceptance is total. My acceptance is absolute.

So sometimes the joke can look crude, it can look obscene, but to me, nothing is obscene. Everything is just beautiful as it is. The obscene is an interpretation of the mind.

Drop your interpretation. The shock is very good, Prashanta, but interpretation has to be dropped otherwise you will misunderstand me, and you will miss an opportunity.

I have heard:

After nineteen years of hard married life, Clancy finally came across and presented his wife, Maggie, with the latest in real squirrel jackets. As she paraded grandly up and down in the kitchen with it on, their little son Terence exclaimed, 'The poor animal really suffered in order for you to have the coat.'

'Shut up!' his mother yelled,.as she smacked him across the mouth. 'Don't you ever be talking that way about your own father!'

Now the mother is saying something about her own mind. The poor boy was saying something totally different.

It always depends on your mind how you take it. If you are cluttered too much with traditional ideas - that this is obscene and this is not obscene, and this is very cultured and this is very crude... I have no distinctions like that. Life is simply life to me - crude and cultured both. Crudeness is part of it, of its very aliveness. But we interpret in our own ways.

Remember it - whenever you interpret me, remember that it may be your projection. You may be seeing something which is not there, you may be putting in something which is not there. And this is natural, I understand it. I'm not angry about it. I can understand it. This is very natural, because that is the only way you can understand right now. One day it will become possible for you to listen to me without any interpretations. Otherwise there is a constant chattering inside your mind.

It happened:

A very well-bred english lady decided to get married, but she insisted that her husband be a man who had never known another woman. Her solicitors searched far and wide, and finally came up with a strapping young Australian who had lived almost all his life in isolation. They brought him to London, had him properly outfitted at a Bond Street shop, and presented him to her ladyship.

She was delighted, and the marriage was quickly arranged.

On their wedding night they registered at the Dorchester and retired to a posh suite. As soon as they were alone the young man began to push all the furniture to the sides of the room. 'Whatever are you doing?' asked her ladyship.

'I don't know about this sex with a woman,' he replied, 'but if it is something like kangaroos we are going to need all the room we can get!'

Now that is his only world. He knows only about kangaroos.

So, Prashanta, don't bring your kangaroos in. Just listen to me, what I am saying.

And to shock you is my purpose. So when you get a shock, let it enter as deep as possible. Don't be in a hurry to interpret it because that becomes a disturbance; then the shock will not go to the very core of your being. If you allow me to give you as many shocks as I think are needed for you, by and by you will start growing steel in your spine. You will become shockproof.

It is said about Mulla Nasrudin that he was so tired of dinner parties, he was so fed up, and he wanted to get rid of all those dinner parties. He devised a technique. He developed a system designed to guarantee that he would never be invited again.

First he would ask the woman on his right if she was married. If she said yes, he would ask her if she had any children. If she said no, he would ask her how she avoided it.

Second, he would ask the lady on his left if she was married. If she answered no, he would ask if she had any children. Third, he would ask the lady across the table if she had any children. If she said yes, he would ask if she was married.

Now, nobody invites him.

All my jokes are there purposefully to shock you, and those people who are very weak, weaklings, they have disappeared. They don't come to listen to me, they cannot come. Now only people who are courageous and who are ready to absorb these shocks can come close to me. But that is done knowingly.

Question 3:

It is neither. I have no way, because I am not leading you anywhere. I am trying to wake you up herenow. You are already wandering all over the earth. My effort is to bring you home. And of course your wandering is only in a dream.

It is as if you sleep in Poona and you dream of Philadelphia. In the morning you are again in Poona. So if I see that you are dreaming of Philadelphia, what am I supposed to do? Should I give you a path to come back to Poona? Should I arrange for a ticket so that you can travel back to Poona? I can only give you a shock, so you jump out of your bed and here you are. You have never been to Philadelphia, you were simply dreaming.

That's why in the East we call the world a dream, maya, illusion. It is a beautiful term. It simply says you are dreaming. It simply says that nothing is to be done except that you become aware, awake.

You have never gone away from the home, you have always been here; that is the only way to be. You cannot go anywhere else, that is not permitted. In the very nature of things everybody is there where he belongs. But everybody is dreaming and in dream one has drifted very very long - many lives of dreaming, and one has been drifting and drifting and drifting, and one thing leads to another and one goes on and on.

You may have reached millions of miles away from the home, but still you are here, because in the very nature of things nobody can go anywhere else than his own being. Nobody can go away from his nature, his tao, his dhamma. That which you cannot lose is your god. Howsoever hard you try, that which cannot be lost is your law, it is your tao. So as far as I am concerned you are sleeping and you have to be awakened. There is no path to travel, no way, because you have never gone anywhere else.

A master has to devise methods to awaken. Zen people have the right word; they call their path 'pathless path', 'gateless gate'. Paradoxical, but exactly expressive of the reality.

And if you awake herenow, you will be full of beauty, full of grandeur, and full of power. Those three are the qualities of the awakened soul.

The awakened soul is beautiful, nothing ugly can exist in an awakened soul.

Awareness is the only beauty there is. The awakened soul is in a tremendous grandeur, grace. It is a mystery. You can enter into it, but you can never come to know it. It becomes known and yet remains unknown. One is simply struck with awe, one simply is wonderstruck.

And when you are awakened you are tremendously powerful. Not powerful in the sense that you can destroy, not powerful in the sense that you can dominate, not powerful in the sense of the politician's use of the word, or the scientist's use of the word.

Powerful in the sense that suddenly you don't feel any limitation, you don't have any boundary, you are infinite.

Powerful in the sense that you don't have any death, you are deathless.

Powerful in the sense that your bliss is tremendous, incredible.

Powerful in the sense that now your discipline is impeccable, perfect, and you don't have to force it; it's simply there.

Powerful in the sense that now you are a god, nothing less.

And powerful in the sense that now there are all gods and goddesses in the world and you are not separate, you are one with the universe, one with existence.

These three things happen to you when you are awakened. You are already that, but you feel very impotent. You feel impotent because you don't know who you are. You feel impotent because you don't know your treasures. You are almost drunk with ignorance.

I have heard:

Mulla Nasrudin, on his way home, accidentally staggered into the zoo, and ended up in front of the hippopotamus' cage. He was absolutely drunk. 'Don't look at me in that way,' he begged. 'I can explain everything.'

He thought it was his wife.

When you are drunk you see things which are not there - a hippopotamus may look like your wife, or your wife may look like a hippopotamus. By the morning when you are no more drunk and the hangover is gone, things appear in their true colour.

We are drunk with ignorance, drunk with unawareness... drunkards stumbling on the path of life for many years, for many lives. The only thing you need to do is to become a little more alert. Get out of this hangover.

That's what meditation is all about - to give you a little awareness. If you can become aware even for a few moments you will be able to see what reality is, and that experience of the reality will start transforming you. Then more and more of those moments will be coming to you, and more and more you will become real.

Right now you are unreal, that's why you have created an unreal world around you. When you become real, a real world arises in your vision.

God is the experience of those who are real. The world is the experience of those who are unreal - unreal because of unawareness. The more real you become, the more aware you become.

Question 4:

The devil is like darkness. It is and yet it is not. Darkness is the absence of light, the devil is the absence of god. You bring light in, darkness disappears; you bring god in, the devil disappears. There has never been a meeting between darkness and light, and there has never been an encounter between the devil and god.

There is an old hindu story. Once darkness went to god and appealed and said, 'I have not done anything wrong, but your sun every morning goes on chasing me, for no reason at all, and I am tired of running away from here to there, and the sun goes on chasing me round the earth! This is unjust.'

God said, 'I will call the sun.' The sun was called, and god asked the sun, 'Why do you go on creating trouble for my darkness? She has not done anything wrong to you. This is unjust.'

The sun was surprised. He said, 'I have never come across her. What are you talking about? What do you mean by darkness? I have never come across anything like that. Please call her in front of me.'

The case is still in the files. God has been trying but it is impossible to call darkness in front of the sun. It is not possible in the nature of things because darkness is not a reality. It exists and yet it does not exist. It is absence.

It is the same with the devil, and it is good that the devil is painted as dark, black. That is just to show that the nature of it is like darkness. God is called 'light' in the Koran, in the Bible, in the Vedas. In all the scriptures of the world, god is synonymous with light. Meaningful, significant. It simply says that when god is there, the devil cannot be.

The questioner has asked: YOU HAVE SAID THERE IS NO DEVIL BUT ONLY GOD...

Yes, but god can be absent, god can be asleep - then the devil is. God can be fast asleep - then the devil is very much. Don't fight with the devil because that will be fighting against darkness. If you really want to destroy darkness just bring light. Don't fight with darkness, that is foolish. Don't fight with the devil, just bring light, just bring god, just become a little more aware and make your god inside a little alert and the devil disappears by itself.

IN THE WEST THERE WAS A LOT OF TALK ABOUT DEVIL POSSESSION WHEN I WAS THERE...

It has been always so. Down the centuries, all over the world, people have talked about the devil, because in fact the devil is more a reality in people's experiences than god. God has happened to only few people. Somewhere a Buddha, a Jesus, a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu, a Mahavir - it has happened very rarely.

The devil is everybody's experience, so there are people you can find, atheists, who don't believe in god - but even atheists believe in the devil. There are people who don't believe in god, but even those people go on believing in the devil. Because the devil is a more solid experience of the masses, of the majority.

Maybe Buddha was deceived, hallucinating, hypnotized; watching his own navel he became crazy or something - Who knows? What is the proof? - but millions of people have experienced the devil.

Yes, that is true. The devil is more real an experience than god, but still I would like to tell you, the devil is not. It is more an experience because you are asleep and unaware. And you can go any moment berserk; you can be possessed by it.

The difference between a possessed human being and a non-possessed human being is only of degrees.

You just watch your mind. You can always feel that you are almost always on the verge. Any moment you can move into the territory of the devil. He is just sitting on the fence watching for you, inviting you. You just sit down, close your doors and windows and write down whatsoever comes into your mind for fifteen minutes, and you will see that it is as if it is a scripture written by the devil. Just be true, nobody is going to see it. You just be true and honest and just write whatsoever is going. You will feel almost madness oozing out of you. This madness can any day become devilish.

... WHEN I WAS THERE PARTICULARLY BECAUSE OF THE FILM, 'THE EXORCIST'....

Films, stories, incidents, create their own atmosphere. When Marilyn Monroe committed suicide in 1962, the suicide rate in many cities of America went very high for a few days. It was five times more in New York and Chicago and San Francisco - five times more than usual.

Just one woman committed suicide. Many suicidal people are there; suddenly they got the message. Suddenly they were obsessed with it. People live by imitation, and when Monroe, such a beautiful woman, can commit suicide, then why bother? You can also do it.

People simply go on doing things by imitation. In Japan in 1950, one schoolgirl jumped in a volcano crater. Then within two months three hundred schoolgirls jumped in the same crater. What happened? What madness? Things spread like infection. Man is so mad, just waiting for anything to trigger him.

And you are also prone. Remember that. Anything can become a trigger-point.

That's why I insist - never imitate, never become a carbon copy to anybody. Try to become yourself, try to be yourself. Protect your individuality and don't get lost in a crowd, don't become part of the collective mind.

If you become an individual mind, one day there is a possibility you will become a member of the universal mind. But if you fall into the collective mind you are falling into the devil. The crowd is the devil, imitation is the path towards the devil. So if a film like 'The Exorcist' was there then many people will start talking about the devil and ghosts and possessions and many will become possessed, many will pass through many nightmares.

Mind is so greatly influenced so easily. That is the danger. That's how you have become a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Jew. It is just that you have been impressed by others. And anything that starts happening becomes a chain reaction. Beware, you have to protect your consciousness.

Never be a part of any sect, never be part of any organization, never be part of any country. I know there are practical difficulties - you have to keep a passport.

I'm not saying throw it in the river. But remember that this is just a convenience.

Don't become a part of any country - India or America or France. Never think in terms of boundaries. Don't think that you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. For practical convenience everything is okay, but remember that deep down you remain uncommitted, or, you remain committed to your own being.

This is a must, one of the most fundamental things to remember, otherwise humanity has suffered very much. Things spread like plague, things spread like infectious disease, and once they spread they spread like fire, and they become uncontrollable. You are prone, your mind tends to imitate, so beware. Cultivate individuality, cultivate your own awareness and then you will be less and less in the grip of the devil. The devil means the collective mind, the devil means the collective sleepiness, the collective drunkenness.

Question 5:

Tell him that even if I leave the body I am not going to leave my sannyasins. I will be as much available as I am right now. But the only thing to remember is - are you available to me?

I am available to you, and I will remain as available forever. If you are available to me then there is no need to be afraid, then a link exists.

And with my sannyasins I am individually linked. It is not a question that you belong to an organization, it is not an organization at all. It is a personal relationship, it is a love affair.

If you are open to me, even if this body disappears, it is not going to make any difference. I will be available to you.

Tell him that he need not be afraid. He can remain in trust and in love.