When Two Zeros Meet

The first question:

Question 1:

I AM NEITHER AGAINST ANYTHING NOR FOR ANYTHING. Whatsoever happens, happens. One need not choose - because with choice is misery. If you want to be successful then you will remain miserable. You may succeed, you may not succeed; but one thing is certain: you will remain miserable.

If you want to succeed, AND you succeed by chance, by coincidence, it is not going to fulfil you - because this is the way of the mind. Whatsoever you have got becomes meaningless, and the mind starts going ahead of you. It desires more and more and more - the mind is nothing but the desire for more. And this desire can never be fulfilled, because whatsoever you have got you can always imagine for more. And the distance between that 'more' and that which you have got will remain constant.

This is one of the most constant things in human experience: everything changes, but the distance between that which you have and that which you would like to have remains constant.

Albert Einstein says: The speed of time remains constant - that is the only constant. And Buddhas say: The speed of mind remains constant. And the truth is that mind and time are not two things - they are both the same; two names for the same thing.

So if you want to succeed, you may succeed, but you will not be content. And what is the meaning of a success if you are not content? And this, I say, is only coincidence that you may succeed; the greater possibility is that you will fail, because you are not chasing success alone - millions of people are chasing.

In a country of six hundred million people only one person can be the prime minister - and six hundred million people are wanting to be the president or the prime minister. So only one succeeds, and the WHOLE crowd fails. The greater possibility is that you will fail; mathematically that seems to be more certain than success.

If you fail you feel frustrated; your whole life seems to be a sheer wastage. If you succeed, you never succeed; if you fail, you fail - this is the whole game.

You say that you suspect that I am against success - no, I am not. Because if you are against success, then again you have another idea of being successful; that is:

how to drop this nonsense of being successful. Then you have another idea...

again the distance, again the desire.

Now, this is what makes people monks, makes people move into monasteries.

They are AGAINST success. They want to go out of the world where there is competition - they want to escape from it all so that there will be no provocation, no temptation; they can rest in themselves. And they try not to desire success - but this is a desire! Now they have an idea of spiritual success: how to succeed and become a Buddha, how to succeed and become a Christ, how to succeed and become a Mahavir. Again an idea, again the distance, again the desire - again the whole game starts.

I am not against success; that's why I am in the world, otherwise I would have escaped. I am not for it, I am not against it. I say: Be a driftwood - whatsoever happens, let it happen. Don't have a choice of your own. Whatsoever comes on your way, welcome it. Sometimes it is day, sometimes it is night; sometimes it is happiness, sometimes it is unhappiness - you be choiceless, you simply accept whatsoever is the case.

This is what I call the quality of a spiritual being. This is what I call religious consciousness. It is neither for nor against - because if you are for, you will be against; if you are against, you will be for. And when you are for something or against something you have divided existence into two. You have a choice, and choice is hell. To be choiceless is to be free of hell.

Let things be. You just go on moving, enjoying whatsoever becomes available. If success is there, enjoy it. If failure is there, enjoy it - because failure also brings a few enjoyments that no success can ever bring. Success also brings a few joys that no failure can ever bring. And a man who has no idea of his own is capable of enjoying everything, whatsoever happens. If he is healthy, he enjoys health; if he is ill, he rests on the bed and enjoys illness.

Have you ever enjoyed illness? If you have not enjoyed it you are missing a lot.

Just lying down on the bed doing nothing, no worry of the world, and everybody caring about you, and you have suddenly become a monarch - everybody attentive, listening, loving. And you have nothing to do, not a single worry in the world. You simply rest. You listen to the birds, you listen to music, or you read a little, and doze into sleep. It is beautiful! It has its own beauty. But if you have an idea that you have to be always healthy, then you will be miserable.

Misery comes because we choose. Bliss is when we don't choose.

"What is your view of being successful in ordinary life?" My view is: If you can be ordinary, you are successful.

The patient was complaining to his friends: "After one year and three thousand dollars with that psychiatrist, he tells me I am cured. Some cure! A year ago I was Abraham Lincoln - now I'm a nobody."

This is my idea of being successful: Be a nobody. There is no need for Abraham Lincolns, no need for Adolf Hitlers. Just be ordinary, nobody, and life will be a tremendous joy to you. Just be simple. Don't create complexities around yourself.

Don't create demands. Whatsoever comes on its own, receive it as a gift, a grace of God, and enjoy and delight in it. And millions are the joys that are being showered on you, but because of your demanding mind you cannot see them.

Your mind is in such a hurry to be successful, to be somebody special, that you miss all the glory that is just available.

To be ordinary is to be extraordinary. To be simple is to have come home.

But it depends: the very word 'ordinary' and you start feeling a bitter taste - ordinary? you and ordinary? Maybe everybody else is ordinary but you are special. This madness, this neurosis exists in everybody's mind.

The Arabs have a special joke for it. They say that when God creates man, He whispers something into each individual's ear and He says: "I never made a man like you or a woman like you - you are simply special. All others are just ordinary."

He goes on playing the joke and everybody comes into the world full of this bullshit - that "I am special. God Himself has said so, that I am unique." You may not say so because you think these ordinary people will not be able to understand it; otherwise, why say? - there is no need to say. And why create trouble for yourself? You know, and you are absolutely certain about it.

And everybody is in the same boat: the joke has not been played only upon you.

God goes on playing the same joke on everybody. Maybe He has stopped doing it and He has just fixed a computer which goes on repeating the same thing, a mechanical device.

It depends on you how you interpret. The word 'ordinary' is of tremendous significance - but it depends! If you understand.... These trees are ordinary.

These birds are ordinary. The clouds are ordinary. The stars are ordinary. That's why they are not neurotic. That's why they don't need any psychiatrist's couch.

They are healthy, they are full of juice and life. They are simply ordinary! No tree is mad enough to be competitive, and no bird is bothered at all who is the most powerful bird in the world - no bird is interested in that. He simply goes on doing HIS thing, and enjoys it. But it depends how you interpret.

A father takes his little boy for culture to the Metropolitan Opera. Out comes the conductor with his baton, and out comes the big diva, and she starts to sing an aria. As the conductor is waving his baton, the kid says, "Papa, why is that man hitting that woman?"

The father says, "He isn't hitting her - that's the conductor."

"Well if he ain't hitting her, why is she hollering?" asks the boy.

Whatsoever you see in life is your interpretation. To me, the word 'ordinary' is tremendously significant. If you listen to me, if you hear me, if you understand me, you would like just to be ordinary. And, to be ordinary there is no need to struggle for it. It is already there.

Then all struggle disappears, all conflict. You simply start enjoying life as it comes, as it unfolds. You enjoy the childhood, you enjoy the youth, you enjoy your old age - you enjoy your life and you also enjoy your death. You enjoy all the seasons round the year - and each season has its own beauty, and each season has something to give to you, some ecstasy of its own.

The second question:

Question 2:

I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN GOD. The Christian God created the world in six days and the seventh day He rested; hence, the Sunday is the holiday. 'Holiday' means the holy day, God's day of rest.

In the East we have never known any God resting. The very idea is stupid: God and resting? Rest is needed if what you are doing is not of your heart; then you get tired. When it is out of your heart and out of your love, you don't get tired; in fact, you get nourished by it.

Talking to you, I feel nourished. After talking to you I feel more energy than ever - because it is my love. I enjoy it! It is not work.

You can get tired if you are working. If you are playing, how can you get tired?

Nobody has ever heard that people get tired by playing. In fact, when people are tired by work, they go to play as a rest - they relax. Six days they have been working in the office, in the factory, in the market; the seventh day they go to fish, or they go for golf - they play. They invite friends for a picnic; they go trekking in the hills. That is rest.

To me, every day is a holiday. If you love whatsoever you are doing, you are never tired of it; it is nourishing, it is energy-giving, it is vitalizing.

But I can understand the question. The question is from Yoga Chinmaya - his whole concept of work is wrong. He works very reluctantly. He tries hard to avoid work. He finds out ways and means to escape from work. He goes on postponing and he will always be ready there with excuses why his work is being postponed. He does not love it. Hence the question.

The question is not concerned with me - always remember - the question is yours, not mine. It shows something about you.

Mulla Nasrudin was saying to me one day: "Osho, do you know the difference between a French woman, an English woman and a Jewish woman's reaction when she is kissed in bed by her husband?"

I said, "No, I don't know - you tell me."

He said, "The French woman says: 'Oo la la, Pierre, your kisses are oo la la.'

"The English woman says, 'Jolly well done - I say, Winston your kisses are jolly well done!'

"The Jewish woman says, 'You know, Sam, the ceiling needs painting.'" It depends how you look at things.... Now, Yoga Chinmaya is like a Jewish woman. His outlook towards life is not that of a delighted consciousness. He is simply avoiding. He simply goes on finding as many excuses as possible. The energy that he puts into finding excuses will be enough to do the work. And then he feels guilty and ashamed.

Work is worship. Work is prayer.

While I am talking to you, it is a prayer to me, it is worship. You are my temples, my gods. Whatsoever I am saying, I am not saying just to teach something.

Teaching is a by-product, a consequence. Whatsoever I say to you is a prayer - it is love, it is care. I care about you; I care as much as a painter cares about his canvas.

Have you ever heard about Van Gogh being on a holiday? Have you ever heard about Picasso being on holiday? - yes, you must have heard. He used to go for many holidays, but always with his canvas and brush; on the holiday also he would be painting. It was not a holiday from painting.

When you love something, there is no holiday - and then all your days are holidays. Each day to me is a Sunday, full of light - that's why I call it Sunday.

Each day to me is a Sunday because it is full of holiness.

Chinmaya's attitude towards work is that of a utilitarian. It is not playful. He is worried about the work, tense about it. That too has a reason: he is a perfectionist - and perfectionism is the root cause of all neurosis. A perfectionist is a neurotic person; sooner or later, he will create more and more neurosis around him.

I am not a perfectionist. I don't bother a bit about being a perfectionist. I am a wholistic person. I like things in their wholeness, but I never bother about their perfection. Nothing can be perfect in the world - and in fact nothing should be perfect in the world, because whenever a thing is perfect it is dead.

One poet used to live with me for a few years. He would write, rewrite, again cancel it, rewrite again - for days on end he would polish his poems. And by the time he would feel it was perfect, I would declare it was dead.

The first glimpse was something alive - it was not perfect, there were flaws in it.

Then he went on improving it, removing all flaws, bringing more and more metre, grammar, better language, better words, better sounding words, more music. For months he would polish and change, and by the time he thought it was right to go to the press I would declare, "Now, you send it to the doctor for a post mortem - it is dead! You killed it."

Watch: perfectionist parents always kill their children. Perfectionist saints kill themselves and kill their followers. It is very difficult to live with a perfectionist saint - he is boring, monotonous, and condemning. Whenever you go to him he will be looking from his perfectionist attitude, and you will be reduced below your humanity. And he will enjoy condemning you - you are a sinner. This is wrong, that is wrong - everything is wrong.

I am not a perfectionist. I accept you with all your human frailty, with all your human flaws, with all your human limitations. I love you as you are.

I am not saying be lousy - that is another extreme. That means you don't care at all what you do. A perfectionist cares too much - he is not worried about the work, he is worried about the perfection. He has an ideal to fulfil. And the lousy person does not care at all. With the lousy person the poem will never be written, and with the perfectionist it will be written a thousand and one times - and by the time he declares that he is satisfied, the poem will be dead.

Just between the two somewhere is the wholistic approach. Don't be lousy, don't be a perfectionist - be human!

Chinmaya has developed ulcers in the stomach because of his perfectionist attitude. He becomes too much worried; he has to do everything as perfectly as possible - it is an obsession. When it is an obsession, then of course you get tired, deadly tired of it. You want to avoid it, because once you take any work in your hands you will go mad, you will become obsessed.

One needs balance. Balance is sanity, and balance is health.

I am not tired at all. And if any day I am tired, I will not talk to you - because I will never enforce anything on myself. I don't enforce anything on you, how can I enforce anything on myself? If I am tired then it is finished! If I don't feel like speaking, then I can stop in the middle of my talk, or even in the middle of a sentence - I will not complete it, remember. The moment I feel that I am tired, it is an indication, a sure indication, that now I have to stop. And I will not wait for a single moment to stop. That's how I live.

I don't enforce anything on myself. Whatsoever is natural is good. Easy is right!

The third question:

Question 3:

The question is from Divya.

The ultimate meaning always looks like meaningless. The ultimate is certainly empty of all the meanings that you can imagine, all the meanings that you would like it to have - it is empty of all that. It is empty of HUMAN ideas. It is empty of HUMAN philosophies, theologies. It is empty of human religions, ideologies. It is empty of human language and human theorizing.

So when you start coming closer to the ultimate, to the really real, you start feeling that all meaning is lost. Yes, YOUR meaning is lost. The ultimate has nothing like your meaning, it has nothing to fulfil your ideas of meaning - but that does not mean it has no meaning at all. It has a meaning of its own.

Once you have come to the point where your meaning disappears, then the real meaning appears. In fact, even to call it 'meaning' is not right because it does not fulfil any human concept. But still I would like to call it meaning because there is no other word to substitute. It has tremendous meaning, but the meaning is intrinsic; the meaning is not external.

Human meanings are external, never internal. You do something, you earn money, and somebody asks, "What is the meaning of earning money?" And you say, "I would like to have my own house - that's why. That's why I am earning money." The idea of having one's own house gives meaning to the effort that you have to make for earning money. Money in itself seems to be meaningless. The meaning comes from somewhere else. All human activity is like that.

The human activity is divided between means and ends. The end has the meaning, and you go on doing the activity as a means because without it there will be no end. But the ultimate meaning has no division, no split. God is not in any way split; God is not in any way schizophrenic. God is one unity, unison.

The meaning is intrinsic. Means and ends are not there. The means itself is the end and the journey itself is the goal.

For example, I am talking to you - now, if I am talking to you to gain something out of it, then it is a worldly activity, then it has nothing to do with religion.

Listen to it deeply. If I am talking here to gain something from my talking as an end - money, power, prestige, respectability... anything - then my activity is worldly.

If I am talking just out of my love, if I am enjoying talking itself - not that something outside it is waiting for me that will make me happy - if I am happy while talking, if I am happy as I am talking, if my talking is a total activity in itself, means and ends together, then it is a spiritual activity.

That is the difference between a priest and a saint. The priest talks to gain something out of it; the saint talks to share. The saint feels grateful to you that you listened to him, that you became available to him, that you opened your hearts to him, that you allowed him to unburden himself - he has tremendous riches and treasures and he wants to share it. He is like a flower that wants to share its fragrance to the winds - not to gain anything out of it.

The ultimate has a meaning, but the meaning has no connotation of the human idea of meaning - it is intrinsic. That's why Hindus say that it is a playful activity.

You go for a morning walk, then you don't have any idea; you simply enjoy the morning walk. You go by the same road, in the same direction, to your office also, but then it is not intrinsic - you have to go on the road because you have to reach to the office. You are in a hurry, rushing - then you don't see the trees on the roadsides, you don't see the clouds passing in the sky, you don't see the children playing, you don't listen to the dogs barking - you simply rush. Your vision is very narrow. It is focused on the goal: you have to reach to your office at eleven o'clock exactly. You are unconcerned about EVERYTHING that is going on around. But when you go for a morning walk, you are not going anywhere - you are simply enjoying. The very activity of walking is so delightful: the breeze, the morning sun, the birds, the children, the noises - everything! And you are not going anywhere.

God is not going anywhere. He is simply herenow. His activity is not end- oriented. The means and the ends are the same thing. The journey is the goal.

You ask: "I am losing all meaning..."

Beautiful! Fabulous! Fantastic! Lose as fast as you can. Don't cling.

"... purpose and sense in EVERYTHING."

Beautiful! When all sense, purpose and meaning is lost, the Divine sends the divine purpose, the divine meaning is revealed. You are getting ready - ready to receive the gift.

"The world is a scintillating mass of light particles. I am... I am not... I am... I am not."

Good! That's how, if you become aware, you will come to feel: when the breath goes out, you will feel 'I am not', when the breath comes in, you will feel 'I am'.

There is a rhythm. This is the rhythm of life and death. Each moment you die and you are reborn. EACH MOMENT you disappear and you appear again.

EACH MOMENT you move into nothingness and you come out of it again. Each moment you become nothing and each moment you materialize. This is the miracle the magic of existence - this is the mystery.

This is your inner rhythm. If you become aware, you will start feeling it. It is good. Just go on watching it. Don't be afraid and don't try to escape from it - because when suddenly you feel 'I am not', a fear arises; you start clinging to things. Somehow, you want to feel you are. You don't want to disappear, you don't want to die. If that fear is there, then you will miss this great opportunity - death has become available to you.

When you are not, you are not - then simply be not! And when you are, be again. And DON'T think there is a contradiction in it. You must be thinking there is a contradiction; that's why you say: "... spinning, whirling, a vortex..." No, it is a simple rhythm, just like day and night, summer and winter. It is a simple rhythm. Enjoy it! Disappear when you disappear; appear when you appear. And don't hanker for the other; just be that which is.

And soon you will see a new phenomenon arising in you: the witness - which never disappears and never appears. When you are not, then too the witness is there; otherwise who will know 'I am not'? When you are, then too the witness is there; otherwise who will know 'I am'?

'I am, I am not' is like breathing - inhalation, exhalation. Allow it.... Be in deep rest in it. And the spinning and the whirling and the vortex, all those sensations will disappear and a GREAT peace will descend on you - as it descended one day on Jesus like a dove. A great peace will descend on you, and in that peace something new will become revealed - that is the witness.

You are not that. That witness is what God is - the witness of all.

"I am not happy, I am not sad. There is not even anything to understand, it seems."

This is a transitory period. Before you really become happy, before you REALLY attain to ANANDA - blissfulness - this moment comes when you are neither sad nor happy. A great indifference arises. You simply feel not attached to anything: happiness, unhappiness - you become an onlooker to both.

Sooner or later, when the time is ripe and the season has come for you, suddenly you will see a bliss arising in you. That bliss has nothing to do with your ordinary happiness. Your ordinary happiness is always carrying the seeds of unhappiness in it. Your ordinary happiness always turns into unhappiness - and you know it! You have experienced it a thousand and one times. Your unhappiness carries again the seeds of your happiness. In your laughter there are tears - maybe not visible, but they are there. And in your tears also there is laughter.

I have heard, many times, laughter in your tears, and I have seen tears many times in your laughter. You are a duality.

This transitory period comes when you become a little detached from the duality, when you start understanding that the laughter and the tears are not two separate things. There is nothing to choose: laughter brings tears, tears bring laughter, so what is the point in choosing? You become a little less choosey, then you are neither sad nor happy.

This is what is called silence, peace. If you get in tune with it totally, then will arise bliss, ecstasy. That ecstasy has no seeds of anything. It is pure. It has no duality. It cannot turn into its opposite - it has no opposite to it. That's what we call bliss, ANANDA, ecstasy. It has no opposite; it is simply alone there in its absolute purity, innocence.

First a man has to live in duality - sometimes sad, sometimes happy, again sad, again happy - and he goes on revolving. Then arises peace if you start becoming watchful. That is the second stage: peace. The duality is losing its hold on you.

Then arises ecstasy. Ecstasy is the goal.

God is not only silent. There are a few religions which have stopped at silence; they are not complete religions. For example, Jainism has stopped at peace, silence. I don't think Mahavir stopped there - he was an ecstatic man, tremendously ecstatic, madly ecstatic. But Jains have stopped at peace. Buddhists have also done that, they have stopped at peace. Buddha was not only a man of peace - certainly he was a man of peace, but he was more, he was plus.

That plus point is missing in Buddhism; it was in Buddha, but it is missing in Buddhism. So whenever a person starts meditating on Buddhist lines he becomes a little indifferent to happiness, unhappiness. He certainly becomes more peaceful, but his peacefulness has a certain quality of sadness in it, a certain quality of unaliveness. Looks a little frozen, he looks a little dead. He is not throbbing, life is not kicking in him. He is not full of juice, he is not juicy. He seems to be dry, desertlike, not blooming. That is the danger of Buddhist meditations. One has to go beyond it.

Always remember that peace is not the goal. The goal is ecstasy. Unless you can dance, unless you can abandon yourself in dance, unless your dance can become a deep orgasm, unless you can bloom, don't stop yourself somewhere in the middle of the journey.

"There is not even anything to UNDERSTAND, it seems."

You say 'it seems' - in fact, it is so. There is nothing to understand. Life is a mystery which transcends understanding. All understanding is just children's play. You can play around! The really mature person comes to know that there is nothing to understand. In fact, there is nobody to understand and nothing to be understood. Life is a mystery to be lived, not to be understood.

"Then, when I return to routine reality, I find I seek a meaning to give life some substance."

That's where you go wrong. You will have to bring your silence and peace back to your routine, normal life. If you again start finding some ways and means to fulfil the zero that is arising in you, to fill that emptiness that is arising in you; if you start finding ways, occupations, methods, relationships, to fill the gap that is coming to you, to have some substance - then you will be in a mess. Because on the one hand a great process is going on, and on the other hand you start destroying that process. Remain insubstantial! because that's how reality is.

That is one of the messages of Buddha, that there is no substance. Matter is immaterial and man has no self. Substance exists not. All desire to have some substance is out of ignorance, is out of fear. You are a nothing! a profound nothing, a bottomless abyss. So don't be afraid - fall into it, go on falling into it.

Don't try to hang by some roots somewhere, by some branch of a tree, or with somebody, some occupation, something or other. Don't try to hang anywhere - just drop yourself into this bottomless abyss. Dropping into it... dropping into it...

you disappear. You disappear like smoke.

And the day you have completely disappeared is the day of Nirvana - then you know who really you are.

Man is like a zero.

THE CONCEPT OF ZERO WAS BORN IN INDIA. In fact, the nine digits and zero were invented by Indians. But zero in itself is meaningless. It has meaning only when you join it together with some digit. If you put it behind one, it becomes meaningful - one becomes ten; zero carries the meaning of being equivalent to nine. If you put it behind two, it becomes twenty; the zero carries the meaning of nineteen now. You go on putting bigger figures in front of it and the zero goes on becoming bigger and bigger, and feels very substantial.

That's what we are doing in life. A man is born like a zero. Then put a bank- balance in front of him - he becomes substantial. Then tell him that "You have become the president of our country" - he becomes very substantial. The zero carries much meaning now: he has money, power, prestige, name, fame - then the zero becomes more and more substantial. That's why we hanker after name, fame, money, prestige: to put something so we don't feel empty.

But whatsoever you do is in vain, because empty you are. Emptiness is your nature. You can deceive, but you cannot change the reality.

So this is my suggestion, that even in your ordinary reality, when you descend from your meditative state, bring that zero - and don't try to fill it with anything, because that is very violent. That is like an elephant; that's what Indian scriptures say: The elephant goes to the river, he takes a good bath, showers himself with water, and then comes out of the river and throws dust upon himself. That's how Indian scriptures describe the man who goes into meditation, attains to the purity of nothingness, comes back, and throws dust upon himself. That is foolish, that is suicidal. Avoid it. That is a natural tendency, but avoid it. Don't be an elephant.

"I find I seek a meaning to give life some substance. That meaning is love. Is love something pertaining to the human dimension?"

The love that pertains to the human dimension is not really love; it is just a deep urge to fill oneself with the other's being, to put somebody else in front of your zero so you become meaningful. A woman alone feels nothing; moving with the husband, see the woman - she is moving with a figure, the zero is moving with a figure. A man alone feels empty; moving with a woman he feels somebody. A husband is somebody! A bachelor is nobody.

We go on finding somehow, with something, to block this experience of nothingness.

No, human love is not really love. It is just a trick to deceive. The real love is something beyond human. And the real love is something which has nothing to do with filling the inner space - just the contrary. It has something to do with sharing the inner space. You don't go like a beggar to the other; you go like an emperor. You don't go to beg; you go to share. And remember these two words.

If you are begging something from somebody, then it is not love. If you are sharing, then it is love. Sharing is in a way beyond human beings, and yet in a way within human capacity. Sharing is the bridge which joins the human to the Divine. That's why love is the bridge which joins the human to the Divine.

So don't try to find a friend, a girlfriend, somebody to fill your inner space. No.

Find someone to share with. Don't find a figure - one, two, three - don't find a figure. Find somebody who is also like a zero. When two zeros meet, there is love. When two emptinesses meet, there is love.

And remember: when two zeros meet, there are not two zeros - there is only one zero. Zero plus zero plus zero - you can go on putting as many zeros as you want, but it always comes to one zero. The total is never more than one zero.

Love is when two persons disappear. Love is when the lover is not and the beloved is not. Even in great love affairs, there are only a few rare moments when love is.

Let me tell you in this way: I have read many great poems, many great epics, but even in a great epic, even in Shakespeare, in Kalidas. in Tulsidas, in Milton, in Dante, only rarely are there a few lines which are poetic. Sometimes just a fragment of a line is poetic; sometimes only a word, just a nuance is poetic. Even in a great love affair that's how it is: only a few rare moments are of love. But only when you completely disappear and two are not two and a non-duality exists, and the personalities are no more clashing, personalities have been dropped - then love happens. That love has the quality of timelessness. That love has the quality of prayer. That love is God.

"Is love something pertaining to the human dimension?"

It can pertain to the human dimension - if you work for it, if you create opportunities for it, if you become vulnerable to it. Naturally, it is not available.

Ordinarily it is not available. Ordinarily only sex is available, and sex is nothing but a device - an UPAYA - to forget yourself.

Love is a tremendous remembering, a great awareness, a brilliant flame with no smoke. But it exists as a seed in you. You can grow it, you can grow into that reality of love. You have the potentiality, but it has to be made actual.

"Is it something we create, or is it ALL THERE IS and HERE for us to discover?"

No, we don't create it - love cannot be created. It cannot be manufactured; it is not man-made. Love that is manufactured is false love; it is like plastic flowers.

Love that is discovered is real love. You are not to manufacture it - you are to drift into it. You have to relax into it.

Yes, right is Buddha when he says: Become like a timber floating down the stream - you will reach to the ocean. I assure you, you will reach to the ocean.

The ocean is already there: the river has to discover it; it is not to create it. How can the river create the ocean? Just think of the ridiculous idea! - a river? How can it create the ocean? If a river creates an ocean, it will be just a small pool of water, it will not be an ocean, it will not be infinite. And if a river creates an ocean, it will become dirty, it will become stale, it will be dead.

The river has to seek and discover. The ocean exists already. The ocean exists before the river ever existed. In fact, the river has come out of the ocean, through the clouds. We reach ultimately to the original source, nowhere else. The river falls into the ocean because the river came out of the ocean. We become gods because we come out of God.

Love has to be discovered - it is already there. And how to discover it? The more you are, the less is the possibility to discover love; the less you are, the more is the possibility to discover it. When the river disappears into the ocean, it discovers the ocean - it becomes the ocean.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

THERE IS NOWHERE TO GO NOW. All going has stopped - because the one who used to go has disappeared. Wherever I am I am here and now. My room is as perfect as any other place anywhere, so what is the point of going anywhere?

It is pointless.

You go on searching, you go on going: sometimes to the club, sometimes to the movie, sometimes to the hotel, sometimes here, sometimes there. You go on continuously, because wherever you are you are not content. Wherever you are, you feel you must be missing something which must be happening somewhere else.

Of course, you become worried about me also: What does this man go on doing, sitting in his room? Doesn't he get fed up sometimes? Why isn't he going out?

Rather than asking me why I am not going out, please start asking why you go on going out.

It happened: Rabiya El Adaviya was sitting in her room meditating, praying.

Another mystic, Hassan, was staying with her. He came out, it was early morning, the sun was just on the horizon. It was beautiful. It was musical. It was magical. And he called out loudly: "Rabiya, why don't you come out?! God has created a beautiful dawn."

And Rabiya laughed and said, "Hassan, when will you become mature? Come in!

rather than calling me out. The dawn is beautiful, but here inside I am facing the Creator of the dawn."

Right, Rabiya is right: the outside is beautiful, but nothing to be compared with the inside. Once you have an inside view of things, who bothers about the outside? The outside is beautiful, nothing is wrong in it, but if you go on moving from one place to another and never come home you will remain in misery.

I don't go, not because it is a decision on my part: for the last twenty-two or three years I have not decided anything. The day I died, 21st March 1953, decision also died. I am not there, so who is to decide? So whatsoever happens, happens - and it is tremendously beautiful. More cannot be expected. It is more than man can ever desire.

Eighty-six year old Harry Hershfield was accosted by a prostitute outside the Lambs Club. Harry told her: "There are three reasons why I can't go with you.

First, I have no money - " The lady interrupted, "Then the other two reasons don't matter.

I have also three reasons why I don't go out. The first is: I am not - and the other two do not matter.

The sixth question:

Question 5:

THE FIRST THING: that which can be said is all untruth; that which cannot be said is the truth. All the scriptures are beautiful lies. And all the sermons of Buddhas and Christs are beautiful, decorated lies.

You ask me: "Please, be truthful for once in your life." You ask the impossible.

That I cannot do; nobody has ever done it - and nobody can ever do it. Truth cannot be expressed. And by saying it so clearly to you, I come the closest to truth that is possible. It cannot be said. And all that can be said will remain some sort of untruth.

Words destroy truth. Expression corrupts truth.

And you ask me about the towel: "Isn't it the case that the towel has nothing to do with the buffer-state of Tibet...?"

It has nothing to do with any buffer-state or any Tibet. Not at least today does it have anything to do with it. I cannot promise you about tomorrow, and I have forgotten everything about yesterday.

And all the esoteric meanings that are being given to it are simply stupid. But there are stupid people who need esoteric fabrications, esoteric theorizations.

Esotericism exists in the world because of the stupid human mind. Otherwise, everything has always been open, in front of you; nothing is hidden from the very beginning. How can truth be hidden? Maybe it cannot be expressed, but that doesn't mean that it is hidden. It is just in front of your eyes. It is all over the place. It is everywhere, within and without.

But it is good to understand how foolish theorizations can arise out of simple things. It was just a joke - but there are people who will not even believe this.

They will find some esoteric meaning in it, why I call it a joke. There are difficult people.

It has nothing to do with anything. It is the only thing that I have. Let me tell you one anecdote:

A hippie was walking down the street with a cigar-box under his arm when he met another hippie who asked, "Hey, man, What's cookin'? Where you goin' with that cigar-box?"

"I'm movin'," said the first hippie.

So this is something that whenever I want to move at least I can carry with me.

And I was ready to drop it, I had already dropped it - but Maneesha wouldn't allow it. Then she started asking about the robe.

I can drop that too, but that will create many difficulties - not for me, for you.

Just for your sake, I am not dropping the robe.

A sixty-year-old and an eighty-year-old met. The sixty-year-old said, "I don't know: I just can't seem to satisfy my wife. I try, but - nothing."

The eighty-year-old answered, "I have no problem whatsoever. Every night I come home and get undressed in front of my wife and I say, 'Take a look. Are you satisfied?' She shrugs 'yes' and that's it!"

People can go on finding rationalizations - now what type of satisfaction is this?

All esoteric explanations are like this, they don't satisfy you - because how can just verbal fabrications of ideas satisfy? Only truth can satisfy. And the truth is that it was just a joke.

I love jokes. And there is no need to find any esoteric meaning in them. They are simple. But it is difficult to accept any simple thing.

Pope Pius XII of Rome is arriving at Heaven's door. St. Peter opens, asks for his name and shakes his head, "Never heard."

'So go to God-father, he will recognize me," the Pope demanded.

Off St. Peter went. "Hey Boss, do you know a man called Pope Pius XII of Rome?"

"Never heard of him," is God-father's answer.

Peter, back at Heaven's door: "He doesn't know you."

"So go and ask Jesus."

St. Peter, already a little impatient, went off again: "Hey Junior, do you know a man called Pope Pius XII of Rome?"

Junior: "Never heard, never seen him."

Off St. Peter went to tell the desperate Pope the message." Do me a last favour," said the Pope, "ask the Holy Ghost."

Peter sighed and back in Heaven he called the Holy Ghost: "Hello Smoky, do you know Pope Pius XII of Rome?"

Smoky, murmuring: "Pope Pius, Pope Pius XII of Rome... send him to Hell!

That's the guy who told that dirty story about Mary and me!"

This was the man who invented the story of how Mary became pregnant - without ever being in love with any man. There are PUNDITS and scholars, but remember: nobody will recognize you at Heaven's gate.

Theories are just futile, but the mind craves and the mind wants to spin - around anything! Just see... around the towel. You are creating so much fuss about it. In Chinmaya's room great meetings go on, and people visit him and ask him, and he goes on explaining....

The last question:

Question 6:

THESE TOWELS ARE VERY TEMPERAMENTAL. I know them: a long love affair... twenty-five years is too much in this world where even to live with a woman that long has become impossible - three years at the most. Twenty-five years I have lived with that towel. They are very temperamental.

And I have spoilt them also. I have loved them, respected them, worshipped them. Now, Maitreya is a simple man. He must have put the towel somewhere - the towel won't like it that way. It is in his room, I assure you, but he will have to go through a little courtship. He will have to coo and woo. And that particular towel is a lady towel. Today I have a boy towel, so I give it to Maitreya: keep them together. They will feel better and happy.