Go on moving

the first question:

Question 1:

BECAUSE there are no wise questions, and there cannot be. A wise question exists not. Questioning as such is foolish. I am not condemning it, I am not saying don't ask. But remember, the questioning mind is a confused mind, and out of the confusion comes the question; whatsoever answer is given to it will enter into the confused mind again. That answer will be distorted. The confused mind will start playing on it and will create many more questions out of it. It is a vicious spiral.

No answer is going to help unless you understand that questioning in itself is futile, unless the understanding grows deep that questioning is meaningless.

There is nobody to answer your question. Existence is there without any explanations - and it is absolutely silent. You go on asking, it does not respond.

By and by you will understand that questions are meaningless - then they disappear.

The day questions disappear is a great day. On that very day the answer becomes available. The answer never comes through questioning, it comes when the questioning has disappeared. In fact, to say it comes is not right: when the questioning has disappeared you suddenly find that you are the answer, your very being is the answer. That is what you had been seeking and seeking for.

All questions are foolish; they have to be. And all answers are lies; they have to be - because you cannot answer a foolish question with truth. There will be no meeting between them. You ask a question, the Master goes on answering it - in the hope that by and by your questioning will disappear. That's the difference between a Master and a teacher.

A teacher believes that he can answer your question. He is also a fool, just like you. The Master knows there is no answer, but he goes on answering you in the hope that by and by you will start looking deeper. Your understanding will grow, and one day suddenly your questions will disappear. You will look inside and you will not find any questions. That very moment you become the answer...

you are the answer.

Meanwhile, continue to question. It is an unburdening process: only by questioning will you come to see that questions are futile. And one has to say whatsoever is.

I have heard....

A man rushed into a church, a Catholic church, went into the confessional booth and said, "Father, I have made love to a woman since the morning up to now, twenty-five times!"

Even the Father was surprised: he had listened to many confessions, his whole life had been just listening to confessions, but this was something new - twenty- five times since the morning?

He asked, "Are you married?"

The man said, "Yes, Father, to the same woman." So the Father relaxed and he said, "There is no problem; it is your wife, you can make love."

He said, "I know. And moreover, I'm not a Christian, nor am I a Catholic: I am a Jew. But I had to tell somebody!"

If something is burdening you, overburdening you, you have to tell somebody.

You can ask me; let them be foolish.

So when I say that all questions are foolish, I am not saying to stop asking.

Otherwise, old Paritosh would be in trouble - he has to bring questions. You continue asking....

And by not asking you will not be able to understand that questions are foolish, but by asking, and by my constant answering and yet not answering them. This is the whole process of awareness. You ask the question; when you ask a a question you think it is very serious, you ask a question and you think it is very profound, and then I answer it and I answer it with a joke. The whole profundity, the seriousness is gone; you start laughing. A great possibility is there that you will start laughing at your question, at the ridiculousness of it.

Life is there to be lived. Life has no question-mark; it is a mystery, there is no explanation. And it is good that there is none: it would be a great misfortune if there were an explanation. If there were an answer that could satisfy you, just think how flat things would become, how boring, how monotonous - because no answer can answer your questions. Life remains an adventure, it remains a constant search.

Searching, one day you come to a point where you understand that you are wasting your energies in searching. The same energies can be put to celebration.

You can enjoy.

These are two approaches towards life: the approach of the questioner, the seeker, the thinker, the philosopher; and the approach of the religious person, the mystic, the poet, the painter, the man of the heart. When a thinker enters into a garden he starts asking questions: "Why are trees green? Why are roses red?"

When a poet enters he starts singing a song about the red roses and the green trees. When a painter comes, he paints. When a mystic comes, he simply stands there in tremendous awe. His breathing stops, time stops; it is so ecstatic. The question does not arise at all.

The philosopher goes on asking. The artist goes on painting, creating the same beauty again and again. The mystic does neither: neither does he ask nor does he create the flower. He is simply there, standing in deep meditation, enjoying. The mystic knows the way of joy.

Learn the way of joy, learn the way of dance, at least learn the way of poetry; and unlearn the ways of the thinker, unlearn the ways that create questions in you.

But it will happen by and by. You will have to ask many questions.

A convict sits in his cell awaiting a murder trial. In walks a well-dressed lawyer.

The lawyer says, "I am the very best. You have nothing to worry about. I am going to prove that you are completely insane, or were in Europe at the time of the murder. Also, the witnesses are paid off and my uncle is the judge for your case. Meanwhile, try to escape."

There is no answer to any question. There is nobody to answer them, they have never been answered, they cannot be answered - by the very nature of things.

Meanwhile, go on asking. Because if you don't ask you will not move from the state where you are, and one should be moving.

That is one of the great secrets of life, that life is a movement. And if you are stuck somewhere you lose contact with life. Then you are fogged and clouded; then you are lost, and you don't know who are, and where you are going, and what is happening. You miss all the clues.

Go on moving. Wherever you are, one thing has to be remembered: don't get stuck. If your questioning helps you to move. good. A little movement from wherever you are is good; from that place you have to find another place - because you are in contact with life only when you are dynamic, moving. Life is a flux, life is a flow. Whenever you are stagnant you lose contact.

In the English language there is a beautiful word: 'affluence'. It has lost its original meaning. It has nothing to do with richness, it has nothing to do with luxuries, technological gadgets, a big palace and a big car and a great bank balance - it has nothing to do with these. You may be a millionaire and you may not be affluent.

'Affluence' means: one who is in the flow, one who is flowing. To be with the flow is to be affluent. The original meaning of the word is: to be in the flow, moving, flowing, not stuck. If you are flowing, moving with life, you are rich - and that is the only richness there is. All other richness is a false substitute.

So if your questions help you to move - I am not saying they will help you to find the answer, because there is none - but if your questioning helps you to move just a step further, good. It is time you should be moving.

Branihan was driving down the road. By the way the car weaved in and out of traffic, you could tell that Branihan was pickled to the gills.

"Where do you think you are going?" asked the motorcycle cop who finally stopped him.

"I'm coming home - hic - from a New Year's Eve party."

"Are you kidding?" asked the cop. "New Year's was three weeks ago!"

"I know," said Branihan. "That's why I figure I better be getting home."

You have been away from your home long enough. You should be getting home by now.

Anything that moves is good. A question, if real, helps you to move. Again, let me repeat: it is not going to help you to find the answer, because there is none.

But an authentic question that arises from your being is meaningful to you - it may be foolish to m e but is relevant to you; it may be irrelevant in the ultimate understanding of things, but if it is relevant to you let it be foolish, let it be absurd - you ask it. And my answer will just give you a push. You will be moving.

Keep moving. One thing has to be remembered: keep moving. Then you will be alive. That's why a question is more important than a belief. I say all questions are foolish, but they are nothing compared to beliefs. Beliefs are ABSOLUTELY stupid. Questions are only foolish. To be a fool can be fun. but to be stupid is ugly, to be idiotic is to be ill.

Beliefs are idiotic. Somebody says."I am a Hindu," somebody says, "I am a Christian," somebody says, "I am a Jaina," somebody says."I am a Buddh.st" - these are idiots, because belief means they have come to the answer. A questioner is at least moving; he has not come to the answer. He thinks he can come by questioning; that is why he is foolish. But still, he has not come to the answer. The man of belief who says "I am a Christian" has arrived. He thinks he has found the answer. Now, he is absolutely an idiot. He is stuck, his flow is completely gone. That's why you never see so-called religious people joyous.

You will never see them streaming with life, flowering.

The word 'flower' too MUST come from flow. I don't know exactly whether it comes from 'flow' or not, but it should come. Etymologically, linguistically, it may not come - I don't bother, I don't care a little bit. But it SHOULD come.

Flower - flow. And look at a flower; that's what flow is. The whole tree has come to a peak of its flowering. From the roots to the flower there is a continuous flow of life, energy, sap. And in the flower the tree has bloomed; that flow has come to sing a song. There is a dance, the tree has bloomed.

When all your questions disappear - not giving you any belief; all beliefs gone, all questions gone - then all stupidity, all foolishness will be gone. Then there is a flowering, a blooming, and that blooming is the answer. That answers all the questions. Suddenly you are in the know. There is no knowledge, but you are in the know. Suddenly you are at home. Then you are not struggling with life and enquiring about what it is. Now you know, from your deepest core of being, what it is. You have become it, you have allowed it to flow through you. Now you are no more separate from it.

The English word 'religion' is beautiful: it means to be together, to be married, to be tied together, to be in union. It means exactly what the Sanskrit word 'yoga' means - to be one. When your small flow is one with the flow of the whole, you are religious. When your small river falls into the great Ganges, and you start flowing with the Ganges and you lose your boundaries, you are religious.

'Religion' is as beautiful a word as 'yoga'. It means: you have now come to an ultimate marriage with the whole. Right now when you are stuck you are in a state of divorce, separation at least. You are moving like a small stream - not even moving; you have become a pool: stagnant, dying, stinking. Get out of it.

If your questions help you to move, go on asking. It is better to be questioning than to be believing, because a believer has stopped asking questions. His movement has stopped.

What do you mean when you say "I am a Christian". or "I am a Hindu", or "I am a Mohammedan"? What do you mean? - you mean, "Now there is no questioning in me. I'm TIRED of questioning; I have started believing." Then your whole life has shrunk. Then you are no longer expanding, then you are no longer exploring, then you are no longer enquiring.

To be a Mohammedan, to be a Hindu, to be a Christian, is worse than to be a questioner and an agnostic. It is better to be an agnostic and go on questioning - because if you go on questioning, and if you are courageous enough to go on questioning to the very end, one day it comes: you remain and the question disappears. Not that a belief is given to you; the question simply disappears and a trust arises, a trust in life. Not trust in the BIBLE, not trust in the VEDAS, not trust in the KORAN - but a trust in life from where all VEDAS and all KORANS, and all BIBLES come and disappear. That trust is the answer.

Become a flow. And go on using anything that helps. Go on questioning. I am not going to give you any answers. I am not a teacher. That's why many times you feel a little worried. You start thinking, "Why does he go on avoiding?" If you watch, directly I never answer your question, I answer something else. I just push you onward. I answer you in such a way that you can ask many more questions. This pushing of your energy towards the ultimate will bring a climax where the questioning mind explodes. And when the question is not, and the belief is not, suddenly mind itself has disappeared. In that state of no-mind you are at home. You have come home.

the second question:

Question 2:

From your standpoint that can be said - because whatsoever you think is real I think is unreal. So naturally, whatsoever I think is real looks unreal to you. But there is one advantage in which I am and you are not; and that advantage is: I have lived in your reality, in your so-called reality. I know both; you know only one.

I was where you are, so I KNOW your reality, and I know my reality now. I am in a better situation to judge who is real and who is unreal. You know only your state, you don't know my state. So wait a little rather than judging it. Come to my state also; then you are totally free to judge.

But whosoever has come to this state has never said that your world is real. Your world is maya: unreal, illusory. To judge you need to know both; only then can you compare. You cannot compare by knowing only one - how will you compare?

In the night when you fall asleep you start dreaming. In dreams, dreams look real - because in dreaming you lose all contact with the world, with the world that you have known when you were awake. Now there is no comparison; you cannot compare. For example: if you see a stone, a rock, in your dream, you cannot compare with the real rock that you have seen when you were awake because both rocks are never together. So of course the dream rock also looks real. How to judge it as unreal? because there is nothing except it to judge by.

There is no criterion. When you wake in the morning then you realize that it was unreal. But again your judgment is not right because now the dream rock is missing. Now you have the real rock, the so-called real rock, and the dream rock is missing. Again your judgment is not right: only one is there and the other is missing. How can you judge unless you have both together, in front of you?

There is another awakening. That's what we call Buddhahood: the ultimate awakening - when you not only awake from your dreams, but you awake from your so-called awakened state too. Then they both are available, and then you can see that both are dreams.

A few dreams are seen with closed eyes, a few dreams are seen with opened eyes, but both are dreams. And when you have awakened and there is no sleep left in you, when no part of your being is unconscious, you are absolutely conscious and your whole being is full of light, luminous, then only do you know what reality is. Right now you are asleep; all that you know is dream.

But I can understand the question. From where you are it will almost seem that I am dreaming. I talk about love; you also know love. But listening to me you become aware that I am talking about something else which is not possible. How can love be non-possessive? How can love be pure sharing, without any self, without any motivation? How can love be unconditional? You listen to me, you listen to my words, but you cannot feel the reality of those words - because you know a love which is conditional; you know a love which is always motivated; you know a love which is always based on selfish, desires; you know a love which is a trick to dominate and possess; you know a love which is really violent, aggressive.

So when you compare your love with my love, your love looks real to you, and my love looks utopian, like fantasy. That's why the world has never trusted Buddhas - because they talk about something which has nothing to do with your experience. It is SO beyond, it is SO transcendental, it is so far out, that you cannot comprehend it. It is incomprehensible. You cannot figure out what it is. In sheer desperation you cling to your reality and you say, "Forget all about it - these people are either mystics or mad; poets of the unknown, dreamers, eccentric, crazy. Forget all about them!"

You also cannot forget; that is the problem - because whenever you come close to a Buddha he hits something deep in your heart. Your mind may go on saying that he is a dreamer, but somewhere your heart starts feeling what he is saying.

Its fragrance approaches, reaches to the heart. What he is singing is heard somewhere, on some level of your being. Maybe it is not very conscious, maybe it is just like groping in the dark, but you have heard. And when you watch a Buddha, and if you are fortunate enough to be close to him, if you are blessed enough to become a disciple, to become an initiate, then by and by his reality will-become more real than your own reality. That is the meaning of surrender.

Many times you ask me, "What is the meaning of surrender?" The word is so big; there are many meanings. This is one of the deepest meanings: when you come to a man and you feel that he has gone beyond.... Of course, you can only feel; you don't have any conceptual possibility, any mental system to comprehend it.

You can only feel. It is very, very dark, but you can feel that it is very alive too.

You can feel that something HAS happened. Your mind wants to deny it, your ego wants to deny it, but your heart starts feeling hypnotized - as if a great magnet is pulling you towards some unknown center.

Surrender means: falling in love with someone who is almost unreal to you, and yet has an appeal. You surrender your reality; you say, "Okay, my reality is a dream and your reality is real. Now I'm ready: take me to your reality."

What is your reality really? Really, what is your reality? What is it except misery?

What is it except a few tiny glimpses of happiness, very fleeting? You cannot catch hold and they are gone, and again there is misery. What is your reality except an experience in hell?

I was reading:

A man arrived in hell and was given a guided tour by the devil.

"You may choose to spend eternity in one of these three rooms," he said.

In the first room people were standing up to their necks in hot water. The water was boiling and evaporating. The man shuddered and closed the door.

In the next room people were up to their necks in icy cold water, and they were shivering. This did not appeal to the man either.

With a smile, the devil opened the last door. The man was amazed and relieved, as the people were walking around in one foot of cow manure, drinking coffee and chatting pleasantly.

The man said, "This is for me," and began socializing.

A few minutes later one of the assistant devils came and called, "Coffee break is over. Back on your heads!"

So all happiness you know is just a coffee break, and again on your heads!

Just momentary allurements....

Months and years of misery, and then there comes a small moment. And again you desire that moment, and you are ready to suffer again. And even that moment has nothing much in it. If you look into it you will find it hollow inside.

Has what you call pleasure really anything substantial in it? Or is it just a hope so that you can carry on somehow in this hell? Without hope it would be too difficult. If there were no hope, how would you live? Even one day would be difficult; even to get out of the bed in the morning would be difficult. For what?

The question will arise, "Why? Why to get up again, and why to go the office again, and to the same rotten routine, and the same boss, and the same wife, and the same kids? For what? Enough is enough!" You will simply relax and die in your bed. What is the point in getting out of it? But the hope that that which has not happened may happen today... "Maybe the opportunity has now come for that which has not happened yet. One should be up and take the opportunity as it comes."

And it never comes really. All pleasure is in waiting, in hoping. All pleasure is in the future, in desire; it is never a reality. And you call it real?

My bliss is not in hope. I am not hoping for anything, I have abandoned all hope.

In fact, the day I abandoned all hope the reality happened to me. Through hope you don't allow reality to happen. The day you drop desiring, a great bliss descends on you. It was always there, but because of your desiring you were missing it. You were so constantly occupied with desire that you were not available to it, you were closed. Once desiring disappears you are open, you become available.

I have known your reality. I have lived in that misery as long as you have lived in it - for millennia, for many lives. Certainly it is difficult to believe in my bliss, in my truth. And the question arises, "This man may be dreaming."

But one thing I would like to say to you: even if this is a dream, even if it appears like a dream, it is better than your reality. Try it. You have nothing to lose - but still you are so afraid of losing it. Maybe you are so afraid of losing it so that you can go on thinking that you have something. The fear that you may lose it keeps you feeling that you have something to lose. But have you looked in your pocket? There is nothing. In fact there is a big hole. Your pocket holds nothing.

But afraid that you may come across the truth, you never look in your pocket.

Once I was travelling with Mulla Nasrudin. The conductor came and Nasrudin looked into this pocket and that, and the diary, and in the bag and the suitcase.

He searched everything, even my suitcase! And then he started looking in my pockets. I said, "Nasrudin, wait! What are you doing?"

He said, "My ticket is lost."

"It cannot be in my pocket or in my suitcase. Have you gone mad?" I was watching, and I told him, "I see that you don't look in your right-side pocket."

He said, "I cannot."

I said, "Why?"

He said, "If it is not there, then finished! Then it is nowhere! So first let me search for it everywhere. That is the last thing - because that means I don't have the ticket!"

You don't look in because you are afraid; maybe there is nothing.

Cooperman sold strawberries off his truck out in the suburbs. He knocked on the door of a house: "Wanna buy some strawberries?"

"Come around back," answered the pretty young blonde.

Cooperman walked to the rear, rang the bell and the woman opened the door. To Cooperman's shock she stood there stark naked, with not a stitch of clothes on.

Cooperman started to cry. "What is the matter?" asked the blonde.

"Today my wife ran away with my best friend," explained Cooperman. "I lost three thousand dollars on the stock market. And now you are gonna screw me out of my strawberries too!"

Now, only strawberries... but he is crying, afraid that now they are also gone.

What have you got with you? Not even strawberries.... And you are so afraid, so apprehensive, so continuously trembling. Nothing to lose!

Try my reality too; you will not be a loser. And I say it with such certainty because I know both realities. Your reality is just a make-believe; my reality is real.

You are in reality only when you are real. When your awareness is real you live in reality; when your awareness is faulty you live in the unreal. And you create it every day, but you don't seem to be aware.

What happens when you fall asleep? Why do dreams come when you are asleep?

- your consciousness is lower, very much lower; it almost disappears. Then dreams bubble up. Are you drunk? You take alcohol, and again you are in a dreamworld. Or you take acid, you take LSD or something like that; your consciousness is lowered, you are again in a dreamworld.

That's why it happens that LSD may not give you the same experience as it gave to your friend. Somebody may move into heaven, and somebody may move into hell - because it depends on your mind what type of dream you can create. LSD or any drug can only lower down your consciousness. It simply removes all barriers, it simply helps you to move in a private world - the world of the dream. And of course when you are on a drug trip things are tremendously beautiful, very psychedelic, very colorful.,.

But it depends. If you are a poet and you have lived with trees and flowers and birds, you will have a very beautiful world opening up. But if you are a butcher, then beware; then you will have the world of the butcher - a nightmare.

That's why different people going into drug trips come back with different experiences. Some say it was paradise, and some say it was hell. It depends on you.

You create the dream. The drug is not a dream-creating thing, the drug simply lowers your consciousness which does not allow dreaming. Sleep is needed for dreams. The more aware you are, the less possibility there is of dreaming. When you are perfectly aware dreams disappear. Then you don't create a dream; then you are simply face to face with that which is.

When you are real you live in a real world. And what do I mean when I say'when you are real'? - I mean when you are aware. That's what Buddha's message is.

the third question:

Question 3:

Ordinarily that which is called education is almost against meditation. It should not be so but it is so. The original meaning of the word 'education' is not against meditation. The original meaning is: to draw out. To educate means to draw out; whatsoever is hidden in the individual has to be drawn out. The individual has to flower - that is the original meaning of education.

That is what meditation is too: you have to flower in your own being. You don't know what you are going to be, you don't know what flowers will come to you, what will be their color and what will be their perfume - you don't know. You move into the unknown. You simply trust life-energy. It has given birth to you, it is your foundation, it is your being. You trust it. You know that you are a child of this universe, and this universe, if it has given birth to you, will take care too.

When you trust yourself you trust the whole universe also. And this universe is beautiful. Just see... so many flowers are born in this universe; how can you mistrust it? Such tremendous beauty is all around; how can you mistrust it? Such grandeur, such grace, from a small dust particle to the stars; such symmetry, such harmony; how can you mistrust it?

Basho has said, "If flowers are born out of this universe, then I trust it." Right?

That is enough logic, a great argument:"If this universe can give birth to so many beautiful flowers, if a rose is possible, I trust it. If a lotus is possible. I trust it."

Education is a trust in yourself and in existence, allowing whatsoever is hidden in you unfoldment; bringing whatsoever is in, out.

But that is not true of the so-called education that goes on in the world. Rather than bringing out, it forces things in. It simply pours in information. Again that word'information' is wrong; it should not be used - it is'out- formation'.'Information' means: formation inside you. Something should grow in you - then it is information. But nobody is bothered about you. The society is bothered about its own ideas, ideologies, prejudices, technology; they go on forcing you. Your head is used as a hollow place, so they have to provide the furniture. Ordinarily education, or whatsoever is available in the name of education, is nothing but stuffing your mind with knowledge - because knowledge has some utility. Nobody is bothered about you, nobody is bothered about your destiny They need more doctors, they need more engineers, they need more generals, they need more technicians, plumbers, electricians. So they need them; they force you to become a plumber, or they force you to become a doctor, or they force you to become an engineer.

I am not saying there is something wrong with being an engineer or a doctor, but there is certainly something wrong if it is forced from the outside. If somebody flowers into a doctor, then you will see a great healing happening around him.

Then he will be a born healer. He will really be a physician, his touch will be golden. He is born to be that.

But when it is forced from the outside and one takes it as a profession, because one has to live and one has to learn and earn one's living, one takes it over. Then one is crippled and crushed under the weight. One simply goes on dragging and dragging, and one day, dies. There has never been a moment of celebration in that life. Of course, he will leave much money for his children to become doctors in their own turn, to go to university, to the same university where he was destroyed. And his children will do the same to their children, and this is how things go on being transferred from one generation to another. No, I don't call this education. It is crime. It is really a miracle that in spite of this education sometimes a Buddha flowers in the world. It is a miracle. It is simply unbelievable how somebody can escape out of it: it is a methodology to kill you, it is arranged in such a way. And small children are caught in the mechanism of it, not knowing where they are going, not knowing what is being made of them.

By the time they become aware, they are completely corrupted, destroyed. By the time they can think about what to do with their lives, they are almost incapable of moving in any other direction.

By the time you are twenty-five or thirty, half the life is gone. Now to change seems to be too risky. You have become a doctor, your practice is going well; suddenly one day you realize that this is not the thing you were meant to be.

This is not for you - but now what to do? So go on pretending that you are a doctor. And if the doctor is not happy in being a doctor, he is not going to help any patient. He may drug the patient, he may give medicine, but he is not going to really be a healing force. When a doctor is really a doctor, a born doctor... and everybody is a born something. You may miss it, you may not even know it.

Somebody is a born poet; and you cannot make a poet. There is no way to manufacture poets. Somebody is a born painter; you cannot manufacture painters.

But things are very wrongly placed: the painter is working as a doctor, the doctor is working as a painter. The politician is there: maybe he could have been a good plumber but he has become a prime minister or a president. And the person who could have been a prime minister is a plumber.

This is why in the world there is so much chaos: everybody is wrongly placed, nobody is exactly where he should be. Right education will exactly be a path to meditation. Wrong education is a barrier to meditation because wrong education teaches you things which don't fit with you. And unless something fits with you and you fit with it, you can never be healthy and whole. You will suffer.

So ordinarily when an educated person becomes interested in meditation he has to unlearn whatsoever he has learned. He has to go back to his childhood again and start from there, from the ABC's That's why my insistence is for certain meditations in which you can again become a child.

When you dance you are more like a child than like a grown-up person. That's why you don't see dignitaries coming to me and to my meditations. Somebody is a commissioner, a collector - he cannot come, because he cannot dance. He is a commissioner, or he is a governor - how can he dance with ordinary people?

But if you cannot dance, you may be a governor, but you are dead I If you cannot sing like a child. you are a burden on the earth. It is better if you commit suicide.

At least you will vacate some space for somebody else to grow and flower. You are not going to flower; that is certain.

Men who have some respectability become very stuck because they cannot do anything - they cannot risk their respectability. They are afraid. They are not happy, they don't know what bliss is, they don't exactly know what being alive means - but they are respectable. So they cling to their respectability, and then die. They never live; they die before they ever start living. They are many people who die before they have ever lived.

My meditations are to bring you back to your childhood - when you were not respectable, when you could do crazy things, when you were innocent, uncorrupted by the society, when you had not learned any tricks of the world, when you were other-worldly, unworldly. I would like you to go back to that point; from there, start again. And this is your life. Respectability or money are booby prizes, they are not real prizes. Don't be deceived by them.

You cannot eat respectability, and you cannot eat money, and you cannot eat prestige. They are just games: meaningless, stupid, mediocre. if you are intelligent enough you will understand that you have to live your life and you are not to bother about other things. All other considerations are meaningless: it is your life. You have to live it authentically, lovingly, with great passion and with great compassion, with great energy. You have to become a tidal wave of bliss. Whatsoever is needed to do for it, do.

Unlearning will be needed. Unlearning means that you stop those wrong routes, you stop moving in those wrong ways that the society has forced persuaded you, seduced you to go in. You take charge of your own life; you become your own master.

That is the meaning of sannyas. That's why I call sannyasins SWAMI. 'SWAMI' means: one who has become a master of his own life. It has nothing to do with orthodox SWAMIS; they are not masters of their own lives. They are again on the same train, with the same society, with the same stupid power, prestige, politics.

A real sannyasin is one who does not care about others' opinions, who has decided to live his life as he wants to live it. I don't mean for you to be irresponsible. When you start living your life responsibly, you not only care about yourself, you care about others also - but in a totally different way.

Now you will take every care that you don't interfere in anybody else's life - this is what responsibility is. You don't allow anybody to interfere in your life, and naturally, you will not interfere in anybody's life. You don't want anybody to guide your life, you don't want your life to be a guided tow. A guided tour is not a tour at all. You want to explore on your own. You want to move in the forest without any map, so that you can also be a discoverer, so that you can also come to some fresh spots for the first time.

If you carry a map you always come to the spot where many have come before. It is never new, it is never original, it is never virgin. It is already contaminated, corrupted. Many have moved on it: a map even exists.

When I was a child, in the temple that my parents used to visit, I was surprised:

there were maps of heaven and hell and MOKSHA. One day I told my father, "If maps exist about MOKSHA, then I am not interested in it."

He said, "Why?" I said, "If maps exist, then it is already rotten. Many people have reached there, even map-makers have reached there. Everything is measured, and they know every spot, named and labelled. This seems to be just an extension of the same old world. It is nothing new. I would like to move in a world which has no map. I would like to be an explorer." That day I stopped going into the temple.

My father asked me, "Why don't you come now?"

I said, "You remove those maps. I cannot tolerate those maps there. They are very offensive. Just think about it: even MOKSHA IS measured? Then is there nothing immeasurable!"

And all the Buddhas have said that truth is immeasurable; all the Buddhas have said that truth is not only unknown, it is unknowable. It is an uncharted sea: you take your small boat and you go into the uncharted sea. You take the adventure.

It is risky, it is dangerous. But in risk and danger the soul flowers, becomes integrated.

To me, if education is right it will be just a part of meditation; meditation will be the last point in it. If education is right, then universities should not be against the universe. They should be just training-places, jumping-boards into the universe. If education is right, then it will not be concerned about money, and it will not be concerned about power and prestige. Then it will not be political at all.

If education is right it will be concerned about your bliss, your happiness, music, love, poetry, dance. It will teach you how to unfold. It will not go on simply throwing information into your head. It will help you to come out of your being, to flower, to grow, to spread, to expand. It will be a totally different education.

And naturally if education becomes involved with meditation it becomes religious. I don't call an education religious because it teaches the dogma of Christianity, or it teaches Hinduism. It is not religious. Education is religious if it makes you courageous enough to accept yourself, and live your life, and become an offering to God in your own way, in your own unique way.

the fourth question:

Question 4:

All greed is Jewish. 'Jew' is not the name of a certain race. No, anybody who is greedy is a Jew. And greed has nothing to do with money. Money is only one object of greed; anything can become the object.

KUNDALINI can become the object of greed; spiritual energy, psychic powers NIRVANA, enlightenment, can become the object of greed... but then you are a Jew.

Remember, 'Jew' is just a symbolic word: it represents greed. And there is no need to have new anecdotes. The old ones are perfectly good, and they will do.

Now that you have asked the question, you have tempted The new minister caught his parishioner coming out of the Ideal tavern. "I am sorry," he said, "to see you coming out of such a place. My son, drink is of the devil. When the devil asks you to join him, why do you not refuse?"

"I would, Reverend," said the man."But he might get sore and not ask me again."

You have tempted me, so I will tell you a few anecdotes. You may not ask again.

And remember, these Jewish anecdotes that I am going to tell you have nothing to do with Jews, they have something to do with your inner greed. By changing the object, nothing is changed. So the question is not of changing the objects, the question is of understanding the misery that greed brings. Once you understand it, greed is dropped.

The man walking along Broadway was confronted by the business-girl whispering, "Love for sale."

He said, "Sure, if you could do it the Jewish way."

She said, "If you teach me to do it the Jewish way, I will give it to you for half price."

He said, "That is the Jewish way."

Old man Feinstein's relatives gathered for the reading of his will after his death.

"Being of sound mind," read his lawyer, "I spent every last cent before I died."

"Being of sound mind I spent every last cent before I died." People really live in a very self-centered world. Naturally, if they become miserable, nobody is at fault except themselves - because all great happenings in life happen when you are not a self, when you are not greedy, when you are ready to share.

Love happens when you are ready to share with another human being. Prayer happens when you are ready to share with God. Meditation happens when you are ready to share with existence. Beauty happens when you are ready to share with a flower, or with a star, or with a bird on the wing.

Whenever you share, there is beauty, there is truth, there is happiness. Whenever you hoard, whenever you live only for yourself, you don't really live. To live for oneself is to live in a grave. If you really want to live, start sharing more and more, be less greedy. And more and more life will hap9en to you. It is a great sharing. If you inhale and you just close your mouth and your nose, afraid that if you exhale the air will go out, will no longer be yours; if you become a hoarder of air, you will die. But you take it in, it goes out; you take it in, it goes out: just like in-breathing and out-breathing is the whole rhythm of life.

One old Jew had to have open heart surgery. He called the medical society and asked for the best doctor in New York for this operation. They recommended the country's most famous surgeon, and old man Finkelstein went right to his office and arranged to have the operation. The operation was a complete success and the old Jew made a quick recovery.

After he was home from the hospital, he received a bill from the doctor for fifteen hundred dollars. He called the doctor and asked to see him.

Finkelstein looked at the doctor and said, "Doctor, I am an old man. For me to give you fifteen hundred dollars would mean spending almost all of my life's savings."

The doctor said, "All right. I normally get fifteen hundred dollars for this operation, but under the circumstances I will take seven hundred and fifty dollars."

Finkelstein looked very sad. He replied, "Doctor, seven hundred and fifty dollars is still a lot of money to an old man like me. After all, I don't work anymore, and it would take me a long time to save that much money again."

The doctor, completely frustrated, answered, "Okay. How about two hundred dollars?"

The old Jew said, "Two hundred dollars I know does not sound like much to you, but to me it is still a million dollars."

The doctor, completely annoyed, looked at the old man and said, "You win! I won't charge you a thing for this operation. It is on the house. There is only one thing I would like to know: before you came to me you knew I was one of the most expensive surgeons in the the United States. So why did you come?"

Finkelstein replied, "When it comes to my health, money is no object."

The mind that is full of greed, the mind that is constantly obsessed with money, is already in hell. It is already out of paradise - because paradise is there when you are simply not clinging to anything whatsoever. An unclinging state of mind is paradise.

Ordinarily we go on clinging. You leave the world; then you start clinging to something other-worldly. You drop out of the rat-race for money, then you start another race for spirituality, psychic powers, NIRVANA. But you remain the same: the same competitive mind, the same ambition to be ahead of all others.

To accept yourself wherever. you are.... And don't think in terms of competition!

You need not be anywhere else. Wherever you are, if you can be happy there, you have become religious, you have become spiritual. Spirituality knows no competition, spirituality knows no greed, spirituality knows no ambition - because spirituality means desirelessness.

But people go on changing from one side to another side, from one extreme to the other. That's why Buddha insists so much on being in the middle. You can drop all your money, you can dispense with your bank balance, you can renounce the world, but then you will start hoarding some subtle money, some subtle currency of virtue, PUNYA. YOU will start collecting: "How many fasts have I done, and how many good deeds have I done?" You will keep an account to show to God: "These good things I have done: now what is my award?"

To think in terms of award and result is to think in terms of greed. To think in terms of joy, to be joyful herenow, whatsoever you are doing, and never be bothered about the result of it, is to be out of greed. Then you can live in a palace and you can be surrounded with all the riches possible - and still you will not be greedy. Or you can renounce the world and live in a cave in the Himalayas, but if you are still ambitious, desirous, then you are greedy and you are worldly.

To be desireless is to be other-worldly.

The last anecdote:

Harry and Tilly were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary and invited their three sons, their wives and grand-children, to join them for a party.

The oldest son stood up and proposed a toast to his parents. He said, "Mom and Dad, I want you to know that no matter what I could think of to give you as a gift, I really could not think of anything good enough to give parents as wonderful as you."

The middle son stood up and said, "Mom and Dad, I hope you understand why I didn't bring you a present to celebrate this occasion. But I am sure you understand that we are in the midst of refurnishing our new summer home and we just could not find the time."

The third son, smiling, said, "Mom and Dad, I am sure you know how much I love you. Bringing you a present would not show you how sincere I am in my emotions."

The father then stood up, turned to his sons, and said, "My dear children, now that Mother and I have celebrated fifty years of living together, I feel it is time to tell you something. You know, when Mother and I met I was poor, she was poor, I did not have a job, we didn't even know where our next meal was coming from.

Would you believe it? We didn't even have enough money to buy a marriage licence."

The eldest son stood up, enraged, and asked, "Are you trying to tell us that we are bastards?"

The father smiled and answered, "Yes, and cheap ones too!"

In the ordinary world all of our relationships are money relationships. All relationships are money relationships: some power trip, some money trip, domination, ego. But if all your relationships are just money trips, trips of greed, then you don't know how to relate. And if you don't know how to relate you can never be fulfilled. Because it is in deep relationship that fulfillment arises.

There is a very ancient saying in Tibet: Whenever God gives you something, He never gives to you, He gives through you.

I have meditated on that saying for long: it is really of tremendous significance.

When God gives something to you, He never gives to you, He gives through you.

He gives to you, but His way is to give through you.

So if you are not sharing, you will start missing the gifts from God. If you are sharing, if you are non-greedy, if you simply go on sharing whatsoever you have - like a flower shares its fragrance, you go on sharing; like the cloud shares its rainwater with the earth, you go on sharing; like the sun shares its rays with all the trees, and all the human beings, and all the animals, you go on sharing whatsoever happens to you - you grow, more starts coming from you.

The more you give, the more you get - because God gives through you, He never gives to you. You simply function as a passage. If you stop giving, your passage shrinks and closes. When your passage is closed nothing can enter into you.

It is almost like when you dig a well: if you go on drawing water out of it, fresh water goes on welling up in it. The well is supplied from many fountains deep in the earth, fresh water goes on coming. If you stop drawing water, become greedy, start thinking in terms of miserliness: "If I go on taking water, one day the water may disappear and there may be no water in the well. Then what am I going to do?" So you cover your well, you stop taking water from it. Even if you need it for yourself, you go to the river, or you go to the public place and you get your water from there. And you keep your well completely closed. What will happen to your well? Do you know? No fresh water will ever come to it now - because for fresh water to come in, a space is needed. The old is filling the space, the new cannot come. And the old will become by and by stagnant, dead, and will start stinking. It will not then be possible for you to drink of it. It can become poisonous.

Stale water always becomes poisonous. It is better, if you are wise, that you will not only draw water for yourself, you will invite your neighbors to draw water from your well. And you will feel thankful that they drew water from your well because the fresh will be coming more and more. The more you draw, the more fresh water is available.

And the same is true about your innermost world: you are a well, and your fountains are connected with the divine, with the center of existence.

Share... and more will come to you. If you can share totally, not holding anything, the total will come to you. The coming from God will be exactly in the same proportion as you have given to others.

A sannyasin is one who has dropped desiring and has started sharing. A sannyasin cannot be a Jew; and if a Jew is a sannyasin then he will have to choose either to remain a Jew or to become a sannyasin. It is not possible for you to be both, you cannot be both together.

The Jew has to disappear for the sannyasin to be.