Three tickets for titsburg

Question 1:

Atit Yama, the longing to go beyond the mind is the only longing worthwhile. All that man desires and hopes for is utterly meaningless. In success, in failure, in every possible way it leads you nowhere.

It is not only that you feel the pain in failure -- the pain and the defeat and the agony.

Those who succeed also feel the same pain in a different way, perhaps more deeply than those who have failed, because they have succeeded in what they wanted and yet their inner being is as dark and as empty as ever. They have everything on the outside and nothing inside. In fact, all that they have succeeded in attaining, in achieving, becomes a contrast and shows their inner emptiness more clearly than those who have failed to attain.

It is just as if you write with white chalk on a white wall: it doesn't show. You have to write it on a blackboard and then it shows clearly. The emptiness, meaninglessness shows more clearly on the blackboard of success than it shows on the mind and its screen of failure. In failure there is still hope; in success there is no hope. You have already arrived, and your arrival is the death of all your hoping.

It is a very strange experience that the only successful lovers are those who never meet, are never allowed to meet by the society, by the parents, by the situations. They are the only successful lovers; the world remembers them for centuries. But once the lovers meet, then all hope and all romance from life simply evaporates.

There is one longing amongst all longings, and that is the longing to go beyond mind. But there is a contradiction in this longing, because all longing belongs to the mind: how can the mind long, desire, to go beyond itself? So the longing to go beyond mind has not to be understood in the same way as any other desire, any other ambition.

In fact to call it longing is not right. It is an understanding more than a desire. It is an understanding of the agony and the pain of mind that makes one feel it is better to go beyond. It is not something in the faraway future as a goal, but something that has to be allowed to happen right now.

If you can see what mind has done to you and what it is continuously doing to you, how much misery and how much suffering it goes on creating, then the very understanding of the misery of mind is enough to go beyond. You don't ask how to go beyond, you simply cannot remain in the mind. You are in the mind because you are not clear that your misery is caused by the mind. You go on throwing the responsibility on something or other.

Jean-Paul Sartre has said -- and when a man like Sartre says something it is significant; his statement has become immensely famous: "The other is hell." In an ordinary way it appears to be right, because you always suffer because of others: your wife deserts you; your husband does not love you; your children are turning into hippies. It is always the others who are creating misery; otherwise you would be in paradise.

In this ordinary sense his statement has meaning, and that's why it has become so famous and so important. But deep down it is rooted in ignorance.

The other is not hell, the other is only a mirror.

The other only reflects your mind, your face.

sI have heard an ancient parable...

A woman who was very ugly was against mirrors. She was so much against mirrors that she did not allow any mirror in her own home. Her antagonism was so deep that if she saw a mirror in somebody else's house the first thing she did was to break the mirror. And people asked, "What is the matter, why have you broken the mirror?"

She said, "The mirror makes me ugly; otherwise I am perfectly well. If there was no mirror, I would not have been ugly."

The same is the situation when Jean-Paul Sartre says that the other is hell. It is you, it is your mind. And because Sartre goes on depending on this understanding, a man of his caliber and genius never transcends mind, never even thinks of it. It is unfortunate that such beautiful people with such sharp intelligence remain unaware of a simple fact that in your relationships it is your mind that is reflected. In your misery it is your mind; in your jealousy it is your mind; in your hate it is your mind; in your lust for power it is your mind.

Once you see the multidimensional capacity of the mind to create hell for you, the very understanding takes you out of it. You don't have to long, you don't have to desire; you don't have to do anything else other than understand the mind.

Yama, you are saying to me, "I feel that the longing inside to go beyond the mind and experience something more is growing." Superficially, anybody will say that a spiritual desire has taken possession of you, but I am going to be a little hard on you.

First, the feeling is part of the mind, the longing is part of the mind, to have some experience is a desire of the mind... and to have something even more is the very nature of mind. It can be reduced to a simple statement: Mind always asks for more. It may be money or it may be meditation, it doesn't matter -- mind goes on asking for more.

Even if you get God himself, the mind will still ask the same thing: something more.

What are you going to do with this God? Now you are stuck forever. Just think of yourself getting stuck with God forever! The mind may even suggest to you, "It is better to lose this fellow rather than to remain stuck with him; either get something more... or even less will do, but a change is absolutely needed."

Mind is a continuous thirst for more.

It never finds fulfillment.

So you have to understand one thing, that this longing should not be part of the mind.

This desire to experience something more should not be mind deceiving you in the name of religion, in the name of spirituality.

The only way to avoid the mind and its deceptions -- and they are very subtle -- the only way is to drop these words: 'longing', 'experience', 'more'. Rather try to understand the mind, what it is. Look into every nook and corner of the mind, from where all desires arise, all longings arise, from where all passions arise. Just look into this source of all your life.

With the very understanding that the mind is the hell, you will find yourself beyond it; you will not have to go beyond it.

It is almost like when you find your house is on fire. When you see it on fire, you don't think and contemplate what to do. You don't consult holy scriptures for right instructions.

You simply jump out of the house -- whether it is a door or a window it doesn't matter; whether you are properly dressed or not it doesn't matter. You know a great crowd is waiting, but if you are in your bathroom and suddenly find the house is on fire, you will jump out of the window naked. You will forget to take even the towel with you. It is not a time to think of all these trivia and the crowd is not going to be angry with you, even in Poona. Even the police commissioner is not going to take any action against you. In such a situation ordinary laws don't apply.

The transcendence from mind has happened only to a very few people in the world. And the reason is that most people get deceived by the mind. The mind itself starts asking for transcendence, for going beyond, for searching the truth, and you forget that these are subtle devices of the mind to take you astray from one single thing: that is a deep understanding of mind itself.

Neither transcendence is needed nor going beyond is needed nor any spiritual experience is needed. What is needed is a total understanding of your mind and its structure and its functioning. And that very understanding, without any effort on your part, will become the transcendence, will take you beyond, will give you the experience that mind was only dreaming about and deceiving you.

Your question is certainly arising from the mind, because the next thing it says is: "It seems like such a long process." Understanding is not a long process. Understanding is immediate. You come across a snake on the road -- understanding does not take a long time. You simply jump out of the way without even thinking what you are doing.

In my childhood, in front of the house in which I used to live were only shops. On my side of the road there were residential houses, but on the opposite side there were only shops. So after nine o'clock at night the shops on the other side of the road were closed and it became utterly dark -at that time electricity had not come to my village -- and we used to frighten people, people who were very strong, particularly those who bragged so much about their strength.

Just nearby there was a gymnasium, the most famous in the area, where people were body-building, and they had champions. And we were very small but we knew that whether you are a champion or a great wrestler, it does not matter. We used to purchase paper snakes from the market and we would put them on the other side of the road attached with a thin black thread held in our hands, while we sat in our house. Nobody in the house was concerned that we were doing anything; we were simply sitting, just holding the thread and watching for the right person.

Whenever we would see some great wrestler coming we would start pulling our thread slowly. And as the snake came on the road the scene was worth seeing. The wrestler would forget everything: he was carrying a lamp in his hand, the lamp would fall down and the wrestler would run so fast -- sometimes he would fall down.

And a crowd would gather, "What has happened?"

And he would say, "There was such a great snake."

The people said, "This is strange, every night the snake appears."

One day they tried to look for the snake, "It has to be found because some day somebody is going to be killed by the snake." And they found a paper snake, they found the thread, and they found me hiding behind my grandfather's bed! Seeing that something difficult is happening, I simply put the thread around my grandfather's leg; he was asleep. The crowd woke him up -- I also was with the crowd, asking, "What you are doing?"

He said, "I was asleep. What is the matter? Who has put this thread around my leg?"

And the crowd also saw that he had been fast asleep and that somebody else was behind the game. And this snake appears every day after nine o'clock, and it has made people so afraid that many people have stopped going out of their houses after nine o'clock.

And they said to my grandfather, "Be watchful next time; just remain alert and watch who is doing this trick."

My grandfather knew who must be doing it. But I was with the crowd saying, "You have to be a little alert." And when everybody was gone he said, "You rascal! You are doing this. I have seen you in the daytime with that snake and that thread... but this is too much, that you put it around my leg."

I said, "There was no other way. There was nobody else except you. I was hiding behind you when I saw that I was going to be caught and I said, "It is good, because nobody can find fault with a sleeping old man. So you have to forgive me, but it was such an urgent situation."

When you come across a snake, whether it is paper or made of rubber or plastic or dead does not matter. It does not take any time to freak out; it is not a process. You say it is a long process, "such a long process -- does it have to take a long time?"

Somebody has sent me the Ashram's Law of Shortcut: The shortest distance between two points is always under construction.

It is very difficult to find any shortcut here... but there is no need either if you follow rightly my understanding, my approach. Time is not involved at all; neither is any kind of distance.

This very moment you can look at your mind, and you can see all that your mind contains. And that will be enough just to be finished with it. It is not a question of time; it is not a question of effort. It is only a question of clear understanding.

That's what we don't do. We fight with anger, we fight with jealousy, we fight with everything, but fighting never helps because it takes time. And fighting shows one thing absolutely: that you don't understand that by fighting you cannot go beyond mind.

Fighting is simply one part of mind fighting with another part. It is like making both my hands fight with each other. Do you think any hand is going to win? It depends on me; I can make the right hand win or I can change the idea and make the left hand win. But I know perfectly well that it is within my power: both hands are mine.

Any conflict in your mind, any split in your mind is just a game. You have become two teams, football teams or... And you can go on playing the game and you can enjoy that you are on a spiritual pilgrimage, that you are a great seeker -- but you are just playing football. And you are playing for both sides; there is no question of any victory, no question of any defeat.

That's what so-called religious people have been doing and are still doing. Their rituals, their prayers, their austerities certainly take time. And not only do they take time, they never arrive anywhere, they remain the same persons. Maybe they have repressed their sexuality, but the sexuality is there. Repressed, it becomes more dangerous because it becomes more deep-rooted in your unconscious, from where it will create a thousand and one perversions.

I have heard that three rabbis were standing on the railway station. They were going somewhere, obviously. And finally the youngest one said, "Now it seems the train is going to come and I should get the tickets."

So he went to the window and saw a beautiful woman working on her register. The young rabbi said to the woman, "Lady, how much will it cost for Titsburgh?" He forgot that he is going to Pittsburgh.

The woman was very angry, and said, "You are a religious man..." The rabbi felt very ashamed. He came back and told the other rabbis, "You can purchase the ticket because I am feeling very nervous, and in my nervousness I have said something wrong."

They said, "But tell us what you have said wrong."

He said, "I cannot repeat it. And don't make me feel more guilty; I am feeling very bad."

So the second rabbi, more elderly than the first, said, "I'm going. What kind of nervousness is this? Just purchasing the ticket..." And the moment he saw those beautiful tits he forgot everything -- his old age, his austerities, his rituals, his prayers; all were forgotten. And of course, because he was older he committed more mistakes because his unconscious and his repression were greater. He said, "Just give me three tickets for Titsburgh and the change you can give me in nipples."

The woman was outraged. She said, "You rascals! You are pretending to be rabbis? The first one came and now you have come, and you are worse than the first."

And the second rabbi came back trembling. Then the oldest rabbi said, "What is the matter with you idiots? Just purchasing a ticket... What happens on the window?"

The second one said, "You go and see yourself. Something goes wrong. I was not thinking that I can do such a stupid thing, but it simply came out."

The old rabbi said, "That window seems to be mysterious. But let me try." And of course he was a very strict disciplinarian, a perfectionist, and the oldest of all. He kept himself very alert seeing that two persons have failed and something is wrong there. He saw the tits but he understood immediately, Okay, so this is the problem: Pittsburgh must be becoming Titsburgh!

He took the right approach and said, "Lady, how much will it be for Pittsburgh?"

The lady said, "You are really a religious person. Those two fellows are so ungentlemanly. They should not be accepted as rabbis."

The rabbi said, "You are right. I will put them right, but I'm going to put you right too!

You are not dressed properly. And remember, when you die Saint Finger on the gate of heaven will show his peter at you!"

The old man became angry...

But you cannot get away from the repressed; it is going to come in some way or other.

Now Saint Peter becomes Saint Finger, and the poor finger becomes peter.

Perversions are the only achievement of the repressed approach of all your religions. It has created a very perverted humanity. I will not say to you to do something to transcend mind -- I will say to you: the only scientific approach is to understand. First understand mind, which is your reality. Why be in such a hurry of going beyond it without understanding it? Understand it and the very understanding is transcendence. The moment you have understood your mind you are beyond it. You will find yourself beyond it within a split second; it won't take any more time. It is not a process, it is a quantum leap.

My effort is to continuously emphasize that meditation is nothing but watching the mind, understanding the mind, seeing all its subtle and cunning ways. And once you have become perfectly aware of all its conscious, subconscious and unconscious layers you are already out of it. In your very watching you have gone beyond. And beyond the mind there is no desire for more, because beyond the mind you go on growing more and more into infinity. There is no need to desire, it happens spontaneously.

So the first thing is an understanding of the mind and the second thing is to rejoice in spontaneous growth.

The young nun rushed into the mother superior's office and exclaimed, "We have got a fresh case of syphilis in the convent!" The mother superior looked up and said, "Thank God. I'm sick to death of red wine!"

It is a little difficult. The nun has reported to the superior mother that they have received a fresh case of syphilis. And the superior mother said, "Thank God. I'm sick to death of red wine. Always red wine, red wine... At least something fresh has come."

A doctor received an urgent phone call. "Doctor," said the voice. "My wife swallowed my fountain pen two hours ago."

"Why did not you phone me sooner?" asked the doctor.

"I have been using my pencil up to now," replied the husband, "but the lead has broken and I don't have a sharpener."

Life is so ridiculous and so hilarious, that if you just try to understand your mind, you will have a great laugh at yourself and what you have been doing.

Once one of the girlfriends of Pablo Picasso said, "If my boyfriend would ever meet a woman on the street who looked like the women in his paintings he would fall over in a dead faint."

But Picasso is not aware what he is painting. The girlfriend is saying, "If some day on the road he meets the women he paints, he will forget all painting; he will faint and fall over on the road." But Picasso is not aware that all his paintings are nightmarish. And he has been working so hard on those paintings all his life. And he was a genius, but he must be absolutely unconscious of what he is doing.

What are you doing? What goes on in your mind? What kinds of paintings do you make?

What kinds of dreams come to you? What things make you jealous? What things make you infatuated? Just watch. You have been given, free of charge by your biology, a whole television set which needs no change of any batteries or any electricity; it runs continuously from the cradle to the grave. And who knows it may be running even in the grave.

Brain surgeons have become aware of the fact that the brain can be taken out from your skull and put into a mechanical head. All that it needs is oxygen and blood for everything to run through the mechanical head exactly as it used to run in your head on your body.

Your brain continues to function. It does not know that the man has changed. It goes on dreaming, it goes on thinking; it goes on making plans, it goes on being jealous.

Brain surgeons have been very shocked that the brain does not need you at all; it goes on by itself. And it is very frightening that a brain without a body, just mechanically supported for its nourishment is perfectly well and it goes on doing the same old exercises.

You are being used by your brain almost like a mechanical support, nothing much more.

This brain certainly has to be transcended, but to transcend it you are not to fall into the trap of taking any support from the same brain. If you take any support from it, you will never be able to get out of its trap. The only way not to take support is just to watch, wait and see all its functions. And you will feel immensely relieved immediately, because it has nothing to do with you, it is just a biocomputer.

And this understanding that "I am separate" is the transcendence, is what you mean by going beyond.

Question 2:

Shivam Suvarna, your question almost answers itself. But perhaps you have managed the answer only intellectually. Your question seems to be real, but it also implies the answer.

The answer seems to be your intellectual understanding of the situation.

I will read the question to make it clear to you, because that clarity will change everything.

"In my first few months here, while meditating, a few times I came across a very intense space where it was as if time had stopped. But now it does not happen, and I can feel that there is some expectance in me..."

That expectance is preventing it. And it seems that intellectually you understand it. You say, "... though I remember that the space only came when I was not looking for it. Even though I feel so good while meditating -- especially in your presence -- so full and rich inside, I wonder where those spaces went and how I can get back to the innocence of non-expectance."

Any method -- that's what you are asking for: How can I get back into that innocence of non-expectance? Any method, whatever its nature, will make things more complicated, because you will be doing it to get into a space which comes only when you are not expecting it. Intellectually you seem to have understood the fact that it was only when you were not expecting it, it came suddenly. And now there is a subtle expectance and you are wanting to know how to get into that state again.

You simply forget all about those spaces. You are feeling good in meditations, why bother about a space where it seemed as if time has stopped? What are you going to get out of it? And moreover, it was only "as if." Even if time had really stopped, what is the gain? Perhaps the battery of your quartz watch was finished... time stopped. There is no other time except in your watches.

A man charged into a jewelry shop, slammed his fist angrily on the counter, removed a wrist watch from his pocket and shook it under the nose of the saleswoman. "Damn it!

You said this watch would last me a lifetime," he roared.

"Yeah," said the woman, "but you looked pretty sick the day you got it."

Don't be bothered about time stopping, great spaces happening. Feel good because you are feeling rich and full inside. Enjoy this fullness; enjoy this richness. Become so much involved in it that perhaps you will find again that time stops, that again that space opens up, far bigger, far more deep, far more intense, because it will be the second time.

But you have to be involved in some rich experience so deeply that there is no need for it.

These things happen only when you don't need them. They follow the same law as banking: If you need money, no bank is going to give you any; if you don't need money, every bank is going to persuade you to have some. They are willing to give you as much money as you want for as long time as you want. Bankers seem to understand this wonderful working of existence. When someone needs something don't give, because it will be lost; it will never be returned. When somebody has so much money that he does not want anything -- he can open a bank himself -- then all the banks are ready to lend on lower interest rates.

Perhaps existence follows the same law. The more you run after something the less is the possibility of your getting it. The moment you stop, and you drop the very idea, suddenly you have got it.

And you can forget those spaces only if you can create another dimension of richness, affluence, blissfulness -- and that is opening up through your meditation so there is no need to worry. And worrying, you will not be a winner. Those spaces came by themselves. Let them come when they come. When they come enjoy them, when they don't come don't even look back, don't even think about them.

This is something very essential to learn on the path; otherwise, you will get stuck on every point. Whenever something beautiful happens, it will always happen without your knowing.

Unexpectedly the guest comes.

But you feel so good that you start expecting. Now you are going against the law. The guest has come only because you were not expecting, and now you are expecting -- not only expecting, but deep down demanding. And existence is very shy, it won't come. Get involved in something deeper and richer in another dimension. And that is happening for you, so there is no problem. You are not empty, you are feeling full and rich. Feel more rich and more full. Go deeper into meditation and you will forget those spaces, because your meditation will bring greater spaces, greater richness, greater experiences. And then suddenly, one day you will find not the same spaces that you had found, better ones; it is always getting better. On the path of meditation it is always getting better.

So never ask for anything to be repeated, because that way you will be a loser. Something better was going to happen and you were asking for something less. That past space had happened when you were not so deep in meditation. Now you are deep in meditation, you have earned more. You have become more worthy. At that time you were not feeling so rich and so full. Now you are feeling so rich and so full, you need not worry. Something greater will happen.

But if you go on asking and hoping for those same spaces, you will be preventing those spaces because existence never repeats. And you will be preventing better spaces because you are not looking for the future; you are looking backwards at the past.

There is no technique to forget. You are asking for a technique, how to become again innocent and be non-expecting. By any technique whatsoever it is not possible. It is possible to get better spaces. Why should you hanker for those old, rotten, already experienced? -- They are secondhand. Why not wait for fresher and deeper and more nourishing, more ecstatic experiences which are waiting ahead on the path? But, if you go on looking backwards, you are stuck.

Don't get stuck with anything.

Howsoever beautiful it is, there is a possibility of something better ahead.

I have always told a Sufi story...

An old man, a woodcutter, was so old, but still he had to go to chop wood in the forest and bring it back. He was just able to afford food one time a day, and he was in his old age. And when the woodcutter used to go in the forest, a Sufi mystic was always sitting on the way, under a tree, the same tree. He always used to touch the feet of the mystic, and the mystic used to laugh.

Finally, one day he could not contain his curiosity. He said, "I touch your feet twice every day, going into the forest and coming back from the forest. And it is strange, you always laugh -- Why? I am a poor man, uneducated, but this much I can understand: I am paying respect to you, and you are laughing. This does not seem to be appropriate."

The old man said, "I'm laughing because you are an idiot. Where you have been chopping wood, just a little ahead there is a copper mine. And with the same effort that you make in one day to get enough wood for your one meal, with the same effort you can get enough copper for two meals every day for seven days. Six days you can rest; one day you can work. I have been laughing because it is strange that a man has been coming this way his whole life and he never goes a little more. He always gets stuck with the same trees. And just ahead of those trees..."

The next day the man went a little ahead and he was surprised. He was very happy. He came and he touched the feet of the master and said, "I am sorry that I could not understand your laughter."

Then he used to come only once a week. But the master started laughing again. So he said, "What is the matter, why have you started laughing again?"

The master said, "You seem to be such a sticking guy. Just ahead of that mine there is a silver mine. Can't you imagine anything? Can't you see that there is so much ahead?"

He said, "I never thought about it. But you are strange also. You know -- why don't you tell me?"

And the master said, "There are a few things one should find for oneself; that helps your intelligence to grow. I had to say because my time is finished. And I cannot just wait anymore for you to discover. So just today go a little further and find a silver mine."

He found a silver mine. Now it was needed only to come once a month. But he got stuck there. And the master said, "I have never seen such a fellow. Don't you know that there exists gold too?"

He said, "Where?"

"Just a little ahead. And it seems that unless you are forced, you will not move," said the master.

That day he went a little ahead and found a big gold mine. He said, "My God, my whole life I could have carried so much gold I would have become almost a king! And that mystic is such a strange fellow. He knows everything and he never said anything to me."

But that day he thought "Now I have to make one effort on my own. Perhaps there is something more ahead."

And there was. There was a diamond mine. He said, "My God! So many diamonds. And that mystic knows everything? And he thinks I am an idiot! Now I think he is an idiot. He knows, and he goes on sitting under the tree doing nothing, just waiting for people to give something to him. And his disciples beg and bring food to him, and he knows all this.

And he thinks that I'm the idiot. Today I am going to tell him, 'You are an idiot. What are you doing sitting here, knowing all that perfectly well. I am an ignorant man and I don't know what is ahead, but you know.'" So he came back. With great courage he showed the diamonds and the mystic laughed.

He said, "That's good. But don't get stuck."

He said, "But what can be ahead of it?"

The mystic said, "Ahead of it? I am; otherwise why am I sitting here? I have something more valuable than diamonds. So when you are finished with your diamonds you come and sit under my feet. It is my last days and I would like to share with you something more than diamonds. But you had to pass through these stages; otherwise you would not have understood that this poor fellow, who depends on people's food, who is just a beggar, can have something inside him which is far more valuable than the whole diamond mine."

The old woodcutter dropped the diamonds there and he said, "I am finished. If that is the case then I am not going to leave you."

The old man said, "You can sit also. There is enough space under the tree. And it is beautiful and very shadowy. And my people bring food enough, so it will be enough for both."

The woodcutter said... he was an ignorant man, not a thinker, not a philosopher, not religious; he has never thought much, he has never dreamt; if he was brought to a psychoanalyst, the psychoanalyst will refuse him because he will not be cooperating. If he will ask him, "Tell me about your dreams," he will say, "I don't have any dreams."

Then the psychoanalyst cannot do anything. Without dreams he cannot help anybody.

He sat by the side of the saint. And as the night grew deeper, the silence and everything became quiet and calm. He also became quiet and calm and suddenly, he started feeling the vibration of the mysterious man. He could not see anything, but his heart was dancing. He could not say anything, but his whole being was for the first time in a state of joy. He has never known anything except misery, poverty and suffering.

Early in the morning, before he could even say thanks to the saint, the saint died. But he had left behind him another saint. When the followers of the old saint came they could not believe. The old man is dead but a new fellow is sitting by his side with the same vibe.

Those followers have tasted the joy and the peace of the old man. That's why they used to come from a faraway town to bring his food. Just to be with him for a few minutes was enough. It kept them running twenty-four hours, celebrating life. They could not believe that the old man has played such a game with them. He is gone but he has left a representative. They offered his food to the woodcutter and the woodcutter became the saint. Nothing was said, nobody declared that he was the successor, but he proved to be a far greater saint, because he was an ignorant man, and suddenly silence turned all his ignorance into innocence.

All that you need is to forget always what happens, and remember always there is much more. There is no need to long for it because it always happens whenever you are right.

Whenever you are in a right tuning you hear the music from the beyond. And whenever you are in a right space the whole existence celebrates with you.

There is no technique to forget, just a simple understanding. If a woodcutter can go ahead, why can't you go a little deeper into your meditation? That memory of a beautiful experience is holding you back. Forget all about it. It is not worth remembering because much more is there.

Keep yourself available for much more. On this path there is no poverty, there is always more and more richness.

On this path you don't become finally a beggar, you become an emperor.

The plane hit a storm and was going up and down and sideways. A little old lady was getting very nervous and suddenly she shouted, "Everybody on the plane pray!"

A Scotsman sitting next to her said, "I don't know how to pray."

"Well, do something religious!" the old lady cried.

So he got up, took off his hat and started making a collection.

That's the only thing he knows that is religion.

Don't just wait for those spaces, there are greater religious spaces ahead. Don't get stuck with prayers.

"Before sending you to the chair," said the judge to Moishe Finkelstein, "is there a last request you would like to make?"

"Yes, judge," said Moishe, "I would like to have a look at my wife first, then I will feel more like dying."

People have strange fixations. Don't bother about what happened in the past. What is happening right now is so beautiful, is it not? Then why create any disturbance. Just go deeper into it.

That which is available will open new skies and many, many spaces. And then you will wonder how foolish it was to expect your kindergarten experiences. Those were just little glimpses of the unknown. The whole unknown is still waiting for you to experience it.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Invitation