Be a rare person

Maneesha, Bankei is one of my most favorite Zen masters, but that does not mean that I agree with him on every point. With the essentials I am in absolute agreement, but with the non-essentials I disagree. And it has to be remembered by you that to love a man does not mean to agree with him or to disagree with him. Agreement and disagreement are far below the world of love. I love Bankei just for his own sake. He is a unique enlightened man with a tremendous vision of reality, but on the non-essentials I don't agree with him.

Perhaps the times have changed. Perhaps I am a different kind of person, and perhaps the people who are hearing me are a totally different world. I respond to Bankei according to you, I see Bankei in the context of you; otherwise Bankei has no meaning. We are discussing him for the simple reason that he may give some light to you on the path. Even if a slight glimpse of the ultimate is attained through him, it is more than enough.

I will tell you where I agree and where I don't agree, but as far as my love is concerned it is absolute. I love the man and respect him. But it is natural that as time changes, language changes. Symbols change, metaphors change, and everything that was said a thousand years ago cannot be repeated exactly, except by parrots.

Bankei had a great school of his own. He is still followed by thousands of people. I have met a few of Bankei's disciples, and when I told them that I agree on the fundamentals but I don't agree on the non-essentials, they could not believe me. They said, "If you love the master, if you have some feeling for him, then how can you disagree?"

My position is totally different. If you love a person only then do you have the right to disagree. If you don't love a person, what right have you got to disagree? Only love gives you the freedom of agreeing or not agreeing. Without love there is no freedom. You are forced to agree as all the religions of the world are doing -- forcing people in psychological ways to believe in certain things and not to believe in certain other things.

Their ways of forcing are very subtle, they are using your whole unenlightened unconscious mind. Your greed is expanded up to heaven. What is heaven or paradise except your greed multiplied by thousands? And what is hell except your fear? And what are all the priests of all the religions of the world doing? They are doing the same thing whether they are Mohammedans or Hindus or Christians or Jews. They are giving you a consolation in your misery, in your suffering; they are consoling you that it is not going to last forever -- this world is miserable but beyond this world open the doors of paradise and eternal pleasure, so just have a little patience. Karl Marx was not wrong when he said that religions have functioned as the opium of the people. I am not a Marxist but this statement I cannot deny, he is absolutely right. Religions have proved to be opium.

In Indian villages where women go to work in the fields, or somewhere where a road is being made, or a bridge is being made, and the women working have small children ... One day I was just walking by the side of the river, a bridge was being built and there was a small child under a tree, so happy, so joyous, so ecstatic. I could not believe ... what could be the cause of it? So I waited by the side of the tree. His mother was working on the bridge, and she came back to give some milk to the child. I said to her, "You have a really great child. I have never come across such a psychedelic child in my whole life."

She said, "It is nothing. We poor people, what can we do? We cannot afford somebody to take care of the child, so we give the child some opium. Whether he is hungry or thirsty, whether it is hot or cold, it does not matter. In his opium, he is enjoying paradise."

All the religions have been giving opium to their followers and hell to those who don't follow them. But it is not the way of authentic religion to use people's psychology -- their fears, their greed, their ambitions. It is not the way of love. It is very cruel because if you use people's greed you are not going to transform them. And you will be afraid if somebody else tries to transform them, because you cannot afford that they should drop their greed and their fear.

Very few people in the whole of history have been able to drop their fears and look directly into reality. There is no hell and there is no heaven, but there is a beautiful existence, so beautiful that your dreams cannot dream it. You have to realize it.

The authentic experienced master will not ask for your belief or disbelief, he will ask only for your inquiry. He will tell you that the well is not far away, so don't remain thirsty. If you are clinging to your suffering, nobody except you is responsible. You can drop all your suffering, all your misery, if you can just drop your mind. It is all mind phenomena.

I love Bankei. He was asked:

THE ANCESTRAL TEACHERS SINCE ANCIENT TIMES WERE GREATLY ENLIGHTENED THROUGH DIFFICULT AND PAINFUL PRACTICES. I HAVE HEARD THAT YOU, TOO, ACCOMPLISHED THE GREAT TEACHING THROUGH VARIOUS DIFFICULT PRACTICES. BUT FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME, WHO DON'T CULTIVATE PRACTICE, AND ARE NOT ENLIGHTENED, JUST REALIZING THAT MY VERY STATE IS THE UNBORN, ENLIGHTENED NO-MIND DOES NOT REALLY SETTLE ANYTHING.

For centuries there have been seekers divided on this point. There are seekers who say that enlightenment comes gradually. You have to work for it, you have to do many kinds of practices for it. It is a faraway star and the journey is tedious, and you almost have to pass through self-torture in the name of disciplining yourself. The other school says that enlightenment is always sudden. It is not a question of traveling anywhere or going anywhere, it is simply a question of awakening to your own self.

Perhaps in the night, in your dream you may have been visiting a faraway star. But as you wake up, you know you have not gone anywhere, you have always been here. Your mind feels misery, suffering; it feels all kinds of emotions, attachments, desires and longings, but it is all the projection of the mind. Behind the mind is your real self which has never gone anywhere.

It is always here and here.

So the question of enlightenment, whether it is gradual or sudden, is a very complicated one. Those who say it is gradual, they make steps, procedures, disciplines to be followed. And in this way, perhaps, after many lives you may become a buddha. The people who believe in sudden enlightenment have no discipline, no rules, except for a simple thing -- wake up, don't remain a somnambulist. Don't act out of sleep, act out of awakening!

So on the path of sudden enlightenment all that is needed is to go withinwards, to look inside and to find the point which can be aware twenty-four hours. And the point is there, you are just keeping your back towards it. Wherever you go, it is always with you. It is the very center of your existence; without it you cannot exist for a single moment.

The question is not of some gradual attainment or achievement. The question is of a great turning in. Our eyes look outside, our desires reach for the stars. Turning in means no desires, no greed, no paradise, no God -- just looking into your own space, what is hidden in you.

From where comes this life? From where comes this consciousness?

As you go deeper within yourself, you will find the center, and not only of yourself. It will be the center of the whole existence. At the center we meet, on the periphery we are separate.

We are separate only in our bodies, in our minds, but beyond body and mind we are just an ocean of consciousness. There is no 'I am', there is simply pure awareness with no distinctions, no divisions.

In the moment of enlightenment even the trees and the birds and the mountains -- everything becomes enlightened. There is a saying of Gautam Buddha, "The moment I became enlightened, the whole universe became enlightened." It could be disputed, because we can see that we are not enlightened, but his meaning is totally different. He is speaking for himself. From that moment everything becomes enlightened because he has seen the very root from where life arises and goes on eternally arising, with no beginning, no end.

Bankei was asked, "In the ancient times sages used to practice difficult and arduous disciplines and then finally after many years, after many lives, they became enlightened. But in your case it seems to be different. You have not practiced any discipline, you have not tortured yourself by fasting. You have not distorted your body by yoga. How did you become enlightened?"

BANKEI REPLIED: IT IS LIKE THE CASE OF TRAVELERS WHO CROSS THE PEAKS OF HIGH MOUNTAINS WHERE THERE IS NO WATER, AND BECOME THIRSTY. SOMEONE SEEKS OUT WATER IN A DISTANT VALLEY, BREAKING HIS BACK SEARCHING HERE AND THERE. FINALLY, HE FINDS WATER AND BRINGS IT BACK TO GIVE TO THE OTHERS TO DRINK.

EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE NOT STRUGGLED SO, THOSE WHO DRINK ARE REFRESHED, JUST THE SAME AS THE ONE WHO WENT THROUGH THE TROUBLE BEFORE.

I don't agree on this point. Everybody has to find his own enlightenment. Nobody can give it to you.

Bankei is saying that somebody else can bring the water. About water it is okay, it is something objective and outside. Water can be brought, but nobody can bring enlightenment to you.

It has to be very deeply understood that enlightenment is an individual revolution.

Somebody can give you a challenge, somebody can provoke you to the search, somebody's presence may infect you, but nobody can give you enlightenment.

If it was something that could be given, it would have been very easy to make the whole world enlightened. It could be patented, marketed -- then you just go to the M.G.Road and have a little drink of enlightenment; then the rich will gather great amounts of enlightenment and the poor will suffer.

At least as far as enlightenment is concerned, don't make it a material, quantitative phenomenon. It is a subjective, qualitative experience just like love. Can you give love to somebody? There is no way. You can love somebody, but you cannot give love to somebody.

Love is your inner experience, so deep that you cannot even define what it is. All the poets, all the philosophers have been trying to define what love is. And thousands of years of search and enquiry have resulted only in the simple statement that love is indefinable. You can sing it, you can dance it, but you cannot define it. Exactly the same, on a higher level, is enlightenment.

According to me love is the lowest rung of the ladder and enlightenment is the highest.

They have a similarity on many points. They both happen suddenly -- you fall in love and if somebody asks you why, you simply shrug your shoulders. You cannot answer why. Love is not something to be questioned. You don't know yourself, it just happens.

Enlightenment is the same kind of phenomenon on a higher peak. It just happens. It happens when you are silent, looking inwards. Just like lightning, you suddenly become aware, full of light, luminous. It is not an answer to any question. All questions and all answers dissolve into the luminous splendor of your own inner being.

I differ from Bankei in saying that nobody else can give it to you. If somebody has found it, perhaps he can inspire you -- not by his words, but by his very being, by his every gesture, by his every look. You can see that a different kind of presence surrounds the man, a different kind of silence radiates from him. You can have a taste from somebody else, but nobody can give it to you.

It used to happen that seekers would come to Gautam Buddha. A great philosopher of those times, Maulingaputta, came with his five hundred disciples. He himself was a well-known teacher, and he had come to challenge Gautam Buddha to a debate; that's why he had brought all his disciples.

In India it was a common phenomenon that has now disappeared ... it was so beautiful -- but now to challenge somebody seems to be a way to create enemies. For centuries it was not considered that way in India; challenging was simply a matter of coming face to face, with inquiring, penetrating questions, and finding out who has gone deeper. The one who went deeper was victorious. It was a very loving phenomenon, very friendly.

Maulingaputta said to Gautam Buddha, "I have come here to pay my respects to you and also to challenge you."

Buddha said, "I love your challenge. But you will have to fulfill a condition which I have been keeping my whole life. I cannot make any exception."

At that time there were ten thousand monks, disciples of Buddha. Maulingaputta said, "Any condition, and I am ready to accept it."

So Buddha said, "The condition is that you have to sit by my side for two years, silently -- no question, no answer. After two years I will tell you, now you can question."

Bankei's lineage comes from Mahakashyap. Mahakashyap was a rare being, nobody had ever heard him speak. He never asked any question, he never answered anybody, even a hello was too much. People simply passed by his side as if he was not. He had a special tree where he used to sit whenever Buddha was speaking. When Buddha said to Maulingaputta, "You have to sit for two years silently by my side and then you can have any inquiry, any debate, any discussion, any question," there was suddenly a great outburst -- Mahakashyap laughed loudly.

The whole assembly felt very strange because this man had never talked to anybody, and there was no special reason that he should laugh. But he must have been a reincarnation of Sardar Gurudayal Singh, or vice versa. Sardar is the only man in the whole world who can laugh before a joke is told. It does not matter, what matters is the laughter. Why not enjoy it, why wait? It is a deep trust that something good will be coming.

Maulingaputta said, "Why is this fellow laughing?"

Buddha said, "You can ask him yourself. He is a rare person, he never speaks. In the twenty years he has been with me he has never asked any question. It is for the first time that suddenly he has exploded in laughter."

So Maulingaputta asked Mahakashyap, "Why did you laugh?"

Mahakashyap said, "I laughed because this fellow Gautam Buddha is a tricky guy. He tricked me with the same trick; he told me to sit for two years and I have been sitting for twenty years! Now the desire to question or to debate has been left miles back. So if you want to ask, ask now; otherwise you will be sitting just like me. And there are many other monks who will be witnesses to what I am saying."

Buddha had a lotus flower in his hand. At that moment he called Mahakashyap and gave the lotus flower to him with the words, "What I have been able to say, I have said to everybody. And what I have not been able to say, I transfer it to you."

This is called in Zen the transmission of the lamp. Nothing is said. But in twenty years of silence one becomes enlightened oneself. It is not something that Buddha has given. Buddha has simply created a situation.

Maulingaputta remained silent for two years and he even forgot the time, that two years had passed. It was Buddha who had to remind him, "Maulingaputta, now two years have passed. Come on and confront me."

He came and touched Gautam Buddha's feet and he said, "I am sorry, I was arrogant. I did not understand what enlightenment is. Now don't make me more ashamed. Just being in silence for two years all thoughts have disappeared. A deep silence reigns inside and I have found myself and the beauty and the truth and the good -- all together in my own being. Now there is no seeking, no search. Mahakashyap was right."

After touching the feet of Gautam Buddha, he touched the feet of Mahakashyap. It is on this account that Mahakashyap is thought to be the first Zen master. He was a disciple of Buddha, but he started a new tradition, of people who simply sit silently for years.

You remember Basho -- and today there are many poets here, they will understand Basho -- perhaps one of the greatest poets the world has produced.

SITTING SILENTLY DOING NOTHING SPRING COMES AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF.

The whole philosophy of Zen is contained in this simple statement, this small haiku.

SITTING SILENTLY DOING NOTHING SPRING COMES AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF.

You don't have to do anything. Enlightenment is not your doing. And it is not a gift. You already are enlightened, just you have not looked in the right direction. The difference between the enlightened being and the unenlightened is not much; it is negligible. One has looked into himself, the other has not looked into himself. This is not much of a difference. At any moment the other can also look into himself. Perhaps when your eyes are tired of looking outside, you close them in utter boredom and tiredness and look inside.

You have searched much and found nothing outside. You look in and suddenly all that you were seeking is already there. You have come with it into the world, it is your intrinsic quality.

Bankei is saying that someone else can bring the water, but it is not a right way of explaining it.

He says:

AS FOR THOSE WHO ARE DOUBTFUL AND WILL NOT DRINK, THERE IS NO WAY FOR THEIR THIRST TO BE QUENCHED. BECAUSE I DID NOT MEET SOMEONE WITH ENLIGHTENED EYES, I MISTAKENLY WORE MYSELF OUT. I FINALLY DISCOVERED THE BUDDHA IN MY OWN NO-MIND, AND AM TELLING EVERYONE ABOUT THE BUDDHA OF THEIR OWN NO-MIND, WITHOUT THEM HAVING TO DO ANYTHING DIFFICULT -- JUST LIKE DRINKING WATER AND HAVING THEIR THIRST QUENCHED.

On this point I am in absolute agreement. Bankei himself became suddenly enlightened although he had been trying. I have to remind you of Gautam Buddha himself. For six years continually he tried all the methods and all the disciplines available in those days, but nothing happened. He became so tired, so utterly bored, that one full-moon night sitting under a tree, he dropped even the desire for enlightenment. He had dropped all other desires. The only desire that he had been carrying for six years -- on that full-moon night he dropped that too.

Utterly desireless he slept a tremendously deep sleep. And as he woke up in the morning, the last star was setting, and as the last star disappeared, he became enlightened.

It was not those six years of training that made him enlightened, it was that relaxed night, that utter let-go. There was no desire, no ambition, the mind had no function at all. When you don't have any desire, any ambition, any longing, mind disappears, because mind is nothing but a combination of all these things. It is not an entity in itself, it is only a combination, just like my fist. A fist is not an entity, it is just the five fingers closed. You open the fingers and the fist has disappeared.

Mind is not a reality. It is not a fact, it is simply a combination of all desires. Even a single desire is enough to keep it breathing. But when the last desire drops, and that can only be the desire of enlightenment ... in the morning he woke up without a mind. In the morning he was a no-mind, so silent, so peaceful. Watching the last star disappearing, he also watched himself disappearing. He remained just a watcher.

This state of watchfulness is your pure consciousness. And it is not yours, it is the universal consciousness. You can call it awakening, you can call it buddhahood, you can call it enlightenment, names don't matter.

USING THE ENLIGHTENED NO-MIND INHERENT IN EVERYONE, JUST AS IT IS, HAVING FOUND PEACE AND BLISS, WITHOUT THE DIFFICULTIES OF CONFUSION -- IS THIS NOT A SACRED TRUE TEACHING?

AT ANOTHER TIME SOMEONE ASKED BANKEI, "IS THE COMPLETE ILLUMINATION OF THE EYE OF REALITY ACCOMPLISHED WITH TIME AND SEASON, OR IS IT REALIZED EVEN IN ONE DAY?"

BANKEI REPLIED, "IT IS NOT A MATTER OF TIME AND SEASON; IT IS ACCOMPLISHED ONLY WHEN THE EYE OF THE WAY IS CLEAR, WITHOUT ANY GAP. IT IS ACCOMPLISHED BY THE PRACTICE OF SINGLE-MINDED DEVOTION TO NURTURING IT."

He is making a great statement. He is saying that it is not a question of time, it is not a question of season.

In my village one old priest was very much respected as a wise man. I used to go to him.

And to any question that I ever asked him, he would say, "Wait. At the right time, in the right season, you will find the answer."

I came back from the university and I went to see the old man; he was dying. I said to him, "You have been deceiving me. I have been waiting for the right moment and the right season.

It has not come. And I want to ask you, at least while you are dying, to be honest. Tell me, has your right time come?"

He had tears in his eyes. He said, "Forgive me, I used to say that to everyone, just to avoid their question -- because I don't know the answer. I am myself as ignorant as anybody but people think I am a wise man, and by and by they have convinced me that I am a wise man. I too have started believing in it."

I said, "At least now drop that belief. Die as ignorant as you are. Your whole life you have been dishonest, but even a single moment before death, if you are honest, perhaps the right time and the right season may come suddenly." And actually it happened. He closed his eyes, and I was sitting by his side and I saw the change happening around his energy; there was a freshness, a different fragrance. His old face became so beautiful -- wrinkled with age, but now showing a maturity.

He opened his eyes and he took my hand in his hand and he said, "I cannot be more grateful to anybody in my life than to you, although you have not done anything. But seeing the fact that death is coming, I closed my eyes and for the first time I looked inwards. It was there, it has always been there." He died an enlightened man. He lived unenlightened, in misery, in suffering, but he died enlightened, in tremendous joy.

He told me, "Nobody should weep or cry; nobody should be sad or serious because my death is an illumination. What life has not been able to give me, my death has given to me.

Celebrate! Tell the people that my death has to be celebrated."

And when I told the people, they wouldn't believe me. I said, "Whether you believe me or not, that old man's last wish should be fulfilled. If you cannot celebrate I will have to bring my friends, and we will celebrate."

I had to gather people, and they were hesitant because death is not celebrated, death is a calamity. But the death of an enlightened being, and particularly a death which makes a man enlightened, has to be a festival. It is far more valuable than birth. Birth brings you life.

Enlightened death brings you eternal life, a timeless ecstasy, a blissfulness that never ends.

Daio wrote:

THE SPHERE OF PERFECT COMMUNION IS CLEAR EVERYWHERE.

THE WATER IS ALIVE, THE WILLOW EYES ARE GREEN.

WHY ARE PEOPLE THESE DAYS IN SUCH A GREAT HURRY?

IN EACH LAND, THE SPHERE OF PERFECT COMMUNION.

THOSE WHO GO RIGHT IN ARE RARE.

Daio is saying: everything is so beautiful, the stars and the trees and the birds, why can't you simply sing and dance and join into the cosmos? Where are you hurrying to? Wherever you go you will be frustrated, because the thing that you are trying to find is hidden within you.

This very moment can become your illumination. Not a single step has to be taken.

IN EACH LAND, THE SPHERE OF PERFECT COMMUNION.

THOSE WHO GO RIGHT IN ARE RARE.

Just go right in, be a rare person! Don't search it outside. This is the whole teaching of all the buddhas.

Question 1 Maneesha has asked one question:

OUR

I HAVE MET SOMEONE WITH ENLIGHTENED EYES WHO DOES NOT JUST BRING US WATER TO DRINK, BUT SHOWERS US WITH IT. AND YET, AND YET ...

ARE WE SO NEUROTIC, SO COMPLEX, SO FAR REMOVED FROM INNOCENCE, THAT WE CAN ONLY RECEIVE THAT FOR WHICH WE HAVE SUFFERED?

It is the whole wrong training of the religions, of the societies, of the cultures, which says that unless you deserve a thing, unless you are worthy of it, you cannot get it. That is the reason, Maneesha, that if I tell you that you are enlightened, you look here and there. You cannot trust -- "My god, I am enlightened! And I have not done anything. I have not tortured myself, I have not prayed. I have not fasted, I don't know the scriptures."

But I say to you that for everything except enlightenment you will have to work. If you want money, you cannot sit with closed eyes. If you sit with closed eyes, you may even lose money -- somebody may cut your pocket. For money you have to work hard. If you want political power, you have to work hard. You have to be cunning, you have to be dishonest, you have to be a hypocrite. You have to use all kinds of right or wrong means to achieve the end. Only enlightenment, in the whole phenomenon of existence, is without any need to deserve it.

It is already there. You can deny it as long as you want, you can find excuses as long as you want, but finally you will be tired of excuses and you will have to accept it -- "Yes, I am enlightened."

It is just a totally different phenomenon. It is neither money, nor power, nor prestige, nor reputation. You don't have to learn it, you don't have to earn it. It is in your very heart, it is your heartbeat. You have just to look into your own being.

Now something really serious. You see, Sardar Gurudayal Singh already laughs. And it is a difficult one, Sardar!

Before I tell the joke, I have to tell you that if you tell a joke to an Englishman, he laughs twice. Once, not to look stupid; and again in the middle of the night when he gets it. If you tell the same joke to a German, he simply wonders why people are laughing. My oldest sannyasin, Haridas, is here. He is from Germany. He has been with me almost for fifteen years, but even today he asks people, "Why were you laughing?" The German mind has a speciality, it is a very serious mind. Laughing is a non-serious affair.

If you tell the same joke to a Jew, he will interrupt you in the middle. He will say, "Shut up. This is an old joke and moreover you are telling it all wrong." It is very difficult to make a Jew laugh at a joke because almost all the jokes are Jewish. That is their monopoly. And the reason is that they have suffered most in the world. Just to keep going, they have had to find something to laugh at; otherwise life was nothing but suffering.

Since Moses left Egypt with his followers to find the holy land in Israel, for four thousand years the Jews have been continuously in suffering. It has not stopped for a single moment.

Adolf Hitler alone killed six million Jews. But because of their continuous suffering they had to invent something to laugh at, something to enjoy. There was nothing in their life to laugh about.

I have always wondered that there is not a single joke which is Indian. I have been searching for a long time to find a single Indian joke, but it is because India has never suffered. Even in its poverty, even in its slavery, its religion was so much that it kept it patient, like opium. The rationalization is that you are suffering because of your past lives' evil acts.

The explanation is that if you suffer peacefully, your gain in the world beyond life is going to be great.

It is certainly a very poor phenomenon. India has been a serious land of seers, of saints.

You don't expect a saint to tell a joke. Can you imagine Mahavira laughing? It will be as strange as meeting a buffalo laughing. You can believe in the buffalo, but you cannot believe that Mahavir will laugh.

Mabel is putting her hair up in curlers in front of the mirror in her room at the Dark Shadows Hotel.

"Do you realize, George," she says, "that this room is supposed to be haunted by a blood-thirsty ghost that returns every year on this date at midnight to find a human sacrifice?

"George ...? George ...?"

Do you see that Sardar Gurudayal has not laughed? In the middle of the night he will get the idea.

Wu, the Chinaman, always eats at Plato Salado's Greek restaurant, because Plato makes such good fried rice.

Every night, Wu comes in, sits down, and orders "flied lice". And every night, Plato collapses laughing when he hears Wu making his order. Sometimes, Plato even tells all the other customers to be quiet and listen to Wu asking for his "flied lice".

Finally, Wu gets really pissed off and decides to practice saying "fried rice" correctly.

The next time Wu goes into Plato's restaurant, he announces very plainly, "Fried rice, please."

Plato looks up in shock.

"What did you say?" asks the Greek.

"You heard what I said," shouts back Wu, "you flucking Gleek plick!"

Rainbow Banana-Kiss, the aging hippy, is puffing away frantically on his reefer in complete distress over his failing marriage. Desperate, he picks up the phone, pulls out a phone number that he has been keeping in his pocket, and dials it.

"Hello," says the tape-recorded voice at the other end, "this is Julie Frostbelly of Soulmate Divorce Company.

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Channels and psychics confirmed what you already knew intuitively, that you had found your soulmate.

"Now, it is years later," the taped voice goes on. "The glow is gone. The sex is ordinary, and your soulmate is a pain in the neck. Your partner takes the biggest piece of cake, wants more money, and falls in love with any shmuck that walks by and winks. Face it -- the relationship is dead.

"Soulmate Divorce is here to help you. Our attorneys , Boris Babblebrain and Henry Hypojerk, will get you a complete legal divorce in keeping with your cosmic lifestyle.

"Through creative therapy, you can make crucial decisions like who gets to keep the water bed, the Tarot cards, and the children.

"Come and see us, and for your comfort, our staff psychics will help free you from any karmic stress. Each of you will be given your own personalized divorce mantra.

"After all, you'll probably wind up together again in the next life!"

Percy and Peggy Sue get married and go on honeymoon to the Bahamas. While they are there, Percy buys a beautiful parrot in a cage and takes it back to the hotel room.

But every time that Percy and Peggy Sue start making love, the parrot starts commenting on their movements.

The cheeky parrot says things like, "Thatta girl, Peggy Sue!" and "Come on Percy, you can do better than that!" and "Oh! Oh! Slow down! Speed up, turn left ...!"

Finally, the parrot's descriptions get so explicit that Percy jumps off the bed and flings a sheet over the cage. "If you don't shut up," he shouts, "I'm going to send you to the zoo!"

That evening the honeymooners are packing to leave their hotel. But Peggy Sue is having some trouble closing her suitcase; she cannot fasten the lock.

"Darling," says Percy, "why don't you get on top, and I'll try." But the suitcase will not close.

"Look, sweetheart," says Peggy Sue, "you get on top and I'll try." But that does not work, either.

"Listen," suggests Percy, "why don't we both get on top, and we can both try."

At this point, the parrot pulls the sheet off its cage and shrieks, "Zoo or no zoo, this I've gotta see!"

Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat) Be silent.

You have thrown away your mind.

Close your eyes, feel the body to be completely frozen.

Look in. The deeper you can go, the closer you will be to your buddha-nature.

It is very simple because it is your own space, you are not trespassing in anybody else's space. You are entering into your own being.

Deeper and deeper. You will start feeling a deep silence, a peace that passeth understanding, and a new fresh life energy, a blissfulness that you have never dreamt of.

This is your eternity, this is your inner buddha. Those who go in search somewhere else are lost.

Those who go in are surprised to find that the whole splendor and treasure of existence is available to them.

Being at the center of your life source, you are also connected with the universe. Your heartbeat slowly starts becoming more harmonious with the heartbeat of the universe.

When they become one you have arrived home.

To make it more clear, Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat) Relax ... let go ... just watch.

The body is there, the mind is there, but you are not.

You are the watcher.

This watching witnessing self is the buddha.

Rejoice in finding it.

Let it sink into every fiber of your being so when you come out you are not the same person as you were going in, you bring something of the buddha with you.

Every day it goes on increasing. A moment comes that the buddha is there, whether you are in or out. That is the ultimate fulfillment.

The process is very simple. Whatever you are experiencing now, go on experiencing it in your twenty-four hour activities. Just like an undercurrent, just like breathing, just like a heartbeat.

You don't have to remember it, it is there.

You know it is there, and this knowing will transform your whole being, all your activities, your whole personality.

It will give you a new birth, a resurrection.

Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat) Come back, but don't come back as you have gone in, bring something from the inner treasure with you.

Peacefully, silently, gracefully sit down like a buddha for a few seconds, just remembering, just reminding yourself that this is the only experience in the world for which nothing special is required, no effort, no discipline.

It is already your nature.

You are it.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Can we celebrate the resurrection of the buddhas?

Yes, Beloved Master.