Be Rejoiced in Me

The first question:

Question 1:

VEERESHWAR, TO THINK IN TERMS OF DUALITY IS ALWAYS DANGEROUS. To divide yourself in two is to move towards a split. You are one! How can there be a master and a slave? The very idea is poison. And it has poisoned humanity down the ages. Never divide yourself, otherwise you will be in a conflict, a civil war - fighting with yourself. And that is utter stupidity.

To fight with oneself is to dissipate energy unnecessarily. It IS a wastage. The same energy can become a jubilation.

I don't teach you how to become master of your sexual energy. What I teach you is: how to remain one, how not to divide yourself. Never divide yourself into the body, the mind, the soul the matter, the lower, the higher, the sacred, the profane, this worldly, other-worldly. Never divide! These are just different names... the disease is the same. Division is the disease.

And once you divide, you are in conflict, friction. Then joy disappears. Then life becomes an agony, a misery. And there is no victory possible. How can you be victorious over yourself? It is impossible.

That's why your monks, your mahatmas, SADHUS, look so sad. Their life is a life of futility. And what is the fundamental? Where have they missed? They divided themselves.

I teach you undivided existence. Remain undivided! Never think yourself separate from your sexual energy, or anything for that matter. You ARE it! You are your sexual energy. You are your love energy. You are your consciousness. You are your body. You have many aspects! Your diamond has many aspects to it. And all those aspects together make you precious.

But this idea has persisted down the ages - and particularly about sexual energy. Why? Because sex has the greatest appeal. Hence the egoist always finds it attractive to fight with. If one can win over one's sex, then one is a winner. Sex seems to be the greatest challenge to the egoist.

Remember, it is not a challenge to the spiritualist. For the spiritualist there is no challenge. For him, life is a let-go, a relaxation, I a total acceptance. But for the egoist, life is always a challenge. Either the challenge has to come from the outside, or it has to come from the inside. Either he has to climb Everest, because Everest is there like a challenge... it hurts. No purpose is being served by reaching Everest. Only one purpose: that man has conquered it.

Or the egoist turns inwards. There are egoists whose journey is outward and egoists whose journey is inward. For the inward egoist, the ego finds the greatest challenge in the sexual energy - because the attraction is great, immense, unconquerable - fight with it! But fighting with it, you will be simply destroying yourself and all the beauty of the sexual energy too is lost.

The sexual energy has not to be conquered: the sexual energy has to be used in creative ways.

There is no fight, but it is a great treasure. And much IS possible through it - in fact, all is possible through it. On different levels it is the same energy that becomes love, that becomes prayer.

A man who is born without any sexual energy will not be able to love, will not be able to feel compassion either, will not be able to pray - because prayer is the highest form of sexual energy. If you fight with sex, you will never be able to transform it into prayer. Fight never transforms anything.

Transformation needs friendship - befriend it! It is your energy, it is you.

Don't think in terms of master and slave. Use it as your potential. Raw energy it is. It can be refined.

It can be sublimated. It can reach to higher peaks that you have not even dreamt of. It can become, finally, your experience of samadhi. But never start with enmity - befriend, persuade, observe. Try to understand it, what it is - its attraction, its joy, its exhilaration. The small momentary ecstasies that become possible through it.

What exactly happens when you make love? For a moment, time disappears... and that moment, that timeless moment, gives you immense joy. That's a glimpse into samadhi. Sex is not your enemy:

it is the window to God. Of course, it opens and closes. All that you see is lost, but that is no reason to be angry with it. It is through it that you became aware that something beyond the mundane IS there. Even if it was a momentary glimpse when you were lost, completely lost... the ego was no more functioning. You were expanded. Those moments of sexual orgasm are first glimpses - crude, primitive, rudimentary - of God.

So, Veereshwar, I cannot tell you how to master it. There is no way to master it. In mastering it, you can destroy it, and in destroying it you will be destroying yourself and nobody else. Once your sexual energy is destroyed, you will become juice less, your life will be dry, your life will be a desert.

Then no more roses, no more lotuses... then you are no more an oasis. You will live a kind of death.

You will carry your grave around yourself.

Go into it. Listen to its message. Be very silent. Sex is sacred! When you enter into it, you are entering the greatest temple there is. You are on holy ground - put ALL your mind and worries away.

Go dancing, with joy, with prayer, with gratitude, and you will come out of it renewed, rejuvenated, reoriented, with fresh visions, insights, intuitions.

The second question:

Question 2:

ANAND MADAN, THEN YOU WILL MISS ABSOLUTELY. Enlightenment is not something that you can get by your stubbornness. That is the barrier! It comes when you are vulnerable. It comes when you are not even aware of it. It comes when you are not even desiring it. It takes you always unawares. It comes so silently that you cannot hear the sound of its footsteps.

And it NEVER comes when you are looking directly for it. It comes indirectly. You are singing a song, and you are lost in the song... and it is there. You were not thinking of it! You were absorbed in the song. Or you were dancing, and you had abandoned yourself in the dance... and it is there. Or you were painting, or working in the field, or just sitting silently doing nothing... and it is there.

It always comes when you are not directly looking at it. It comes indirectly. It is a very subtle and delicate phenomenon. The more stubbornly you look for it, the more it is certain that you will miss it.

Be here with me! just be here with me - with NO idea of enlightenment. It is GOING to happen. But it is not going to happen according to you. You cannot manipulate it. You cannot be in control of it.

It happens when it happens. It comes out of the blue. It is not caused by you. If it is caused by you, and your efforts, and your will, then it will be smaller than you. It is bigger than you.

When it comes, it is not like the feeling when a dewdrop falls into the ocean. No. On the contrary, it is the feeling as if the ocean has fallen into the dewdrop. The whole sky falls into you.

If you are stubbornly waiting for it, you are too hard. There Is no space in you. You are too tense.

The very desire for it is enough of a barrier. One has to forget all about it. One has to forget SO deeply that the very word becomes irrelevant, and one day one is surprised - it HAS come. The guest has come, uninvited.

You say, Madan: THIS MORNING WHEN YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT MISSING THE MASTER, I FELT A STUBBORN DETERMINATION NOT TO MISS YOU.

This stubborn determination comes from your will, from your ego. And these are the barriers! Who is preventing your enlightenment? Nobody except yourself. Otherwise, you are a Buddha from the very beginning. How have you missed what has always been yours? How do you go on missing it?

By your search you go on missing it.

But it happens: when I am saying, "Don't miss a Master," a stubborn desire can arise in you that "I am not going to miss. I will put all my effort and all my energy into not missing" - and you have missed.

My words have to be understood, not in the dictionary sense - you have to be very sympathetic with me.

When I am saying something, don't cling to its apparent mean-ing. Go into its existential sense.

When I am saying don't miss a Master, I am saying relax with a Master, be with a Master. Forget yourself IN the Master. Let the Master surround you. Let him become your atmosphere, your climate.

Live in him, think of him. Be in constant remembrance of him. And forget all about yourself!

This concern for enlightenment is an ego concern. You are still self-centered. To be with a Master means to forget yourself. Ordinarily, we are Belt:centered. Whatsoever we do we are doing for ourselves. To be with a Master means you start forgetting the old language of self-centeredness.

You start doing things for the Master - because he says so. Sometimes even absurd things!

Ajit has asked a question because people ask him, "Why do you wear orange?" And he says, "I try to explain to them, but I know deep down that they are not convinced."

There is no way to convince anybody, and there is no need either. The problem is not with orange:

the problem simply is that you cannot say, " Now I am a disciple, and I don't know. I have left everything to my Master. If he says, 'Wear orange,' I will wear orange. If he says, 'Walk naked in the streets,' I will walk naked. I don't know any reasons any more. You go and ask the Master. I have dropped my self-centered style of life."

That is the meaning of sannyas. That's what initiation is all about: you drop your self-centered style of life. You have always lived according to yourself. The day you become joined with a Master, you start living according to him.

And he is not obliged to explain everything - because there are many things which cannot be explained. And there are many things which can be explained only when explanation will not be of any use - when you have experienced something, they can be explained. But then there is no point.

And there are a few things a Master goes on asking his disciples to do which are PATENTLY absurd.

That is their very reason, that they are patently absurd. They help the disciple to move away from his self-centering. He simply becomes an obedience, he becomes a yes-sayer. In that yes-saying, the Master is not missed.

It is not a question of stubbornness, because stubbornness will only emphasize your self- centeredness. It will become even more concentrated. It is a question of LOSING it.

You have lived according to yourself long; you have seen what it means to live according to yourself.

To become a disciple means now you are fed up with it. You want to relax. You want to simply follow somebody. In trust, in love, in intimacy, you want to become a shadow. And the paradox is:

the moment you forget your self-centering, your real center arises. The moment you become just a shadow to the Master, for the first time you become an individual. This is the paradox. The moment you have forgotten yourself completely, you are enlightened.

So, please, don't become stubbornly determined - that is becoming harder than before. And the hardening of your psychology will make it more difficult.

You say: I AM GOING TO SIT HERE TILL I GET ENLIGHTENED.

You can sit here for ages and you will not become enlightened that way. And enlightenment is possible in a single moment! if you are not there. Sit here in such a way that you are not there. That is the true way of sitting here. Nobody sitting inside, with no stubborn desire, no idea of achievement, no goal-orientation. Just a pure sitting! just enjoying this moment. This moment being with me...

these birds, these trees, these people. For NO other motive! Just for its own sake. And then THIS moment is benediction. Then this moment is enlightenment.

This silence... when you are not there, nobody sitting there, but just a pure sitting, no effort on your part, an effortless waiting... no desire on your part, all desiring has disappeared... JUST BEING HERE... and this is what is needed.

And it is not that you become enlightened: suddenly you recognize you have always been enlightened. You just never allowed a moment for it to surface. You were so desirous, you were so ambitious, you were in such a turmoil. You never allowed this still small voice to arise in you. It has always been arising, but the tumult of your desires is great - you have become a market-place.

Your mind is constantly chattering. It can chatter about money, it can chatter about meditation. It can chatter about politics, it can chatter about religion. It can chatter on anything. It can start thinking about enlightenment, what it is, how to attain it... and you are missing all the time!

Please, don't be a fanatic about it. Relax.

The director of a modeling agency was interviewing a young woman for a job. After the usual questions, he ogled her and asked, "Are you a virgin?"

"Yes," she replied coyly, "but I'm not a fanatic about it!"

Just please don't be a fanatic about it. Enlightenment is a very very easy simple phenomenon, the MOST ordinary experience. It has nothing to do with extraordinary experiences.

Let me remind you again and again: it is the MOST ordinary experience - because it is your nature.

When you attain it, you cannot brag about it. When you attain it, it is not a great thing that you have done. The really great thing is how you go on managing NOT to attain it - this is a miracle!

The third question:

Question 3:

I AM SAYING SO MANY THINGS. I have to say them because I am talking to so many people.

And I am talking to ALL kinds of people. Mahavir was talking to only one type - his words are not puzzling. Buddha was talking to only one kind of people - his words are not puzzling. I am talking to ALL kinds of people.

I have not chosen a particular type to work with. My work is universal; it is not sectarian. It is easy to talk to a particular type. Then you can remain consistent. But when you are dealing with so many types, you have to look to different needs, you have to answer different needs. You have to respond to different minds.

So if you read me, my words can be puzzling. One day I say one thing, another day I say another thing. To one person one thing, to another, immediately afterwards, I may say just the opposite. The reason is: my concern is not about any answers - I have NO answers in particular. I don't believe in ready-made answers. I look into the person and I respond to him. My answer is according to his need. And tomorrow he may come, and he may ask the same question, and my answer may be different - because tomorrow his need may be different. Maybe the words are the same, but tomorrow I will reflect his tomorrow; today I reflect his today. I am just a mirror!

If you look into me, you will find your face reflected in it. I don't have a fixed idea to give to you. I am not teaching a philosophy here. Rather, I am teaching you a state of no-mind. I am not interested in creating a certain face for you. My whole effort here is to destroy ALL your faces so your original face surfaces, so you come to know exactly how God made you.

Much has to be withdrawn from you. I am not giving you knowledge: I am taking your knowledge away.

And then, when I say something to you, I say one thing - you may understand another.Words cannot be very exact. And the higher you move into the world of consciousness, the less exact they become. At the lowest, they are very exact. In mathematics they are very exact. Two plus two is four. Mathematics is an exact science. Metaphysics is not - it cannot be. The higher you go, the vaguer the words become. At the highest peak of understanding, words are almost meaningless.

But still they have to be used, because you cannot understand anything else.

Soon I hope the day will come when you will be able to understand my silence. It is happening, slowly slowly. I am watching it happening. When I feel that now silence can become a communication - you can just be with me in silence, AND YOU will get something, and you will be thrilled, and the ecstasy will arise in you, and you will be overwhelmed - then any day I can stop using words.

But words are dangerous tools. I may mean one thing, you may understand another.

A man was reading the menu in a restaurant and asked the waitress, "What kind of soup do you have today?"

"Oh," she answered, "we have turtle soup and pea soup."

"I'll have turtle soup," he answered.

The waitress yelled into the kitchen, "One turtle soup."

But the diner said, "Just a minute. I changed my mind. Do you mind changing the order? Can you give me pea soup instead?"

"Of course," she said. And she yelled to the cook, "Hold the turtle and make it pea."

Now it will depend on you what meaning you give to it. Words can mean many things, and in different contexts the meaning can be very puzzling. Each word is spoken in a certain context. The context is hidden; you only hear the word. Without the context, the word has no meaning. What I am saying to you today will not have the same context again, because this morning is never going to be repeated.

These people who have gathered to listen to me will not be exactly the same again gathered here.

The birds that are singing around will not be in the same place again. This morning is unrepeatable.

rut my words will remain - they will lose all context; they will become independent of context. And then you will have to find meaning, give meaning to them .

They can be puzzling....

I have heard:

Two partners in the garment industry were having business problems; it looked as if they might have to declare bankruptcy. But at the brink, a particular line of dresses seemed to lure a buyer. A West Coast outlet wanted to buy the whole line, at a price which would put the partners well into the black.

The partners were overjoyed.

"The only thing is," warned the buyer, "I have to have the deal approved by the home office. I'm sure they'll agree, but I do have to check with them. I'm going back tomorrow. If you don't hear from me by Friday closing time, you can be sure everything's okay."

The week went by slowly, and Friday crawled. The two men sat without moving at their desks, unable to concentrate on any kind of work. Without this deal, they would definitely go under. They sweated the hours out, minute by minute.

Two o'clock went by, three o'clock, then four o'clock, and now they were close to pay dirt. Four-thirty came, and they were holding their breath. Suddenly, a messenger burst into the office. "Telegram!"

he said. The men froze in terror.

Finally, one of the partners stood up. Slowly he opened the telegram, and read it quickly. Then came a shriek of joy. "Harry! Good news! Your brother died!"

The meaning is always in a context. Out of the context, there is no meaning. But words go on living.

Krishna said something to Arjuna - in a particular context. Now Hindus go on repeating it. Buddha said something to his disciples in a particular context - Buddhists go on repeating it. The man of understanding will not become so obsessed with words. Words are not so meaningful as you think.

And you should not give very solid meanings to words. A solid word is a dead word. The word has to remain fluid. It has to change according to circumstances. It is a flow. But people use words like frozen things. And I can understand their difficulty, because the ordinary life will become impossible if words are not frozen. It will become impossible to deal with it. But as far as the higher world, the higher flights into the timeless, into the spaceless, are concerned, words are just very arbitrary.

So, please, don't get puzzled by my words. Find me in my words! Forget the words. Find me and forget the words. Use the words as approaches towards me; don't be hooked by them. Then they will not puzzle you and they will not confuse you.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

PARMITA, HE IS EVERYWHERE! HE IS ALWAYS. He is here in me, in you, in all the people who have gathered here. But you must be looking for some God which is not of this world. You must be looking for some God - Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. But you are not really looking for the beloved.

The beloved is ALWAYS here. He is the breath in your heart, he is the beat in your heart. He is the green in the trees, and he is the red in the flowers. He is in the waves of the ocean. And he is in the stars in the night. And he is the silence of the darkness. And he is the joy of light.

But you must have some idea of God. You can go on looking for that idea and you will never find it - you will wait in vain. Drop the idea! and the beloved is here. Your idea is hindering the path.

The beloved is not a person: the beloved is life itself. Don't think of God as a person sitting somewhere on a golden throne. Think of God in the butterfly and in the creeper. Think of God in the river and in the mountains. Think of God in ALL this manifestation! Think of God as the world.

God HAS become the world! Your scriptures say God created the world. I say unto you: God has become the world. Now there is no God anywhere else. The singer is in the song now, anal the painter is in the painting. But you are looking for the painter somewhere else, and he has dissolved himself into the painting....

Have you heard one very famous Chinese Zen story?

A great king was in great love with the beauty of the Himalayas. He called all the great painters of his kingdom, and told them to make paintings of the Himalayas, and whoever's painting was the best would have half of the kingdom and would have the king's daughter in marriage.

Thousands of painters worked, day in, day out, year in, year out. Three years' time was given. Many paintings were made; they were beautiful paintings. The king was at a loss: "How to choose which one is the best?"

Finally, the oldest painter came with his paintings; those paintings were hung on the wall and the king went to see them. Immediately, intuitively, he knew, "These are the best." He had seen beautiful paintings, but nothing compared to these. They were so alive! And the king watched, and he asked the painter, "I see one small footpath going behind the mountains - where does it go?"

And the painter said, "Let me see...!"

And he went into the painting, and on the footpath behind the mountain... and disappeared, and never came back.

It is said in China that a painting, if it is true, has to be like that: the painter can go into it and disappear. Only then is it true! This story is just a parable. But God has created the world Ann has disappeared into it. It is exactly true about God.

Parmita, don't WAIT for the beloved.... But thousands of people have been waiting for thousands of years, with great longing and passion. Their waiting has helped - not that they came to know God, but their waiting helped them to become more alert.

Judaism, particularly, has used waiting as a methodology for awareness. It is Judaism's parallel to vipassana. But remember, the waiting is not for God - there is no God to come - the waiting is just a device. When you are waiting, you become, of course, more alert.

Have you ever waited for a friend? In the mowing he is to come, and you cannot even sleep during the whole night. You toss and turn, and you look again at the clock. Maybe night is over and it is already mowing and you have to go and pick up the friend from the station...?

Have you waited for your beloved? Then any movement on the street and you rush out. It may be just the wind knocking on the door, and your heart beats faster; and you open the door: maybe she has come or he has come? Or a postman walks by and you rush and look out of the window....

Whenever you wait, you become aware. If waiting can become absolute, total, it will create a great flame of awareness.

It is said of the great mystic, Zusya, that he awaited the arrival of the Messiah and redemption with such fervor, passion and eagerness that when he heard a tumult in the street he was at once moved to ask what it was and whether the messenger had not come. And each time he went to sleep, he commanded his disci-ples to awaken him at the very moment when the messenger came.

One day he said, "If the Messiah should come today and say to me, 'Zusya, you are better than others,' then I would say to him, 'Sir, then you are not the true Messiah.'"

His whole life he waited, and with such eagerness that even in the night he was afraid, "I may be asleep and he may come." One disciple had to wait continuously by his side, so if the messenger came, Zusya could be awakened immediately - because he would not like to miss a single moment.

See the passion, the longing, the love.

But the question is: Did the Messiah come? That is not the point. The point is that Zusya became more and more alert, more and more aware. He became so alert and aware that it is said that one day he said, "If the Messiah should come to me today and say to me, 'Zusya, you are better than others,' then I would say to him, 'Sir, then you are not the true Messiah - because now I myself that there is no better, no worse, there is no higher, no lower. That all is one. That there is nobody to be redeemed and nobody as the redeemer."'

Waiting, waiting, waiting, becoming aware and aware, one day the heart opened, and he knew God is everywhere. There is no need for any Messiah to come. God has already come! God's presence is already there.

So, Parmita, don't ask: Where is the beloved? Ask: WHERE IS HE NOT? Jesus says to his disciples:

Break a stone and you will find me there. Remove a rock and you will find me there. Where is he not?

You say: I TURN AT EVERY SOUND TO SEE IF HE IS THERE.

Yes, he is there! Even when the wind knocks on your door he has knocked. And when the dog starts barking in the neighborhood , HE is barking. And when a friend comes to see you, he has come to see you. Because there is nobody else except him...

The fifth question:

Question 5:

HOW CAN YOU FOLLOW RELIGION IN YOUR OWN WAY? You have to drop yourself. Then whatsoever happens is religion. It is not a question of deciding. You cannot decide. How can you decide what is right, what is wrong? Drop yourself. Let life take possession of you. Let life decide. Give your hand to God, or to life, or to existence... and follow it in trust.

You must be a very clever and calculating man. You are even trying to follow religion in your own way. And whatsoever you are doing, you have been doing, is nothing but your mind game. How can you reach anywhere?

It is simple!

You say: NOTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN.

Now change your approach towards religion. Religion is not a thing to be decided by you: religion is a state of let-go.

Man's mind is so cunning - it can always find rationalizations for whatsoever it wants to do. If it doesn't want to do, it can find anti-reasons; if it wants to do, it can find ALL that supports it.

Just watch your mind. Your mind decides first this has to be done, and then it gathers arguments for it.

A former secretary turned hooker bumped into an old school chum.

"How can you go into such a profession?" asked her friend.

"Don't be silly," answered the call girl. "We provide a vital service. We're a wife to those who have none, and a refuge to those who do."

Even if you are doing something absolutely wrong you can find good reasons for it.

A bearded old Jew entered a delicatessen and pointed to a slab of ham behind the glass counter.

"A quarter pound of the corned beef, if you please."

The counter man noticed the beard and thought it his duty to inform the old man. "I'm sorry, sir," he said quietly, "but that's ham!"

"And who asked you?" retorted the Jew.

Mind is very clever, very cunning. It can go on doing whatsoever IT wants to do. And it can always find arguments for it.

So when you say: I TRY TO FOLLOW RELIGION IN MY OWN WAY, what is your own way? Truth cannot be according to you. You will have to be according to truth. Truth has no obligation to fit and adjust with you. You will have to fit and adjust with truth.

And if you try your own way, nothing is ever going to happen to you. And finally you will repent.

Now, try a totally different approach. Be in a let-go. Let God decide. Put your mind aside. Become a little more intuitive rather than being intellectual;Don't be so rational. Religion is available only to those who can go deeper than reason. To go deeper than reason is to go beyond reason. And religion is available only beyond. What you call religion ordinarily is nothing but mind fabrications.

Nothing has happened, nothing is going to happen... remember.

And you ask: WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Drop this I. If you can find a Master, become a disciple. You have been a disciple to yourself too long now. Find a man whom you can trust. Find a man whose presence soothes you, calms you, cools you. Find a man whose presence revives hope in you, resurrects you. Find a man whose presence becomes an inspiration to you and again life-seems to have meaning. Then surrender. Be a disciple.

You have been trying both things together yourself, on your own. You are the Master and you are the disciple. You will become more and more confused. This is not the way to reach.

And I am not saying people cannot reach without Masters - once in a while it happens, a person reaches without a Master. But for that even more courage is needed. Because to trust a man is not SO difficult, it is human. To trust existence is very difficult. It needs a greater heart-and greater guts. To leave oneself into the hands of existence... just as Jesus said in the last moment: Thy will be done. If you can do that, there is no need to have a Master. But if you cannot even surrender to a Master, it will be impossible to surrender to existence itself.

A Master is a device where you learn how to surrender, where you learn the joys of surrender, where you learn the beauties of surrender. And then more courage gathers necessarily. And one day you can take the quantum leap and you can start trusting existence. Then one becomes like a dry leaf in the wind. If the wind blows north, the leaf goes north. If the wind goes south, the leaf goes south.

If the wind stops, the leaf waits and rests on the ground. The leaf has no idea of any destiny, no direction, no goal, nowhere to go.

That is the ultimate surrender.

Lao Tzu became enlightened watching a dry leaf falling from a tree. He was sitting under the tree.

The leaf was ripe, a breeze came, and the leaf dropped. It fluttered, came slowly slowly like a feather, rested on the ground... then a stronger wind came and it was taken up... it moved with the wind with no resistance. And the truth happened: Lao Tzu became enlightened. From that moment, he became a dry leaf in the wind.

Yes, without a Master also it is possible - but to trust a LEAF will take real guts.

The sixth question:

Question 6:

RUINEMANS, FIRST THING: THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM, that you need a Master. I don't need a disciple. I already have enough. I am not interested. So I am not persuading you to become a disciple. In fact, I make ALL sorts of arrangements to dissuade people so that they can escape.

It is not easy to come close to me. I have made all kinds of barriers between you and me. I am not interested in disciples - unless somebody's need is really intense. I am here, not for the crowd and the mob, but only for the chosen few.

You say: IN ME I FEEL THE NEED FOR A MASTER AND I FEEL THAT THE THINGS THAT YOU LET YOUR DISCIPLES DO ARE ALSO GOOD FOR ME.

If you feel the need for a Master, search for a Master. Hopefully some day you may find one.

You ask: WHAT MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL THAT I SHOULD TAKE YOU AS A MASTER?

I am not special at all. You forget about me. I am a very ordinary person. If you are interested in special Masters, you will have to search somewhere else. The very idea of being special is an egoistic idea. And, yes, I know: disciples like to become attached to very special people. That is a vicarious way of fulfilling their own ego, that "I am a disciple of a very special Master."

So let me make it clear from the very beginning: I am a very ordinary man. You need not be interested in me at all. I am not special. You will have to search somewhere else. The very idea of finding a special Master is an egoistic idea. Why special? What is special in life? Either all is special or nothing is special.

I can agree with both statements: either all is special or nothing is special. But I cannot agree with the statement that somebody is special and others are not special. God exists everywhere, in everybody. And God is our nature.

I am an ordinary man. So if you want to have a special Master, you are in wrong company here; you will have to find somewhere else. You will have to look for some magician. You are not really interested in disciple hood. Your interest is in a kind of ego trip.

You ask: WHAT MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL THAT I SHOULD TAKE YOU AS A MASTER, THAT I SHOULD SURRENDER TO YOU?

I am not interested in your surrender at all. And when a disciple surrenders to the Master, he does not surrender to the Master - the Master is just an excuse. The disciple only surrenders. Because he cannot surrender without a Master, hence the Master is an excuse.

The Master does not take your surrender! It is one-way traffic. When you surrender to me, you surrender - that's all. I don't take your surrender; I don't go on gathering your surrenders. I am just an excuse, just to help you get rid of a foolish ego, an illusory ego.

How can the surrender be of any significance to the Master? because the ego is false, so is the surrender. If ego itself is false, what value can your surrender have?

Just think of a man who believes that he is Napoleon. And he is not! And he thinks that he has a great kingdom. And then a Master persuades him to surrender his kingdom - and he surrenders!

And he says, "Okay, I surrender my kingdom and from now onwards I will not be Napoleon." Do you think the Master is getting something?

In the first place the man had nothing but just an idea. The Master is not getting anything; of course, the man is losing much: his kingdom, his being a Napoleon, etcetera.

You say: WHAT MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL THAT I SHOULD TAKE YOU AS A MASTER?

I am not special, so you need not worry about me. I am very ordinary. And if you can surrender to somebody who is absolutely ordinary, your surrender will have some meaning. To surrender to somebody special is not surrender. Again you are enjoying that you have become identified with a great Master. You are also somehow great - the reflected glory of the Master.

I am a nobody! If you join hands with me, you will become a nobody - that's all I can promise to you.

I am a nothingness - if you join hands with me you will become a nothingness. I have disappeared.

If you come close to me, beware... you will have to disappear. To be intimate with me is to be intimate with your ultimate death.

That's what real surrender is: dying as an ego. But when you die as an ego, you are born as divine.

So the crucifixion of the ego is the resurrection of the soul.

And I am not interested in your surrender because I don't see that you have anything. You don't have anything - you have only fallacies, illusions, dreams. But you are asking, Ruinemans, as if you are going to surrender something great, so you have to make everything sure: "Whether this man is somebody special so that I should surrender my kingdom. Who is this man? Why should I surrender to him?"

Surrender is not to anybody in particular - surrender is simply surrender! It only means that "I am tired, wearied, burdened with my ego. I have lived with it and it has tortured me enough. Enough is enough! I want to get rid of it, but how to get rid of it? Where to put it?"

One has lived with it so long that it is very difficult to separate oneself from it. The Master becomes a help. He says, "Okay, give it to me. If you cannot put it anywhere, give it to me and I will take care of it, I will preserve it."

Feeling trust, love, you can give your ego to the Master. But what are you giving? There is nothing in fact.

Two madmen were talking to each other. One man had his fist closed and asked the other, "Can you tell me what I have in my fist?"

The other brooded, meditated, and said, "A white elephant."

The first looked into his fist and said, "Then you must have looked - while I was closing my fist you must have looked. Otherwise, how did you come to know?"

In your fists there is nothing, no white elephant - just empty ideas, empty identities about who you are. A Master is nothing but a situation. So if you really feel you need, then search.

And these discourses must be of great help to you, because this is the series about the Perfect Master. You will need a Perfect Master - and I am not a Perfect Master. I am a very very imperfect Master. You need something so special that you will not find it.

That's why people believe in dead Masters, because with the dead Masters they can create as much speciality as they want. I cannot walk on water, that is true. Jesus can walk - and I know perfectly well he never walked: he knew the right rocks! But you can believe he is special, he walks on water.

People believe in dead Masters because with dead Masters they are free to have all kinds of imagination.

I am a very ordinary man, as ordinary as you are. But I am celebrating myself. I celebrate myself, I sing myself. And I can remind you that you can also celebrate yourself, and you can also sing yourself. And if an ordinary man like me can celebrate, that should give you a great joy - because you can also celebrate - you need not be special. You can ALSO be enlightened without walking on water.

If you understand, you will be rejoiced in me - because a man just like you has become a celebration.

It is a great promise: you can also become one. Nothing special is needed. All that is needed is already with you. You just have to be reminded.

A True Master is nothing but a reminding.

The last question:

Question 7:

YOGA DIVYA, IT IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE SPOKEN ABOUT. And don't think about it - just feel it. If you start thinking about it you will lose track again. It is a feeling space within you; it has nothing to do with thought. Thought will be a disturbance. Feel it! Sit silently, feel it, rejoice in it, laugh with it, cry and weep with it, but don't think about it.

The moment you think about it you have gone farthest from it, the farthest possible. Because thinking always takes you away from things.

A rose flower is there and you start thinking about it... then miles and miles of distance between you and the rose flower. Thinking is a kind of distance. Thinking creates distance. If you really want to be with the rose flower, forget thinking. Be with the rose flower! Cry with it, sing with it, dance with it, BE with it - and you will know.

This knowing has nothing to do with thought.

I cannot say anything more about it. You have found a beautiful spot within you. Avoid thinking!

Be closer and closer to that spot. Yes, there is a space where I AM MOVING AND NOT MOVING AT ALL. I AM LIKE THE MOON BENEATH THE WAVES THAT EVER GO ROLLING. Yes, there is that kind of eternity in you. Time moves only on the surface. There is some place in you which is beginning less, endless. There is some place in you where changes have never occurred.

Since I have come to know this space within me, not a single thing has happened - no crisis, no accident, no incident, nothing at all. Since I became established in this space, all has been just the same - although on the surface thousands of things have changed. The wheel goes on moving, but at the very core nothing moves.

This is what is known as the center of the cyclone...