Through These Enchanted Lands

The first question:

Question 1:

JUST as man and woman go together. Just as the head and the heart go together in you, just as the body and the soul go together in you. The heart cannot exist without the head and the head cannot exist without the heart. They are the positive and the negative, yin and yang. Life consists of polar opposites - and whenever you choose one against the other you will only be half, you will never be total.

The totality has to be courageous. And the greatest courage is to accept the polar opposites, because those polar opposites are illogical - it should not be so, but it is so. The roots move downwards in the earth and the tree moves upwards. And the upward movement of the tree depends on the downward movement of the roots. It should not be so, it is so illogical.

Fried rich Nietzsche said that if you want to go to heaven you will have to send your roots to hell.

And he is right. Without touching hell you will not be able to touch heaven either. Without being a sinner you cannot be a saint. And the man who has never been a sinner and has become a saint will be a poor saint, a very poor saint. His saintliness, his holiness, will have no richness in it.

The day lives with the night and through the night. And you are awake because you have been asleep, and you can rest because you have been working. Life depends on.the polarities - choose one, and you destroy the whole rhythm.

That's what has been happening - the question is very relevant. Revolutions in the past have been of the head. That's why they have failed. Can't you see, all the revolutions have failed? French or Russian or Chinese. Why have revolutions been a failure? The reason, the deepest reason, is because there was no heart. They were only from the head, they lived on logic. And life is illogical .

Marx is logical, life is not logical. Marx is bound to fail; the failure is intrinsic in the very choice.

Religions have failed - why? They have been choosing. They have been choosing spirit against matter, they have been choosing God against the world - that's what their failure consists in. Choose and you will fail. Be choiceless and accept the whole. It needs real courage to accept the whole, because the whole consists of opposites. The whole consists of yes and no. In fact the 'and' only exists in language. The whole really consists of yes/no - there is no 'and' even between the two to join them; they are one.

And when you can see the whole as one, the world disappears into God and God disappears into the world. And the man disappears into the woman and the woman disappears in the man, and the heart and the head both dance together hand in hand. To me, that is wholeness. And to be whole is to be holy.

And then arises a revolution - the real revolution which transforms. Kabir is revolutionary in that sense of totality.

Just the other day, we were talking about love and death. Buddha has chosen death, his religion depends on death. Christ has chosen love, his religion depends on love. Buddha is very very intellectual - there exists no other religion which is so rational: the religion of analysis. Buddha does not say a single word which cannot be proved logically. That's why he will not use the word 'god', because God cannot be proved logically. He will not talk about anything that cannot be talked about and cannot be proved. He is utterly rational.

Christ follows the feeling, the emotion. His statements are absurd. Just think of a few statements of Jesus. they are absurd. He says 'Those who have, more shall be given to them. And those who have not, even that which they have will be taken away.' Very anti-communist. Those who have should be given more. And Jesus says 'Those who are the first will be the last in my kingdom of God, and those who are the last will be the first. And if you really want the kingdom of God then be poor in spirit. If you go on holding to yourself you will lose. If you lose yourself you will find.'

This will look utter nonsense to Buddha. These statements are not the statements of reason. These statements are the statements of love, of feeling, of intuition. That's why Jesus could say 'God is love.'

Kabir says: Life and death are together, and there should be no effort to choose. Love and death are two aspects of one energy. Here is his revolution - he creates the greatest synthesis that has ever been tried. How can love and death be one? They ARE one. Kabir is not trying to prove anything, he simply reveals. He is not explaining anything and he is not giving a philosophy to the world. He simply illuminates - whatsoever is the case, he illuminates it, he brings light. And you can see that love and death are one, matter and mind are one, the creator and the creation are one.

I call him revolutionary because he remains choice less. He does not choose, he allows life as it is.

He has no prejudice, for or against. He never renounced life, he lived in the marketplace. But he transformed his marketplace into a meditative space. He lived in the world but he was not OF the world. He walked on earth but he walked in such a graceful way that he never touched the earth.

Dualities disappear in him.

Revolution of the head will be political, because it will be violent. The thinking process is a process of violence. Thought is a rapist - it dissects, it kills, it cuts into fragments. That's why science cannot say anything about the whole. It goes on dividing and dividing and dividing; it talks about the smallest, it does not talk about the total at all. It has no conception of the total - the total is completely forgotten, as if the total does not exist. As if all that exists are electrons, neutrons and positrons. And soon they will be dividing them too. They go on dividing.

That is the process of the mind. Mind divides, love unites. Religions talk about God, the total, the whole; they don't talk about the part or the fragment. But religion remains lopsided, just as lopsided as science.

A new vision is needed in the world - a new vision which will be as scientific as possible and as religious as possible. That I call revolution. The world is waiting for that revolution, the world is hungry for that revolution - where religion and science can disappear into each other, where East and West can become one for the first time, where the materialist and the spiritualist are no more enemies but are holding hands in deep friendship. Because that is what is happening in life itself:

matter is holding hands with spirit. The materialist need not be against the spiritualist, nor need the spiritualist be against the materialist. That is stupid. And that stupidity has lasted really too long and man has suffered too much.

The revolution that is hot, heady and sharp, is bound to remain superficial. And the revolution that comes from love will go deep, will arise from the very center. But remember, you are not to choose the center against the circumference - because without the circumference the center cannot exist, just as the circumference cannot exist without the center. They go together. The center is the center only because there is a circumference, and the circumference is a circumference only because there is a center. Take one away and the other disappears.

If man remains alone on the earth and all the women are destroyed, do you think man will last long?

- or vice versa. That's what has been happening. Man has created a culture, a society, which has not taken any note of the woman. That's why this society is ugly and this culture is crippled. That's why humanity is paralyzed - only half has been dominating and the other half has not even been consulted, the other half has not been allowed its say.

All human societies up to now have suffered tremendously. There have been wars and wars and wars - the whole history of humanity consists only of fighting and violence and murder. The heart is not allowed any place in its the woman exists almost in a non-existential way. This is the misery.

The woman has to be accepted, respected: the woman will bring balance. The woman represents the other half, the opposite. Man alone is only half the story.

The revolution that is only of the head is masculine, and the revolution that is only of the heart is feminine. Both are not total revolutions. The total revolution will be a balance, a symphony: the woman and the man singing in chorus, singing the same song from two different angles. The song is one, the singers are two - they meet in the song, they merge in the song. That song will have beauty, utter beauty.

The second question:

Question 2:

WHAT you do is never essential, what you are is always essential. Being is essential, doing is not essential. Being is essential, having is not essential. Consciousness is essential, character is not essential - because it is not character that creates consciousness but consciousness that creates character.

If you are religious, if you are spiritual, things will change around you. You may become a vegetarian, you may not. It depends - people are different. But to be a vegetarian cannot be an essential condition for being spiritual. There have been spiritual people who were vegetarians, and there have been spiritual people who were not. And it is good that life consists of variety, it is good that life consists of different kinds of people. Otherwise it would be utterly boring.

Just think - only Mahaviras, roaming around the earth, naked vegetarians. No Krishna, no Christ, no Buddha, no Mohammed, no Mansoor. It will be a very poor world, it will be really ugly. And remember, Mahavira is beautiful but too many Mahaviras won't be beautiful.

God never creates the same person again. And the reason is that once is enough, once is more than enough. God is completely satisfied. He never repeats, He never duplicates. He believes only in originals, He has no carbon copies.

So I cannot say that food has any essential thing to contribute to your spirituality. But your spirituality may change your food habits. That too cannot be predicted; I keep your freedom intact. less used to drink, and he is not less spiritual because of that. Patanjali will never be able to even conceive of a spiritual man drinking, but that is Patanjali's angle of seeing things. Jesus will not be able to understand: 'Why is Patanjali not drinking? If Patanjali cannot drink, then who else? If Patanjali cannot celebrate, then who else? He should be dancing, he should be singing, he should be celebrating - he has arrived.'

But celebrations are also different. Somebody may celebrate by fasting, somebody may celebrate by feasting. People are different. If you can remember this you will never become a fanatic. Otherwise the danger is always there: on the path of spiritual growth the greatest danger is that of fanaticism.

All so-called religions are fanatic, because they only allow that which THEIR scripture says, and THEIR founder says - everything else has to be denied. That is making life very very limited. And life is unlimited, it is an infinity.

You ask: WHAT ABOUT FOOD? I don't talk about food, I talk about you - the real thing is to happen there. When it has happened then I am not worried about you; then whatsoever you do will be right.

Let me say it in this way: There is no act which is right and no act which is wrong, there are only persons who are right and persons who are wrong. When the right person does something it is right, when a wrong person does something it is wrong. Right and wrong are not qualities of any act - all depends on who is behind the act.

For example, it happened: Buddha said to his disciples, to his monks and nuns, 'Whatsoever is given to you, you have to eat it. You should not demand, you should not become a burden on the society. You should simply go and stand before a house and if the people feel like giving they will give. You are not even to ask and you are not to give the details of what you need. Whatsoever is given, accept it in deep humbleness, gratitude, and eat it.' One day it happened, a monk was returning after begging food from the town and a crow flew upon him and dropped a piece of meat into his begging-bowl. Now, Buddha had said 'Whatsoever is given...' The monk was disturbed. He had not asked for this meat; it had fallen, it was in the bowl, he had not desired it. What should he do? He started thinking 'Should I throw it away or should I eat it? - because Buddha has said "Don't throw anything away. People are starving, food is always a scarcity. Don't throw anything away; eat whatsoever is given." Should I throw it away or should I take it?'

The problem was such that there was no precedent. So he thought 'It is better to ask the Buddha.'

When the assembly gathered he brought his begging-bowl and he asked the Buddha 'What am I supposed to do?'

Buddha closed his eyes, for a moment he meditated. He meditated because of two seasons. One:

if he says 'Throw it away' then he will be creating a precedent of throwing things away. Then later on - such is the cunning mind of man - people will think that Buddha has given the freedom, if you feel that something is wrong you can throw it away. But then they will start throwing away foods that they don't like. That will be a wastage .

And then he thought 'Crows are not going to drop meat every day. This is just an accident and the accident should not be made a rule - it is an exception.' So he said 'It's okay. Whatsoever is given, even if the crow has dropped meat, you have to eat it.'

That transformed the whole Buddhist history - in subtle ways. The monks and the nuns started spreading the news to people that whatsoever is given, even if meat is given, they would accept it.

And Buddhism became a meat-eating religion just because of that crow.

You see? The crows are more important than your Buddhas. They transform things. Man is so stupid that he will follow a crow rather than a Buddha.

I don't give you any particular instructions, what to eat or what not to eat. I simply teach you one thing: become more and more conscious, become more and more aware, and let your awareness decide.

Life is so complicated that if I start giving you details about everything - 'This has to be eaten and this has not to be eaten' - it will never be a complete guide for you; things will always be left. You can look into Jaina scriptures, they give every detail. That's why Jaina scriptures are not even worth reading. They go into such unnecessary detail: how many clothes the monk should have, how much food he should eat, how he should eat - standing or sitting. How he should beg, how many things he should accept, how many monks should go walking together for their begging, whether nuns and monks should be together or not, or how much distance should be kept - the details are infinite. If a nun is ill, whether the monk should touch her body or not. Then there are details within details: if she is old or young - if she is old it is okay, if she is young, no. When a nun is taking a bath should the monk look at her or not... Now, this goes on and on. The scripture doesn't seem to be religious at all, it is concerned with such stupidities. And still it cannot be complete - because what about whether a monk should go to a movie or not? There were no movies, so you are at a loss; you have to decide yourself. Whether a monk should see a photograph of a nun or not... Now, there were no photographs - and you cannot add anything to the scripture, it cannot be improved upon. So you have to always invent things for yourself.

When one has to find one's own way, why create this jungle of details? I simply give a light to you - and that light will be enough, you will be able to find your path. I don't give you the map and I don't give you instructions: 'First go a hundred miles this way, then move to the right and then to the left.'

The journey is such that no details are possible.

I would like to share a parable with you.

AMONG the youth of the country, there began a resurgence of interest in foods. Many different diet theories were offered, telling what was best to eat, and how and when to eat it. And with these theories came fierce loyalties, for eating is a very serious subject.

One young man said 'Whole grains only, with fruit and nuts.' And his girlfriend added 'Vegetables and fruits don't mix.' Her roommate believed 'No vitamin C, but lots of D and E.' And her cousin advised 'Fast one day out of every ten.' And she had a friend who worked in a health food store, who said 'Minerals are the key.' And every evening she ground her teeth on a tablespoon of highly-advertised garden soil, attractively packaged.

Some discovered miraculous healing properties in certain foods, and for a time there were shortages of figs, apricot kernels, yak butter, sawdust and earthworms. But if these foods could be modified to bring out all their natural goodness, they might be even better. One young man read that vitamins are trapped within the cell walls of foods, and he began to prepare his meals with a blender. He blended bread, fruit and cheese with wheat germ, kelp and strawberry yogurt, and each of his meals came out a nutritious grey glue.

Then the dietary habits became more exotic. One very serious man learned that certain yogis can exist on air alone; and he tried it for a time. And he had a close friend who learned of an ancient practice of turning the stomach inside-out to improve digestive secretions. But he was forced to stop when the neighbors complained of the unusual sounds.

Now, the confusion was caused by the fact that each theory was a little bit true. And people changed from diet to diet and felt guilty because they continued to like the things they weren't supposed to.

Yet their diet loyalties remained strong and, as these things go, each one believed his current diet to be the panacea for all mankind. And for all the debates heard throughout the land, the most frequent and heated was the question of vegetarian-versus -meat. One day, a wise man arrived in the city.

A crowd gathered around him and he was asked all manner of questions. He was asked about Mind, Soul, God, Stars, Love, Fate, and the significance of the Sanskrit language. These were all non-controversial topics. But then a young man asked 'Should I eat meat?'

A hush fell over the crowd, for this was important. The wise man answered with another question:

'How do you feel when you eat meat?'

The young man thought about that for a moment, then said 'Well, not as good.'

And the wise man replied 'Then don't eat it.' And there was a murmur of approval from the vegetarians in the crowd.

Then another young man rose and said 'I like meat and I feel fine when I eat it.'

And the wise man said 'Fine, then eat it.' And there was a murmur of approval from the meat lovers.

Then the voices became louder and the debate started anew.

Just then the wise man started to laugh. At first it was a chuckle that softened the serious crowd so that several grinning faces were seen. And the sight of the wise man sitting on the little dais laughing was so infectious that the crowd began to laugh with him. And as it often happens, there was one among the crowd that had an especially funny laugh, and this so tickled the wise man that he began to shake up and down until he nearly fell off his seat. And this so pleased the crowd that an enormous peal of laughter arose and echoed through the streets. And passers by, without knowledge of what had caused it, were so affected by the pleasing sound that they stopped and joined in, until a great throng of laughing people had gathered.

The sight and the sound of so many people enjoying themselves made the wise man... well, it went on and on until not one among them could remember having such a nice time. But the nicest thing of all was, on that day nobody had indigestion.

Remember that. Whatsoever goes well with you is fine. Don't impose unnecessary structures upon your being. You are already in a prison, don't create bigger prisons for yourself. Although remember one thing: work as diligently as possible for becoming more conscious. Forget about character; character is a concern of the stupid and the mediocre. Let your whole concern be consciousness.

And when you are conscious, when you are a little bit alert, aware, when a light starts burning in your inner being, when you are able to see, many things will change. Not according to any structure, not according to any ideology, not according to any fanaticism - but according to your own understanding, things are bound to change.

My own feeling is - remember, it is my feeling; it need not be a commandment to you - my own feeling is that if you become more and more alert and aware, you will find it less and less possible to eat things which depend on hurting animals, which depend on destroying animals' lives. But this is not a commandment, and this has nothing to do with spirituality. It simply has something to do with an aesthetic sense.

To me, the question is more about a esthetics than about spirituality. In that sense I will call Mahavira more aesthetic than Jesus. Spiritual they both are, but Mahavira is more aesthetic. It is simply ugly to eat meat - not unspiritual, remember, not a sin - just ugly, dirty. To depend on killing animals - just visualize - for your small taste buds which can be satisfied in many other ways, torturing millions of animals around the earth is anesthetic. You are not showing poetry, you are not showing feelings.

Spirituality is possible. But a man should not only be spiritual, he should have some aesthetic sense too. The question is like this: If you ask me 'Is it essential to have a Picasso painting in my bedroom to become spiritual?' I will say it is not essential. You can become spiritual without a Picasso painting; no painting is needed. But having a painting in the room is aesthetic - it creates a milieu of art around you, a sense of beauty. And once you understand this difference you will not be a fanatic, because art does not create fanaticism. In that way, art is more non-violent than your so-called religions - they create fanaticism.

If you write poetry, if you paint or if you dance, it has nothing to do with spirituality. Just by painting you will not become spiritual. A man need not be a painter to become a spiritual person; spirituality is apart. But a spiritual man may like to paint. Zen masters have been painting and they have created wonders. Zen masters have been writing poetry, and their haiku are some of the greatest insights into beauty, into splendor, into reality.

Nobody has been as penetrating as the Zen poets, and in a few small words. They have written such great poetry - to write that poetry others need to write great books, big books; they go on writing and writing, and even then not much poetry is found. But it has nothing to do with spirituality.

Spirituality is possible without being a poet, without being a dancer, without being a musician. But if you are a musician, a poet, a dancer, your life will have more fulfillment. Spirituality will be at the center and all these values will be on the circumference. You will have a far richer life. A spiritual person can be a poor person - he may not have any capacity to enjoy music.

In fact that's what is happening in the world. If you go and see a Jaina monk and you talk about classical music he will not understand a single word of what you are talking about. And he will say 'Don't talk about worldly things to me. I am a spiritual person, I don't listen-to music.' If you talk about poetry he will not be interested. His life will be dry, it will not have juice. He may be spiritual but his life will be a desert.

And when it is possible to be spiritual and a garden too, why prefer the desert? When you can be spiritual and poetic too, why not have both? Have as many dimensions to your life as possible, have a multi-dimensional life. Become more aesthetic, more responsible. But I don't give you any details.

And remember always, these are not essentials for being a spiritual person - they will not help your enlightenment and they will not debar it. But the journey can be very very beautiful or it can be very very desert like. It all depends on you.

My own approach is to help make your journey a joy. Not only the end - the spiritual person is only concerned with the end. He is in a hurry, impatient to reach the end; he does not bother what is happening on the roadside. And millions of flowers bloom there too, and birds sing songs and the sun rises and in the night it is full of stars. And all this too is beautiful. Let the journey also be beautiful.

When you can pass through these enchanted lands, why not? But your concern should basically be for more consciousness. And whatsoever that consciousness makes luminous for you, follow it. Let your consciousness be the only law. I don't give you any other law.

The third question:

Question 3:

The question is from Elsie Albright.

FIRST: you ask, YOU HAVE SAID MANY TIMES THAT AT FIRST GREAT EFFORT IS NEEDED BUT THERE COMES A POINT WHERE EFFORT CEASES. THEN ONE REACHES THE LIMIT OF ONE'S EFFORTS; FURTHER PUSHING TO OPEN THE DOOR IS FUTILE.

No, I have not said that, that further pushing of the door is futile. The further pushing of the door becomes impossible. Only then have you reached the peak of your efforts. It is not futile, it is not that you decide that now it is futile. No - you cannot push. You have put your whole energy into it, now there is no more left. It is not a question of deciding on your part whether to push any more or not. If you decide, that simply means the peak was not yet close by, it was far away. You could have pushed a little more but you decided that it was futile. I have not said that.

The peak is reached only when it becomes impossible to push. You simply fall down. You have put in all that you had and there is no more left. You simply collapse. In that collapse you reach the ultimate in effort.

Remember, it is not a decision on your part to stop making any more efforts. No, you cannot make any - even if you decide to, even if you think 'A little bit more.' You are exhausted, you are spent, there is no more left in you. You simply collapse. Remember the word 'collapse'.

And then I have not said that FURTHER PUSHING TO OPEN THE DOOR IS FUTILE. THEN ONE DAY ONE STEPS BACK AND THE DOOR OPENS OF ITS OWN ACCORD. I have not even said that.

You cannot step back. If you can step back you could have stepped ahead. It takes the same energy - if you can go one step back why can't you go one step ahead? No, you simply collapse; you don't go anywhere, going becomes impossible. Forward or backward is irrelevant, you simply can't go anywhere. You collapse on the spot where you are; all going simply disappears.

And I have not said either that the door opens of its own accord. I have been saying that the door is already open. The door has never been closed. But because you were pushing, your push was creating the closedness of the door. Your effort to attain was preventing you; your desire to reach was the barrier.

Now, in this state of collapse, you open your eyes and there is no longer any desire. Suddenly you see: your eyes have clarity. The desire was like a cloud on your eyes. Now there is no desire to achieve anything, nothing is left, you are simply spent. When you open your eyes in that state of spentness, your eyes are clear. It is a rebirth; you are born again. Your eyes have a luminosity they never had: you can simply see the door is not closed.

In fact the door exists not. You were creating it; your pushing, your effort, was really an effort to prove yourself. All efforts prove only one thing: the ego. They don't prove anything else. Effort means the ego is trying to prove itself, to prove to the world that 'I am somebody.' And when the 'I' exists, God becomes absent. Because you are too full of the 'I' you cannot see God. You are blind.

When the 'I' is no more there, you are spent, finished. You can see: God is present. And then one sees that God has always been present - there was no need to ever go anywhere to find Him. Only He is. HE IS.

You say: AFTER A LIFETIME OF SEARCHING FOR ENLIGHTENMENT.

All search is for the ego. No search is for enlightenment. You cannot search for enlightenment - the search creates the seeker, and the seeker is the barrier. The search goes on creating you more and more. Somebody is searching for money: he is not searching for money, remember, he is searching for the ego - that can only be projected through the money. Nobody searches for money.

You have been searching for political power - you wanted to become a president of a country or a prime minister. Nobody is searching for political power; political power is just an excuse to project the ego. We understand that - we call these searches worldly. I would like to remind you: all search is worldly - search for God, search for enlightenment, or whatsoever you like to call it. Searching is worldly because search means desire, and desire is the world.

You cannot desire God. God happens only when there is no desire, so to desire God is a contradiction in terms. You cannot desire enlightenment: enlightenment is only when there is no desire left, so it is a contradiction in terms.

One can only understand desire. In understanding the desire, the desire disappears. One sees the stupidity of desire, one sees the illusoriness of desire. One sees how the desire creates tensions, anxieties, how the desire creates madness. Seeing it - just seeing it in its totality and its madness - is getting rid of it. Not that you have to try to get rid of it, because that will again be another desire. This has to be understood very deeply because this is one of the most profound things to understand: seeing that desire leads nowhere, one simply ceases to desire. And in that moment, that cessation of desire, enlightenment happens.

You say: AFTER A LIFETIME OF SEARCHING FOR ENLIGHTENMENT.

That is where you are wrong. All that search is an ego search, all that search is an ego trip. You don't call it money, you don't call it power, you don't call it prestige - now you call it enlightenment.

You have simply changed the name. You have only changed the label; the container is the same and the content is the same. You are deceiving yourself. There is no other-worldly desire, all desires are worldly.

When desiring ceases, the other world opens. The other world is hidden in this world. But because your eyes are full of desire, full of the ego, you cannot see it.

Just watch. You are in the market and somebody comes and says your house is on fire. You rush towards the house, you cannot see anything else. Somebody may be saying hello, good morning, somebody may be insulting you, shouting at you, but you don't notice anything. Your house is on fire: you don't have time, you don't have consciousness, for all that is going on in the marketplace. A magician is showing his tricks and you rush by: your house is on fire. A beautiful woman passes by:

on any other day you would have stopped, your breathing would have stopped, but today it doesn't matter. You can't even remember whether she was a woman or a man, beautiful or ugly, young or old.

And this is not an ordinary phenomenon, to forget whether she was a man or a woman, because this is the only thing that you never forget. You can forget the name of a person, you can forget his religion, you can forget his address, his phone number. You can even forget his face, you can forget his age, you can forget everything - but you never forget whether he was a man or a woman.

Have you ever observed the phenomenon? You never forget this. Have you ever wondered whether he was a he or a she? It never happens - because your man simply goes so deeply towards the woman, your woman is attracted so deeply by the man, that you cannot forget. It becomes part of your consciousness.

But when your house is on fire there is a possibility, you may not remember. What is happening?

Your eyes are projected towards the fire. And it may be just a rum our - when you reach home, the children may be playing and there is no fire; somebody played a joke. But it still worked. You were projected so much into the future that you became absent to the present.

That's what is happening in desire. You want money: it will take ten years', twenty years' work to arrive. Now twenty years' future is projected. You start planning: when you have money what house you are going to purchase and what car, and what woman you are going to marry, and how you will live - twenty years' time, and you start projecting. Now your eyes start moving away and away, farther and farther away from the present.

And God is present, God is not in the future.

Enlightenment is now or never. So when you think about enlightenment you are always thinking of the future. That's what Kabir says again and again: It is here! It is now! Don't project it in the future, otherwise you will miss it. Enlightenment is not like a treasure hidden somewhere that you have to search for. Enlightenment is your nature, it is you. It is already given, you need not go anywhere for it.

But you have been going to this master, to that master, to this religion, to that religion. That's what you mean: AFTER A LIFETIME OF SEARCHING FOR ENLIGHTENMENT... You went wrong from the first moment; your first step was wrong. Enlightenment cannot be desired, it cannot become a goal. Once you make a goal out of it you will go on missing - one life, two lives, a thousand lives.

Now you say: I HAVE COME TO THE POINT WHERE I HAVE LOST INTEREST IN LIFE.

It is because of that enlightenment that you have lost interest in life because life is present and enlightenment is far away. And you are interested in the faraway - how can you be interested in the close, the obvious? Life is this woman, this man. Life is this food, life is this music, life is this. ITI ITI: this and this and this. And enlightenment is that - far away; maybe it will take millions of lives to travel to it. And you will have to climb mountains and you will have to swim oceans and then you will arrive.

If you become interested too much in the future you start losing contact with life, you start losing interest in life.

You say: I HAVE COME TO A POINT WHERE I HAVE LOST INTEREST IN LIFE, IN KNOWLEDGE, IN MEDITATION, IN ATTAINMENT.

You have lost interest in life. You have not yet lost interest in knowledge, otherwise you would not have. asked the question - for what? A question means a search for knowledge; a question is that and nothing else. A question is a groping for knowledge, for more knowledge. That is true that you have lost interest in life. That happens to all enlightenment seekers.

That's where I am against the tradition. I don't want you to become an enlightenment seeker, I want you to become enlightened this very moment. I want you to declare to yourself: 'I am enlightened.'

And live an enlightened life after that, don't become unenlightened again! - because the mind tends to become unenlightened again. One moment you say 'Okay, I am enlightened.' But then something happens and you become unenlightened. Somebody insults you, so you say 'For a moment let me be unenlightened again. Later on I will see. First I have to see to this man and I have to show him that you can't take me for granted, you can't take me as if I am enlightened. I will show you that I can still be unenlightened.'

There are a thousand and one temptations to become unenlightened again and again and again.

And I know, many times you HAVE become enlightened. And I am not saying that those moments are wrong or those moments are illusory - no. You have touched it, you have penetrated it, you had a vision. But it didn't last; you were not capable enough to keep it flowing. For a moment it came like lightning, and then it was gone. You could not make a small lamp out of it.

I have not come across a single man in my life who has not had enlightened moments. You yourself don't believe that you can be enlightened, so you don't even take note of them. Some day walking on the beach and the sun is beautiful and the breeze is salty... and a moment comes, a door opens.

Suddenly you start seeing things as you have never seen them. You are utterly lost in the moment; there is no past and no future. You have forgotten who you are, you have forgotten what you want to become, you simply ARE - in tune with the ocean and the wind and the sun. This is enlightenment - although I know you are not capable of living in it, because you have not created a meditative space inside you. So it comes and goes.

If you have created a meditative space inside you, that meditative space will be able to contain it.

That's what meditation is all about: the capacity to contain enlightenment. Enlightenment comes to everybody - but you have so many holes in your being, it flows out, it simply leaks out.

Seeing a tree in full bloom, the spring has come and you are in a kind of awe. Seeing the green and the red and the gold of the tree, you are transported into another world. This is enlightenment. You fall back; the gravitation is too much. Your wife comes and says 'What are you doing here?' - and you are back again in your unenlightened state.

And you are not courageous enough to accept the fact, because you don't respect yourself. You have been taught by the so-called religious people to condemn yourself. You cannot accept that 'Enlightenment can happen to me. It happens to Buddha - okay. It happens to Christ - maybe. But it can't happen to me. To me? It can't happen to me.' You have not respected yourself, you have not loved yourself.

Otherwise enlightenment comes to everybody, all and sundry. It comes to sinners, it comes to saints.

Enlightenment has no condition for coming. In fact to use the word 'coming' is not right - it arises.

The impact of the sun and the beach, the impact of the morning breeze, and it arises inside you, a wave. Then it relapses back because you don't have the space to contain it.

Be meditative and you will be able to contain that moment for longer periods. And when you are totally meditative... and what do I mean by 'meditative'? When you are totally thoughtless. It is thought that functions as a hole in your being - and you have so many thoughts, so you have so many holes. Your bucket is full of holes: with this bucket you go to a well and you try to draw water.

When you lower the bucket down into the well, when it is in the water it is full of water. Then you start drawing it and the water starts leaking. By the time it reaches your hands it is empty.

And it is not that it was not full of water when it was in the well - it was. Exactly like that, it happens:

there are moments when you are full of enlightenment.

Making love to your woman it happens. In that orgasmic space suddenly you are enlightened. You are a Krishna, and your wife, your beloved, is a Radha. You are no longer ordinary human beings.

Suddenly you belong to eternity and not to time. Suddenly you are no longer physical bodies - you have Buddha bodies in that moment. But then it is lost; you fall back.

It is like jumping. You can jump, and when you jump you lose the earth, the gravitation - for a moment you are part of the sky. But then you fall back because you don't have wings.

You will have to grow wings. Meditation is not really a search for enlightenment; enlightenment comes without any search. Meditation is just growing wings, or creating a space inside you so that when the guest comes you can persuade the guest to live inside you and become the host.

AFTER A LIFETIME OF SEARCHING FOR ENLIGHTENMENT I HAVE COME TO THE POINT WHERE I HAVE LOST INTEREST IN LIFE...

The religious people always come, are bound to come, to that point where they lose interest in life - because your religions are against life, anti-life. And life is God, so your religions are all anti-God.

... IN KNOWLEDGE... No, that you have not lost - the question still arises.

... IN MEDITATION... No, that you cannot lose, because you have not known what meditation is.

How can you lose interest in something which you have not known? You can lose interest only in something which you have known - familiarity creates boredom. Meditation you have not known. If you had known meditation, enlightenment would have happened.

And you say: I HAVE LOST INTEREST IN ATTAINMENT.

That too you have not lost. All that has happened through your search for enlightenment is that your life has gone down the drain. You have missed your life. But it is never too late - you are still alive and breathing, and the possibility is still there.

NOTHING SEEMS TO MATTER ANY MORE. YET I DO NOT FEEL I HAVE COME TO THAT FINAL PEAK OF EFFORT...

Your feeling is right, you have not come to the final peak of effort.

ARE THERE NOT MANY MINOR PEAKS AND VALLEYS IN WHICH THE ENERGY REVERSES ITSELF AND WE REST WITHOUT EFFORT BEFORE THE FINAL CESSATION OF EFFORT?

Yes, there are many; millions, in fact. Before the absolute enlightenment - what Buddha has called parinirvana - before the absolute enlightenment there are many many satoris, many samadhis.

Small, big, many. Before you utterly disappear, you come many times to small peaks, big peaks.

And many times it happens: the door opens. That's what I would like you to be aware of.

Be alert of all that is happening around you. In your very ordinary life the extraordinary is hidden. It calls you sometimes, it is heard. Sometimes it is very visible, almost tangible; sometimes it is very close, you can hug it. Yes, sometimes it is far away - in fact what is happening is that whenever your mind is clouded too much by thoughts it is far away. The quantity of your thoughts is the distance.

Whenever your mind is less burdened with thoughts it is close by. Whenever there are only thin layers of thought and you can see through them, peek through them, it is very close - you can hug it, it is tangible.

When your thoughts are utterly gone, a state of no-mind has arisen in you. Then it is you - not even close. Enlightenment is you. But you have disappeared, you are no more to be found. Before that, many small satoris happen.

Here, to my sannyasins, it is an almost everyday phenomenon. It happens all the time, and it happens in such ordinary situations that one cannot believe it. Great trust is needed. It happens in such ordinary situations that it shatters all your ideas that it can happen only in the Himalayas or it can happen only in a sacred place or it can happen only somewhere where the world is almost non-existential or it can happen only when you are alone in a cave in Tibet.

No, it happens everywhere, it happens all the time. It happens walking on the street, it happens talking to a man. It happens sitting silently in your room, it happens taking your bath. It can happen any moment, it can happen any place. But one thing has to be remembered: it can be seen by you only when there are no thoughts. Otherwise you are engrossed so much in your thoughts. you go on missing it.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

THERE is a great difference between liking and loving. Liking has no commitment in it, loving is commitment. That's why people don't talk much about love. In fact people have started talking about love in such contexts where no commitment is needed. For example. somebody says 'I love ice cream.' Now how can you love ice cream? You can like, you cannot love. And somebody says 'I love my dog, I love my car, I love this and that.'

In fact people are very very afraid of saying to a person 'I love you.'

I have heard: A man was dating with a girl, for months together. And the girl was of course waiting, waiting - they were even making love but the man had not said to her 'I love you.'

Just see the difference. In the ancient days, the ancients used to fall in love. Now people make love.

You see the difference? Falling in love is being overwhelmed by love; it is passive. Making love is almost making it profane, almost destroying its beauty. It is active, as if you are doing something; you are manipulating and controlling. Now people have changed the language - rather than using 'falling in love' they use 'making love'.

And the man was making love to the woman but he had not said a single time 'I love you.' And the woman was waiting and waiting and waiting.

One day he phoned and he said 'I have been thinking and thinking to say it to you. It seems now the time for it has come. I have to say it; now I cannot contain it any more.' And the woman was thrilled and she became all ears - for this she was waiting. And she said 'Say it! Say it!' And the man said 'I have to say it, now I cannot contain it any more: I really like you so much.'

People are saying to each other 'I like you.' Why don't they say 'I love you'? Because love is commitment, involvement, risk, responsibility. Liking is just momentary - I can like you, and I may not like you tomorrow; there is no risk in it. When you say to a woman 'I love you' you take a risk.

You are saying 'I love you: I will remain loving you, I will love you tomorrow too. You can depend on me, this is a promise.'

Love is a promise, liking has nothing to do with any promise. When you say to a man 'I like you' you say something about you, not about the man. You say 'This is how I am, I like you. I like ice cream too, and I like my car too. In the same way, I like you.' You are saying something about you.

When you say to a person 'I love you' you are saying something about the person, not about you.

You are saying 'You are lovely.' The arrow is pointing to the other person, and then there is danger - you are giving a promise. Love has the quality of promise in it and commitment and involvement.

And love has something of eternity in it. Liking is momentary; liking is non-risky, non-responsible.

You ask me: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIKING AND LOVING? AND ALSO, WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORDINARY LOVE AND SPIRITUAL LOVE?

Liking and loving are different, but there is no difference between ordinary love and spiritual love.

Love is spiritual. I have never come across ordinary love; the ordinary thing is liking. Love is never ordinary - it can't be, it is intrinsically extraordinary. It is not of this world.

When you say to a woman or a man 'I love you' you are simply saying 'I cannot be deceived by your body, I have seen you. Your body may become old but I have seen you, the bodiless you. I have seen your innermost core, the core that is divine.' Liking is superficial. Love penetrates and goes to the very core of the person, touches the very soul of the person.

No love is ordinary. Love cannot be ordinary, otherwise it is not love. To call love ordinary is to misunderstand the whole phenomenon of love. Love is never ordinary, love is always extraordinary, always spiritual. That is the difference between liking and love: liking is material, love is spiritual.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

FIRST: Religion is a complicated joke. If you don't laugh at all you have missed the point; if you only laugh you have missed the point again. It is a very complicated joke. And the whole of life is a great cosmic joke. It is not a serious phenomenon - take it seriously and you will go on missing it. It is understood only through laughter.

Have you not observed that man is the only animal who laughs? Aristotle says man is the rational animal. That may not be true - because ants are very rational and bees are very rational. In fact, compared to ants, man looks almost irrational. And a computer is very rational - compared to a computer, man is very irrational.

My definition of man is that man is the laughing animal. No computer laughs, no ant laughs, no bee laughs. If you come across a dog laughing you will be so scared! Or a buffalo suddenly laughs: you may have a heart attack. It is only man who can laugh, it is the highest peak of growth. And it is through laughter that you will reach to God - because it is only through the highest that is in you that you can reach the ultimate. Laughter has to become the bridge.

Laugh your way to God. I don't say pray your way to God, I say laugh your way.to God. If you can laugh you will be able to love. If you can laugh you will be able to relax. Laughter relaxes like nothing else.

So all jokes to me are prayers - that's why I tell them.

And you ask: WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH AT YOUR OWN JOKES?

Because I have heard them before.

And the last question:

Question 6:

HENRY David Thoreau said 'Only that day dawns to which we are awake.' If you are fast asleep in the morning you will not see the sun rising and you will not hear the birds singing and you will miss all that celebration that goes on in the morning. If you are awake, only then does the day dawn for you.

For a blind man there are no rainbows, no colors. Unless you have eyes, rainbows don't exist. For a deaf person there is no music, no sound.

Remember, something is really happening here. And I can understand your question, and people around me ARE really excited. Something is happening to their innermost core. They are moving into a different dimension, they are opening something unknown in their being. They are discovering themselves, they are growing, they are feeling grounded and centered.

The trees grow only if their roots grow in the earth. With man it is just the reverse: man grows roots only if he grows. Trees grow only if they have roots, man can have roots only if he grows. And when you feel rooted in existence you feel it is your home. Then you don't feel an alien, you don't feel a foreigner, you don't feel an outsider. It is all yours - all the stars and all the suns and all the moons, it is all yours. There is no need to possess anything because the whole universe is yours.

This I call real renunciation. Not that you renounce meaningless things: somebody renounces money and thinks he has done a great obligation to God, he has renounced money. What are your notes to God? What do they mean in the universal? They don't mean anything; they are very local.

In fact that which seems money to you is not money in China.

You may be surprised that savages, down the ages, have been fighting for such things that you will not conceive how they did, and why. For feathers, savages have killed each other, or for seashells or for bones or bone ornaments. Now we laugh - this is stupid. But what are your currency notes? A feather is far more valuable than your currency note because the feather has a beauty which nature has given to it. Your currency note is as valuable as you pretend it to be, or has as much value as you have agreed that it will have. It is an agreement, a contract.

And savages look foolish because they will fight for small things. For what have you been fighting?

And it is not only that you fight for these small things, meaningless, utterly meaningless and ridiculous - your so-called saints are valued very much because they renounce these stupid things.

Either you cling to these but you value them, or you renounce them but you still value them.

Otherwise what is the point of renouncing them?

I don't teach renunciation. I teach that the whole world is yours, so why possess? What is the point of possessing? You possess moons and stars, you possess God. What else do you need?

Something is happening to my people here. You must be new to this place and you will not know why they are so much excited. Let me tell you one anecdote.

A teacher asked the children in her art class to depict on the blackboard their impressions of the most exciting thing they could think of.

The first little boy went to the board and drew a long jagged line. 'What's that?' asked the teacher.

'Lightning' the boy replied. 'Every time I see lightning I get so excited I want to yell!'

'Fidel' said the teacher. 'That's a very vivid picture.'

The second child, a little girl, drew a wavy line with the broad side of the chalk. That was her idea of thunder, she explained, which always made her feel excited. The teacher said that her picture was excellent, too.

Then little Neal stepped to the board, drew a single dot, and sat down. 'What's that?' queried the teacher, a bit perplexed.

'It's a period,' replied Neal.

'Well, Neal, what's so exciting about a period?' 'I don't know, teacher' the boy answered. 'But my sister has missed two of them, and my whole family's excited!'

Now, the child cannot understand what is happening. The sister has missed two periods: it is beyond his comprehension. But the whole family is excited - he can see that.