Waiting, Just Waiting

The first question:

Question 1:

KABIR, IT IS NOT WORK AT ALL. The very idea of work is irrelevant with me. It is not work because there is no WILL behind it. I am not here to impose anything upon anybody. I am not here to convert you to any ideology or to a certain way of life. I am not teaching a philosophy of life, I am not teaching anything at all - I am not a teacher. I am simply sharing whatsoever has happened with me.

Never think in terms of work. It is not work for the flower to bloom, it is sheer joy, it is play. Think in terms of play. Work is serious, heavy; play is non-serious. This whole existence can be seen through these two words: work or play.

The Western concept of God is that of a doer, hence they call him 'the Creator'. In the East the concept of God is not of a doer but of a player. We call his existence not his 'creation' but his LEELA, his play - the way somebody sings a song without any motivation behind it, for the sheer joy of it, for no result in view; no past behind it, no future ahead of it.

These birds singing... it is not work, they are just shouting that they are alive. They are simply saying 'We are here!' to the sun and to the sky and to the clouds; they are chanting. It is an outpouring.

God is out-pouring himself into existence.

Because the Western concept of God is that of a doer, the whole religion became very serious. The Eastern religion is more celebrating: it is fun.

I am here to share with you my joy. It is just like birds singing in the morning, or stars shining in the night, or flowers blooming in spring - it is just like that; no work is involved. You need not even feel grateful to me, because I am not doing anything for you. I am just here, you are there, something IS happening. Nobody is doing, it is just a pure happening.

Millions of things are happening all around; if you look at them as a happening, a great joy will arise in you. You will start dancing with existence, and all fear will disappear. If you think of it as work, fear is bound to remain there: you will be afraid you may miss. If it is work then you have to be hard at it, then you have to do it whatsoever the cost. Then methods, techniques, necessarily become implied in it, and you are on a mind trip again. The ego wants it to be a great work, because the ego can survive only if it is work; in play, the ego simply evaporates.

Hence my insistence again and again: never use the word 'work' in relation to me, let it be pure play.

I am enjoying myself, you also please enjoy yourself being here. And if this becomes possible that you also are enjoying, there will be a great communion. These two joys will meet, and out of that joy is great creativity, out of that joy a new world, a new vision, is born. But that is not the goal, that is just a by-product. You have not even to think about it, it happens on its own. Remember the word 'by-product'. It is not a consequence but a by-product - just 'by the side'. It happens, it certainly happens; in fact, it never happens any other way.

Whenever energies meet in joy there is transformation.

This is a Buddhafield or the field of joy, SATCHITANAND. Pour your energy in joy, but forget about gaining anything out of it. Drop the profit motive and you will gain much. The more you forget about gaining, the more is the gain; the more you think about the gain, the less... And if you become too obsessed about gaining, you will remain empty and you will remain in misery.

Hell is greed. Heaven is non-greed. Hell is motivated work. Heaven is sheer joy, play.

Sing with me, dance with me, be silent with me. Enjoy this moment - no past, no future. Just THIS moment... and there is great benediction.

Work, or action, is part of willing, it is part of will. Will is struggle: you are in conflict with existence.

You want to do something; naturally you are tense, naturally you are afraid whether you are going to make it or not. And out of a hundred, ninety-nine chances are that you are not going to make it, because whenever you are in a state of will you fall apart from the whole. Then you are nourishing a private goal, then you are not part of the cosmos; you are trying to do something on your own. In that struggle, in that conflict, you are going to be a loser. You can't win against the whole.

It is as if a small wave is trying to have its own way against the whole ocean. The wave has gone completely neurotic. It exists with the ocean, in the ocean, as the ocean; it is not separate, there is no division - it can't have its own will. If all the waves are going towards the east, it cannot go towards the west. Howsoever big and tidal the wave is, it cannot move against the whole. It is NOT separate, so how can it move against the whole? It is part of a great dance, an organic part. If the whole is going to the east, it is going to the east; if the whole is going to the west, it is going to the west.

To have a will creates work in life, and then you are frustrated again and again. Only once in a while will you succeed, and that too will not be your success. Only once in a while... it will be just coincidental that you also will to go to the east when the whole is going to the east. If it is coincidence that you meet the whole, you go to the east and you succeed. But it is always the whole that succeeds, never the part. And that's where every man is caught: every man wants to succeed AS HIMSELF; the success has to be the imprint of HIS ego; it has to have HIS signature. He is more interested in his signature than in the success itself.

Play is a state of no-will. Play is not doing but being. Work is calculative thinking, cunning, clever, logical - you are trying to grab something out of existence, you are trying to cheat. And remember, in the very effort of that cheating you will be cheated. You are committing suicide. Play is innocent, it is non-calculative. It is not worried about the future, about the outcome; it is not interested at all.

Its whole interest impinges upon this moment; it is herenow. 'What is happening here is happening.

I am not doing it.'

Remind yourself of that again and again. That will help you to understand me - not only to understand me but to relate with me, to commune with me. That will help to bring you closer and closer to me, that will make you open to me. You may be here for a certain work that you have decided to do upon yourself, but that is part of your ego. I am not doing anything here, I am just being here.

Share the energy, share the silence, share this SATORI, this SAMADHI, this enlightenment. It is overflowing, not for any reason at all, just for the simple reason that the whole existence is an overflowing existence. Everything is too much here. The existence is not poor, the existence is not miserly. Where one flower is needed millions of flowers bloom. Where one star will do millions of stars exist. This existence is so rich that it overflows. And whenever you become part of this existence, when you disappear, you also start overflowing.

That's what I said yesterday to you about Yoka: that R.H. Blyth is wrong if he says that Yoka has nothing much to say and still he goes on saying. He misunderstood the whole thing. The basic weakness of the Western approach towards life... And it is not that he is against Yoka, he loves him; he has translated Yoka's words with great care, with great love, but still the argument is there. And it is not a question of more or less - 'Why does Yoka go on speaking when he has nothing more to say?' - it is not even a question of more or less. Yoka has nothing to say, but what can he do? God goes on overflowing, God goes on singing a song, he cannot prevent it. only this objection can be raised against him: that why is he not preventing it? But how can he prevent it? He is no more, he has become dissolved in the whole.

That's what enlightenment is: dissolution, disappearing into the whole, dropping your private will and becoming part of the cosmic will. That's what has happened to me. Now, it is possible for you too to join hands with me. I am a witness to it, as every Buddha has always been just a witness. Being with me you may be reminded of your potential, that's all. Falling in love with me, you will start seeing how you have been undoing your life. YOU were thinking you were doing great things, and in that very doing you have been undoing all. Being with me, this insight, this break-through, this SATORI, will arise one day: that how you have been unnecessarily disturbing! Tn that very understanding, you no more disturb, and all is beautiful - and from the very beginning. You simply stop creating troubles for yourself; and when you stop creating troubles for yourself, the joy flows.

The joy has not to be created, it is already the case. You just have to be in a silent, meditative mood so that you can see that which is there. To be with me is to taste a little bit, according to your capacity, the taste of meditation. But it is not work at all.

The second question:

Question 2:

One misses only by demanding. Demanding means that will is still there: you would like to have things your own way, you are still deciding how things should be. Then, naturally, if things are not like that, impatience arises; and if the demands are not fulfilled... frustration, anger, rage. And if it goes on and on, sooner or later you lose interest. YOU start thinking 'This is impossible. All this talk about enlightenment, NIRVANA IS impossible.' YOU start finding ways of escaping from it; of getting back into the world, into the meaningless trivia, the mundane, the mediocre; of getting occupied - at least one is occupied, one has no time to think that things are futile. Sitting and waiting, again and again the idea arises 'What are you doing here?' The door has not opened yet - not only that, but you don't know whether the door exists or not. The door is there just in front of you, but because of the demanding mode of your mind you cannot see it. The demanding mode of the mind keeps you blind. The door opens only for those who are in a non-demanding mode. Demand means imposing your will on existence.

And the existence is not willing for that. And it is good that it is not willing for that; otherwise, just as you are neurotic, the whole would go neurotic. So many wills imposing themselves upon existence, and if the existence were to yield to each and everybody's desire... Just think what would happen:

the whole would start falling into parts. There would be so many contradictory demands on it that those demands would drive it mad. If God is still sane the only reason is that nobody's demands are ever fulfilled; nobody's demand is ever even heard.

Prayers reach to him only when they are non-demanding. If there is even a hidden demand somewhere, that very demand makes the prayer so heavy that it cannot leave the earth. When there is no demand then it is weightless, then it can rise; then the gravitation has no effect on it, then it can go to the highest, to the deepest core of existence.

Only those prayers are heard which are nothing but jubilations, 'alleluia', for no particular reason.

Only those prayers are heard which are nothing but thanks.

And, remember it, a mind which is entangled in thinking never comes to the point where THANKING can happen. Thinking becomes a bar, a hindrance, to thanking. Either you can be thinking or you can be thanking, but you cannot be both together. Thanking arises out of non-thinking, and a demanding mind cannot afford to be non-thinking. He has to think, he has to work out... He has a demand that has to be fulfilled - he is after it, he is chasing it, he is putting everything at stake.

God is absolutely deaf to the prayers which demand, but God is absolutely open to the prayers which have no demand.

Krishna Gopa, you ask: AT TIMES I FEEL LIKE I CAN JUST SILENTLY SIT AND WAIT FOR ETERNITY - AND OTHER TIMES LIKE SOBBING WITH THE FUTILITY OF SITTING OUTSIDE A GATE I CANNOT EVEN SEE - FROZEN BETWEEN ACTION AND INACTION.

Those are the great moments, when you are frozen between action and inaction. Remain frozen.

Don't do anything, just remain in that moment. You are on the verge of a new birth. If you can wait, a new life will arise - what Taoists call WEI WU WEI, action without action. And that happens only when you are frozen between action AND inaction, if you choose you miss that birth. If you can remain frozen, don't choose - so what? Remain in that moment. It is arduous for the mind because the mind starts feeling suffocated, the mind says 'Do something, something has to be done. Anything will do, but do something. Don't remain frozen here, you will die.' You are not dying, the mind is dying, the ego is dying. The ego says 'Do something - at least meditate, chant the name of God, pray. Do something.' And if you do something, you have moved into action again.

These are rare moments, Gopa, when there is no action and no inaction, and you are frozen. Not that you are lethargic, so there is no inaction; you have energy, but the energy is not going anywhere because there is no goal left. The energy is simply there like a reservoir rising higher and higher, becoming greater and greater. You are ready to explode into something, into something absolutely new, of which you cannot even dream. You are on the verge of a new mode of life: action in inaction.

Then a new activity starts in which you are not the actor, in which you are only a vehicle, a passage.

But I know those moments are hard, I have passed through those moments just as you are passing.

One thing only can I say to help you: that they pass. But great patience is a must. Don't be impatient, the impatience comes from the mind. The mind starts saying 'Do something! Become occupied with something!' because mind cannot exist without occupation, mind IS occupation. When there is no occupation there is no mind; suddenly you are silent, suddenly you arrive at the primal awareness.

That's what Buddhists call 'Buddha-nature'. There is nothing to do, nothing to think; YOU ARE, but your being is just a pure mirroring, watching, waiting. And not waiting for something in particular because you don't know where the gate is, you don't know what is going to happen. So it is not a question of waiting for something; if you wait for something, you wait for Godot.

Waiting has to be pure. Enjoy waiting for itself, for its own sake. Don't you see the beauty of just waiting - the purity of it, the benediction of it, the innocence of it - just waiting, not even capable of answering for what? See the point of it: pure waiting, not knowing what is going to happen. If you know what is going to happen that will be supplied by your past, it will be a continuity with the past; it will not be new. Maybe modified, but it will be again the same thing, it will be a repetition. How can you know what is going to happen? You have not known it before so how can you even imagine it?

Finding that there is no way to imagine the future, no way to imagine the unknown, the known ceases, all ideas in the mind disappear - ideas about God, ideas about SAMADHI, enlightenment.

All disappears; in that disappearance is enlightenment. Never think for a single moment that your idea of enlightenment is going to be fulfilled. How can you have any idea of enlightenment? And whatsoever idea you have is going to be wrong.

When enlightenment happens you will be surprised. You had read all the scriptures, and it wasn't mentioned anywhere. It can't be mentioned. You will be surprised. You have been hearing me year in, year out, and I had never mentioned it. I am trying, but it can't be done in the very nature of the case. I am trying to do it in a thousand and one ways, but they are only indications... But when you arrive at the reality of it, when it explodes in you, then you will know that no Buddha has ever been able to say it. And then you will know that nobody is ever going to say it. It has remained unuttered.

And it is good that it has remained unuttered; otherwise it would never be a new phenomenon to anybody. Millions of Buddhas have happened and they have talked about it and talked about it; you already know about it - and then it happens. It may be just something known, then it will not be a break-through, it will not be a discontinuity, it can't be utterly new and radical.

It is utterly new and utterly radical.

So waiting has to be with no idea for what. A real waiter cannot answer the question for what he is waiting; he can only shrug his shoulders, he can say 'I don't know.' But one thing is certain: that waiting is infinitely beautiful, waiting is infinitely joyous. When the whole turmoil disappears and it is all silence, it has a beauty of its own.

You ask me: DOES ONE MISS BY DEMANDING?

Certainly, absolutely. Demand has to be dropped.

IS IMPATIENCE A LACK OF TRUST?

Yes, certainly, absolutely. Impatience simply means you can't trust existence, you have to do something. You can't just sit there and trust that it will happen when you are ripe; that when spring comes, the grass will grow of its own accord. You cannot trust; you have to pull the grass from the earth. You cannot wait like a farmer who has thrown his seeds into the soil and they have disappeared, and now he does not know anymore where they are, whether they are going to grow into plants, whether they are ever going to ripen.

Think of a farmer. He has lost the seeds that he had. He waits, he silently waits; he trusts, he trusts nature. 'Soon the clouds will be coming, soon there will be great greenery all around and the seeds will start sprouting. They will become alive, they will come out of their slumber, they will again like to see the sun and the rain - it is going to happen.' He trusts, it is just trust.

A meditator is a farmer. And, of course, he has to trust the ultimate nature of existence. Wait.

Waiting is like a seed, waiting is the seed, the seed of enlightenment. If you can wait in its time - and you cannot decide the time - in its season, and you don't know in what season... Because it differs, it differs from individual to individual.

Mahavir became enlightened on an absolutely dark night when there was no moon; Buddha became enlightened on a full-moon night. Once a Jaina came to me and he asked 'Why this difference? Is there something in it? Why did Mahavir become enlightened on a dark night with no moon? Why did Buddha become enlightened on a full-moon night? They are polar opposites. It is not just accidental; Buddha and Mahavir are polar opposites - contemporaries, but polar opposites. Mahavir is a man who struggles, who goes as deeply as possible in the will, by the will. He surrenders only at the last moment. His whole journey is a struggle, hence he is called Mahavir; the word means 'the great warrior'. He is a warrior: his path is that of SANKALPA, that of struggle, will, war. He goes on refining his will, he goes on and on sophisticating his will, making it more subtle, more purified. He has to surrender it - finally one has to surrender it - but he surrenders it only at the last moment when he has done all that he can do. Buddha is a totally different person: the man who arrives through let-go, the man who arrives through relaxing, the man who arrives not by fighting but by yielding.

They are totally different people; they will have different seasons of ripening, different seasons of blooming, different times. And nobody can say beforehand; it is unpredictable when your season will come, when it will be spring for you. One has to wait and one has to trust. Impatience is lack of trust.

Gopa, you have a subtle ego lurking somewhere in your unconscious. You have to become aware of it - that ego creates the problem, that ego surfaces again and again and you start demanding and you become impatient. And that is not your true nature. If it were your true nature I would have told you to become a warrior. Your real nature, your intrinsic quality, is not that of a warrior but of a lover.

But people are like that: divided, split. A part of your mind wants to fight, but the major part wants to relax. That's why it happens that AT TIMES, you say, I FEEL LIKE I CAN JUST SILENTLY SIT AND WAIT FOR ETERNITY... That is your true nature - listen to it, get more and more into that - that is your real space, that is where your kingdom is. You have to explore this region more and more, you have to go into it. And when you start going into it and you start enjoying it and you start feeling that you can wait for eternity, the other part becomes worried. It is an intruder, a foreigner in your being; it is not your true being. That starts intruding, interfering; it comes and creates problems for you.

... AND OTHER TIMES LIKE SOBBING WITH THE FUTILITY OF SITTING OUTSIDE A GATE I CANNOT EVEN SEE - FROZEN BETWEEN ACTION AND INACTION.

Avoid the other part. When I am saying avoid it, I am not saying repress it. If you repress it, it will become more and more powerful. By avoiding it I mean neglect it, ignore it, don't nourish it anymore, don't care about it. If it comes, take note of it but don't get involved in it. Keep yourself aloof. Just know that it is an intruder.

I have looked in your eyes deeply, Gopa, in your being deeply. This is my reading about you: that you will come through love not through demanding, that you will come through relaxation not through willing, that you will come through waiting not through fighting. So you have to nourish that which is really your nature and you have to StOp nourishing that which is not your real nature.

And how to decide what is your real nature? Whenever you are moving into your real nature you will feel happy, you will feel blissful. That is the criterion, remember it always. So whatsoever gives you joy, serenity, calmness, coolness - whatsoever makes you more centred - is your true nature.

That has to be nourished more and more, more care has to be taken about it; you have to pour your energies into it. And whenever you feel sad, depressed, angry, restless, that is not your real nature.

You have to slowly slowly disassociate yourself from this. Keep yourself aloof - just as when an uninvited guest comes to your home. It is an uninvited guest. And if you go on feeding both, you will get more and more into a kind of split; that's how people become schizophrenic.

Learn waiting, pure waiting.

Martin Heidegger has said that pure waiting is openness, just openness - not in a particular direction, not toward a particular object, not for something special; just opening - opening to all the sides, to the whole of existence - a multi-dimensional opening. No object is consciously sought, you are not desiring anything; you are just waiting, open, for the unknown to happen, for the indefinable to happen. That's God: the indefinable, the unknown and the unknowable. And the secret key to invite it is just to be in an open state, waiting with a throbbing heart, certainly, waiting with great love, but not knowing for what; waiting with great poetry in your being, waiting with a song, but not knowing for whom, for what.

This is sannyas, my sannyas. This is the space I would like all of you to enter.

Openness is the absence of single-perspective perceiving and thinking. Thinking is always one- dimensional, it moves in one direction; it is concentration. Waiting is meditation, not concentration.

And if you have read in books and heard the so-called religious people saying again and again that 'meditation is concentration' you have to uncondition yourself about it; that is utter nonsense.

Concentration is thinking; it is to move systematically into a certain thought, in a certain direction; it is directed, it is addressed. Concentration can only lead you towards the known - in a more systematic way of course, in a more scientific way of course - but only to the known. It is from the known to the known, it is never a revolution, it is never a quantum leap. It is from one conclusion to another conclusion, it is a refinement of the same thing, it is continuity.

Meditation is non-dimensional or multi-dimensional; it is overflowing in all directions. It is not directed towards any object, hence there is no demand, no desire. And how can there be thinking? Being is there, certainly, presence is there; you are there, very much you are there, but just like a sky without clouds, a mirror without dust - pulsating, alive, vital, open, waiting for the unknown. You can't have any idea of it. That's why I say if you are a Christian you will miss, because then you have an idea of God. If you are a Hindu, you will miss - then you have already concluded how God is. If you are a theist or an atheist you will miss, because you have already decided without experiencing.

Just wait without getting into any doctrine, any sect, any scripture. Just wait without thought. And let it happen! Obviously, great trust will be needed, and that is the function of being with a Master:

to imbibe trust. What are you doing here sitting with me? Imbibing trust, learning how to be open.

Sometimes you may be surprised why I go on talking every day. This is just a device to help you become more receptive: when you are listening to me you become more receptive. Listening has to be a kind of receptivity. Listening, you become open, you become all ears.

Have you watched one thing? Eyes are male, ears are female, that's why eyes can offend. Have you ever heard of anybody's ears offending you? They cannot offend. Eyes can rape; they are male, aggressive, violent. A man can look at you in such a way that he has violated you, that he has transgressed. Eyes can be used like swords; they are not just receptive, they are projective, they project. Ears can't project, they simply receive, they are just open.

Talking to you every day is a message. The message is not in the content of my talk, the message is in the situation that it creates. The message is: become ears, become feminine, become open.

Ears are just open, and you cannot even close them - nature has not provided for it. Eyes can be open or closed. Even while you are asleep the ears remain open - there is no other way, nature has not provided for it - they are pure opening. You may have heard again and again in the Jewish scriptures, Christian scriptures, Mohammedan scriptures, in the Vedas, that God has 'been heard'.

Mohammed HEARD the Koran; he couldn't see where it was happening from, who was saying it.

And the prophets in ancient Israel had been hearing - they could not see, but they could hear. If you ask the psychoanalyst he will say that these people are just neurotic, crazy; they have gone mad.

But it is a symbol, and the followers have missed the meaning of it and the antagonists are missing the meaning of it. The message is only this: that God has entered in you through the feminine part of you, the ear.

The question is valid: if nothing can be said about truth, then why talk? Nothing can be said about truth, that is true; still, Buddhas have been talking so then there must be something else in it. That something else is this: just sitting by my side for one and a half hours, slowly slowly a radical change happens in you. And you can see the shift. If you become a little more aware you will see the shift of your consciousness from the eyes towards the ears: from men you become women. Suddenly, the moment you start listening to me, you are no more male. And only those who shift like that listen.

For one and a half hours remaining continuously with me in a listening mode - open, receptive, non-interfering, non-projective - a great transfer is happening. They are just a device, these words:

you become open, and my energy starts flowing in you. Imbibe it, digest it - the taste of it is trust - and more and more trust will arise. This kind of waiting is healing, stilling, strengthening.

Martin Heidegger comes very close to the Zen approach. Once he was asked 'Then what in the world am I to do?' Somebody asked him - he was talking about waiting and waiting and waiting, and naturally the question arose 'Then what am I to do?' He said 'We are to do nothing but wait.'

But that is the greatest thing one CAN DO. Waiting is the greatest art - no craft is higher than that.

It needs great courage, trust, great awareness, great love; it needs many things, only then one can wait.

Look into me, feel me, and learn how to wait. And one day, when the waiting has come to its optimum, it will happen. That's how it has always happened.

The third question:

Question 3:

Kalika, this is the way to listen to me. You have found the key. It is not a question of listening to what I am saying - that is really irrelevant; there is no need to remember it either. In fact, to remember it will be dangerous; it will become knowledge, it will be your memory, it will enhance your ego. It is perfectly right, in fact it should be always so: you need not remember it, let it slip out of the memory.

Listen to it as totally as possible, but don't try to remember it at all. You are not preparing for any examination, you are preparing for an explosion. And the explosion is not going to happen in your memory, it is going to happen in your heart. And the heart knows; it has its own ways of knowing.

So even if you fall asleep, the heart goes on imbibing That's why you say: YET I FEEL DEEPLY AFFECTED INSIDE. Yes, that's how it is. The whole thing is that you are open to me. If, in that opening, you start falling asleep, nothing to be worried about - only the mind is falling asleep.

Because the mind is not being used that's why the mind says 'So what is the point? Let me sleep.'

The mind knows only two things: either think or sleep. When you don't have anything to think about, you start thinking of going to sleep; when you have slept enough, you start thinking again. The mind goes on moving in this wheel: thinking, sleeping, thinking, sleeping.

Something else is happening here, and you are not accustomed to a third point: that you can be in a state where there is no sleep and no thought either. This is something new, the mind is not at all accustomed to it; so when you start listening to me, the mind says 'I am not needed, so let me go to sleep. Why waste time?' The mind falls asleep. Don't be worried, because the sleep of the mind can be the awakening of the heart; and the awakening of the mind can be the sleep of the heart.

How to judge whether it was just sleep or the awakening of the heart? The judgement is simple, because you say: YET I FEEL DEEPLY AFFECTED INSIDE, SO the heart is awake. And I don't want to relate with your mind at all, I want to relate with your heart. So sometimes if you feel like falling asleep, fall asleep. But remember only if later on you feel deeply affected is it okay; otherwise it is just sleep, then it is better to keep awake.

But with Kalika it is happening. So for you, Kalika, I allow it. Don't struggle, because you must be struggling - naturally, one thinks 'What is the point of sitting here and falling asleep?' One even starts feeling guilty: 'I am asleep - I must be missing. And is this the place to sleep?' And if you struggle you will miss more because you will get involved in the struggle with the mind. The mind wants to go to sleep, and you want to keep it awake. There are a few people - I go on seeing them - they fall asleep and they jerk themselves and they yawn and they stretch, and somehow they bring themselves back because 'This doesn't look right.' But that way you can keep yourself awake somehow, but you will be missing me because your whole energy will be involved in that.

I allow a few people to sleep; the criterion is: if later on you feel deeply affected, that means the heart was still drinking. And it was good that the mind fell asleep: the disturbance was not there, then the mind was not creating any kind of hindrance - the passage was absolutely open.

These are not just talks. Those who miss these discourses are not only missing the discourses, they are missing me. There are a few people who, when they have listened to me a lot, start thinking 'Now we know what Osho is going to say.' They stop coming, they think 'We know already. And then there are tapes and there are books, so what is the point?' Even in the ashram there are a few stupid people who don't come to the talks - I am aware of them, I have to be aware of them because I love them - and then, slowly slowly, they start feeling disconnected from me. Veena is one. Nearabout one year ago she asked me - and whenever you ask me such things, you ask at your own risk - she asked me 'Now that I have listened to you for so many years and I think I know what you are going to say, can I stop coming to the lectures?' I said 'Perfectly right.' Now again and again she writes that she is feeling disconnected from me, disconnected from the commune too.

Because this is not only a discourse, this is your spiritual breakfast, this is your nourishment - it will keep you ticking for twenty-four hours. It keeps you connected to me, it keeps you related to me.

You come every day and participate in my being; you are nourished, strengthened. This is a subtle phenomenon. On the surface I am talking and you are listening; deep underneath something else, of far greater importance and significance, is happening. r am making love to you, you are making love to me. That's exactly what is happening: it is a kind of orgasm.

So remember, if such great ideas come to your mind that now you know... And, in fact, I have not many things to say, I have the same to say again and again. In fact, to listen to me every day you have to be utterly mad! If you have any sense you will stop! What is the point? You have listened, you know it already.

But it is not only a listening - it has never been. Whenever a Buddha walks on the earth, to be with him has two different planes. One is the superficial: you are with him, you are sitting with him, you are talking with him, listening to him, serving him. The other is the real level where two centres meet. But those centres can meet only if the surface is allowed, otherwise it becomes very difficult.

The surface meeting is not enough, but the surface provides a way, an approach, for the centres to meet.

So, Kalika, it is perfectly okay, you can fall asleep. Just remember one thing: that if after the discourse you feel strengthened, affected, thrilled, joyous, it has been good; you participated with me. And this should be the criterion for everybody else. Only if later on you are not affected - it has been just a sleep and you dreamt and slept, and later on you are feeling miserable because you missed the discourse and you start feeling guilty and there has been no benediction in it - then you have to learn how to keep awake. And when I say you have to learn how to keep awake I don't mean yawn and stretch, I mean that there must be something wrong in your sleep. You have to learn better ways of sleeping. Maybe you are not taking enough sleep in the night, maybe the hours are not enough, maybe you are dreaming too much, maybe you are not dreaming enough. Something is wrong with your sleep... then you can come to me. Something can be done about your sleep: it can be transformed, it can be made deeper, it can be made more healthful, and then in the morning discourse you will not feel sleepy.

But this is not what I am saying to Kalika or to Sheela. They are enjoying perfectly well, so they can go on enjoying. In fact, if Kalika keeps awake she may not be benefitted so much; her mind will create disturbances. The mind is like children: if guests have come in the house and you tell the children to keep quiet, that will be the day they will be most noisy and most mischievous - they will attract attention in every way. And that's what happens when you come to listen to me: you want the mind to be silent, you say to the mind 'Be quiet, then for twenty-three hours, the whole day, you can go on thinking whatsoever you want. But for one hour, please be quiet.' And the mind is very childish; if you say so then the mind will take revenge - it will create more trouble than ever, it will be mischievous. It is better to let it go to sleep.

Just later on you have to see if some grace has arisen in you; if you are feeling gratitude, then it has been perfectly good - you became connected with me, the flow happened.

The last question

Question 4:

Parinirvana, you are coming very close. That knowing is a kind of not-knowing, that knowing is a kind of ignorance.

Socrates is reported to have said that 'When I was young I knew that I knew. As I became more mature I started feeling that I don't know much - very little. As I became more and more mature and alert I came to know that I know nothing.' The day he declared that 'I know only one thing: that I know nothing' the oracle in the temple of Delphi declared him the greatest wise man.

People were puzzled because he said 'I know only one thing: that I know nothing' and the oracle in Delphi said that 'He is the wisest man in the world now.' They went to Socrates and they told him about what the oracle had said. Socrates said 'I can't comment on it. All that I can say is again this, that I know only one thing: that I know nothing. Now it is not my business what the oracle has said - you go and ask the oracle.'

And they went back to the temple and they asked, and the oracle said 'That's WHY he has been declared to be the wisest man in the world, because now he knows that he knows nothing.'

To know that 'I don't know' is a great realization.

It happened in Ramakrishna's life...

He was a simple man, very simple, extraordinarily ordinary, immensely beautiful in his simplicity.

He was not like your so-called MAHATMAS - Mahatma Gandhi, etcetera, etcetera - he was really a sage. His fragrance spread all over Bengal, people began coming to see this mad priest of Dakshineshwar and they saw something immensely beautiful happening there. And priests and the scholars and the pundits gathered; there was a great congregation. They had gathered to declare him a new incarnation of God. All the great thinkers, scholars, and traditional priests of Bengal - all had gathered, and they all agreed unanimously that he was the incarnation of God. When they declared this, he was just sitting in between them, laughing and chewing PAN. He was really a very simple man. And when they said 'We have decided to declare that you are the new incarnation of God' he said 'If you say, then it must be so - but I don't know.' And he continued chewing his PAN.

'If you say, it must be so - but I don't know.' You see the beauty of it? Truth is so beautiful and so simple, so unassuming, non-pretentious.

You say, Parinirvana: IT IS SO. I KNOW. BUT I DON'T KNOW.

If you had stopped at I KNOW, then I would not have been happy with you. That is a kind of disease when one stops on knowledge, that is a great disease. Because you have said also: BUT I DON'T KNOW, it is beautiful.

Remember always, not knowing is the greatest knowing, and ignorance is bliss. The sage again becomes ignorant like a child; he unlearns all that life forces one to learn, he effaces it all, he wipes off the whole tape - he becomes clean of knowledge. And at that very moment when he is utterly clean of knowledge, knowledge. happens; that knowledge is known as MAHAPRAGYA, the great wisdom.