The perfect swimmer - Questions and Answers

Question 1:

A good beginning. If you can feel that you don't have eyes to see, sooner or later, you will have eyes.

To feel that you are ignorant, you have taken the first step towards knowledge. To feel that you are lost is to attain to the path. That is why sometimes you are filled with grace. The very understanding that you are ignorant suddenly illuminates your being.

The problem is with those people who think they know. They are in real trouble. They know not and they think they know. So there is no possibility for their growth. And they insist and they defend their knowledge. In defending their knowledge, they are defending their ignorance.

If you are ill, you seek a physician. But if you pretend that you are not ill, and you are ill, you avoid the physician. Even if the physician comes to your home, you will say: 'Why have you come here?'

Gurdjieff, working with his disciples one day, told a group: 'Unless you know your chief characteristic and become aware of it, you will not be able to enter into your essence and you will remain stuck to your personality.'

Somebody asked: 'Please give us concrete examples.'

Gurdjieff said: 'Look at the man who is sitting in front of me. His chief characteristic is that he is never at home.' Everybody could see the absent-mindedness on the man's face.

But the man shrugged his shoulders and said: 'What did you say sir?' - because that is the chief characteristic: he is not at home. He is always somewhere else, and he wants to grow. Impossible - because you have to be at home to grow.

Then Gurdjieff turned to another and said: 'Look at this man. His chief characteristic is that he is always arguing with everybody and everything.' The man became very heated and said: 'Sir, there you are wrong! I never argue!'

Find out what you are defending. That may be the clue to enter within.

Just last night, a sannyasin said that from her very childhood, she has been feeling that she is stupid.

And she is afraid, so she goes on defending. She tries not to do anything which is stupid. Now she is in a mess, because what can you do? You can avoid, but WHO will avoid? - the stupid mind will avoid. In avoiding, you will do the same stupidity again.

A stupid person... and all persons are stupid unless they become aware and alert. All persons are stupid. So when I say stupid, I don't mean any condemnation - I simply indicate a state of unawareness. Everybody is born stupid. Fortunate are the few who don't die stupid.

Stupidity is the sleep you live in. How can you avoid it? How can a man who is fast asleep avoid dreaming? If he tries, he will create another dream. In the very avoidance, he will do something stupid.

Don't avoid it. Accept it! Because avoidance is trying to defend it. You don't want anybody to know that you are stupid, but that is not going to help. And the trouble is, that by avoiding continuously, you may yourself forget that you are stupid. Then you are settled in it. Then there is no way out.

That's how you have created your troubles. You have been avoiding them. Then you deceive others and by and by you are deceived yourself.

People come to me with problems, but those are not the real problems. Rarely a person comes with an authentic problem. Otherwise they don't know exactly what their problem is. They have a false problem, so they can be engaged in solving it.

They will never be able to solve it - because a real disease can disappear; an unreal disease cannot disappear. In the first place, it is not there. How to make it disappear? And by fighting with the wrong disease, they are defending the right disease. They are engaged in fighting with something which is absolutely pseudo. So they are giving time for the real disease to grow and spread, and become a cancerous phenomenon in their being.

To look at the right problem is difficult because from the very beginning you have been taught to avoid.

In the Poona newspapers, every day I see somebody dies-husband dies, a wife dies, and in the memory a picture is printed: 'My wife left for the heavenly abode, this very day, one year ago.'

You don't say 'death'. That word is too real and hits too hard. 'Left for heavenly abode....' Who are you deceiving? - not the wife who has already left. You are deceiving yourself. You are afraid of death. You are hiding death in a beautiful terminology: 'heavenly abode'. Now there is no fear; in fact, even a little desire to go yourself.

The basic problem is death. You have made a code and you may forget completely. And this is how you are working with life. You feel angry, but you don't say that you are angry. You say: 'I feel restless.' Restlessness is not a condemnatory thing.

I was reading about a Quaker, a very religious Quaker. One night, a thief entered. The Quaker got his gun. He wanted to say: 'You son of a bitch,' but he couldn't say that. A quaker, a religious person, how can he say that? So he said: 'Dear sir, you are standing in the place where I am going to shoot. Please don't move! And I don't intend to kill you; this is just accidental. You are standing in the place where I am going to shoot.' How can a Quaker kill?

You go on deceiving. Your language, your philosophy, your religion - everything.

Once it happened: I was talking and I used the word 'pissing'. Ananda Prem wrote a long letter to me immediately, saying: 'Please don't use this word; "urination" has to be used'.

'Urination' is clinical. Nobody urinates. It is a textbook thing. 'Pissing' is alive. The very sound of it gives you the idea. But reality has to be hidden. And that day I understood why Ananda Prem is so upright - she has been urinating! You have to be uptight then.

Be real, authentic, true, true to life. But even words.... I will tell you one story.

A woman came to listen to a so-called saint with her small child, a young boy. Just in the middle of the discourse the boy started fidgeting and then he said loudly: 'I wanna go to piss.'

The saint was of course very angry - such a mundane thing in such a sacred atmosphere. He said:

'You have to teach manners to him. Otherwise, don't bring him here. This is not only unmannerly, it is insulting.'

The woman said: 'You tell me how to teach him.'

So he said: 'You can make a code word. He can say: "I wanna sing." Then you will understand.' So the woman taught the boy.

After one year it happened: the saint came to visit the woman's house; he stayed there. One night, the woman had to go to another town; her mother was ill, so the saint was left with the child. Just in the middle of the night, two o'clock, the child awoke the saint and said: 'I wanna sing.' But by that time, the saint had forgotten the code. One year had passed and....

So he said: 'Wanna sing? This is no time to sing'

The child said: 'But I sing every day. Even twice.'

'But you are a very stupid child,' he said. 'In the day you can sing, but not in the night. And don't disturb me keep quiet and go to sleep.'

After a few minutes, again the child said: 'But I cannot go to sleep. And if you don't allow me, it will come out by itself, I tell you!'

The saint said: 'What type of singing? Even the neighbours will be disturbed. You go to sleep!'

The boy said: 'I cannot sleep. First I will have to sing.'

So the saint said: 'Okay. You come near my ear and sing slowly.'

So the boy sang! Then the saint understood the code.

Never hide in codes. Be true. And life is simple, but because of your pretensions you complicate the whole thing. Don't complicate it.

Ninety-nine percent of your illnesses are your own working. Be alert and watch. If you are stupid, you are stupid. This is the first ray of intelligence that has happened to you: that you feel that you are stupid - perfectly beautiful.

To understand that one is stupid is to already be intelligent. To understand that one is blind and cannot see light, one is already on the way. Now something is possible.

But a blind man goes on imagining that he knows what light is. He dreams about light, he dreams about the eyes. And if somebody says that he is wrong he is ready to protect himself, defend, rationalize, argue.

Look at the bare fact. Whatsoever it is, to accept it is good. You are blind - everybody is born blind.

Nobody comes with eyes. If you have eyes, there is no need to come. You come only to learn how to be able to see. And from the very beginning, you start thinking that you have eyes.

You come here to be enlightened. Life is a process of enlightenment. If you live it truly, Buddhahood is bound to happen. It is not some accident; you carry the seed within you. Just give the right soil and the seed will sprout, and a Buddha will flower in you.

Buddhahood is not accidental, is not only for the chosen few - it is everybody's destiny. Delay you can, but when you attain, there is nothing to brag about. I will repeat: Delay you can, but when you attain it, there is nothing to brag about. It is very ordinary. It has to be so. It is your intrinsic being. It is your essence. Only the personality has to be dropped. Personality is the falsification.

Watch. And always be true. Whatsoever you say about yourself, be true, and you will never be a loser.

In the beginning it will seem that if you say that you are stupid, everybody will know - but stupidity is not such a thing that you can hide it. Everybody already knows Everybody already knows. Only you are deceived. Drop all deceptions, because finally, eventually, you will discover that nobody else was deceived, only yourself. And nobody is a loser for it. You lose.

Drop all codes. Drop all falsifications. And when I say 'drop,' I don't mean that any effort is needed.

Just see, and they drop. Seeing is dropping. That's why if you feel: 'I don't have eyes to see,' eyes start opening. If you feel: 'I don't have ears to hear you,' you have already heard me!

If you say: 'I am absolutely stupid,' intelligence has arrived - the first ray has penetrated your being.

YOU PROMISE US LIBERATION...

I don't promise you anything. It is already promised by destiny. You are here for it.

How can I promise something? Who am I to promise r I can promise only because I know - it is already there. I know - whether you know it or not - that it is already there. I can see the flame inside you. You may have forgotten it, but I can penetrate and see. I promise because I know it is already there. Right now, it is the facticity of your being. Nothing is to be done. One just has to become a little more alert, a little truer, a little more in the essence.

Don't cling to the personality that you have created around you. Go to the center.

You feel: HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE WITH SUCH A HELPLESS CASE AS I AM?

Anybody who moves on the path feels helpless. Only those who never move on the path feel themselves very strong. Anybody who moves on the path feels helpless, because on the path one becomes flexible, on the path one becomes aware - how things are. One becomes aware how small one is. One becomes aware of the tininess of his own existence, and the vastness of the reality around. One is just a small drop in an infinite ocean. Of course, one feels helpless.

But once you feel helpless, the ego has been dropped. And for the first time, from every nook and corner of existence help rushes towards you. The whole ocean rushes towards you. In your helplessness, the drop drops. You become the ocean.

And that's why you say: ON THE OTHER HAND, SOMETIMES I AM FILLED WITH GRACE.

Yes, it happens. It is part of the whole process. If you feel helplessness, you will feel grace reaching to you.

If you feel that you are already strong, the door is closed. You don't need grace.

There is a very ancient story. Krishna is sitting down. His wife, Rukhamani, has brought food for him, and he was just going to take the first bite. He dropped it and rushed towards the door. Then he stopped at the door for a single moment, came back, and started eating.

Rukhamani was puzzled. She said: 'What is the matter? You rushed towards the door as if there is some great emergency, as if the house is on fire or something, or somebody is going to die. And then you stopped, and then you came back. I'm puzzled. Tell me, what is the secret?'

Krishna said: 'One of my devotees, a lover, was passing through a big city. He is almost mad in love with me. People were throwing stones at him. They thought he was crazy. And when the stones hit him and the blood flowed, he just said: 'Krishna, Krishna,' and danced. He was so helpless, I was needed. So I rushed.'

Rukhmani asked: 'Then what happened? Why did you come back from the door?'

Krishna said: 'By the time I reached the door, he had taken one stone in his hand. He was throwing stones himself. Now I am not needed. He has taken the whole situation in his own hands. I am not needed.'

God comes to you when you are helpless. When you are strong, God is not needed. The divine reaches to you when you are empty. When you are too full of yourself, there is no need.

Helplessness is the capacity to call, to invite grace. Grace is always available; you only have to be helpless.

But in your ego, you feel you are strong. You feel you are the master. You feel nothing can harm you.

You feel everybody else dies, not you. You feel very superior, and nothing is there in that superiority; it is just a bubble, a soap bubble - inside, nothing but emptiness. And you know it, because anybody can touch the bubble and it is no more there; it explodes.

Feel helpless and you will never be helpless again. Feel empty and you will be full with the divine.

That's the secret.

AND ON THE OTHER HAND SOMETIMES L AM FILLED WITH GRACE WHICH NO WORDS CAN DESCRIBE.

Yes, the grace cannot be described, because when it comes, the mind is not there which can describe. When it comes, the mind ceases to exist. Who can give and bring a report? The reporter is not present. It comes only when the mind is not, and mind could have described.

WHAT HAPPENS? AND WHERE AM I IN ALL THIS?

You are nowhere in this. The moment you come, the grace has disappeared. When you are not, God is. When you are, God is not. Your presence is His absence. Your absence is His presence.

Crucify your ego and you will resurrect into a greater infinite life.

Question 2:

Buddha or Buddhahood is not any polarity. It is not opposite to anything. It is beyond the duality.

Night is against day. Life is against death. Love is against hate. Buddhahood is not against anything.

It is to transcend the duality.

When you are neither day nor night, you are a Buddha. When you are neither life nor death, you are a Buddha. When you are neither this nor that, NETI NETI, you are a Buddha.

Buddhahood simply means transcendence of duality. So Buddhahood is all and nothing. There is nothing as polar opposite to, and there is no complementary to it. Remember this: you would like to become a Buddha because you would like to be happy. But then you misunderstand.

Buddhahood is beyond happiness and unhappiness. That was the insistence in yesterday's talk: it is beyond agony, and beyond ecstasy also. So the man who has really attained to ecstasy, you will not see any ecstasy in him. Agony has disappeared, ecstasy also. The world has disappeared, and the nirvana also. The body has disappeared, and the soul also - because those are all opposites.

They are meaningful only when the other is present.

Have you observed? If you ask the scientists: 'What is matter?' they say: 'Not mind.' 'And what is mind?' - they say: 'Not matter.' Now look at the foolishness. When you want to define matter, you have to bring mind in. Mind itself is undefined yet. To define one thing, you bring another undefined thing. How can you define something by another undefined thing? 'What is matter?' - you say: 'Not mind.' And when it is asked: 'What is mind?' you bring matter in - that it is not matter.

Dualities depend on each other. You cannot define love without bringing hate in. What type of love is this which needs hate to be defined? You cannot define life without bringing death in. This life cannot be much of a life. What type of life is this which needs death to define it?

There is a life beyond life and death, and there is a love beyond love and hate. That love, that life, is Buddhahood - transcending all the opposites.

So don't choose. If you choose, you will be in the quagmire. Don't choose! A choiceless awareness is the goal. Just remain aloof; don't choose. The moment you choose, you have fallen into the trap of the world, or into the trap of the mind.

It is reported that Rinzai, a great Zen Master, was asked by a disciple: 'I have left the whole world, renounced all. Now why am I still to wait for nirvana? Why isn't the enlightenment happening?'

Rinzai said: 'You have left the world, now leave enlightenment also. Otherwise, it will not happen.

Because whatsoever you call enlightenment is nothing but the opposite polarity of your world. In your idea of enlightenment, your world still exists. Maybe it exists as negated, but one still exists.

Drop enlightenment also.'

It is said the disciple understood. He laughed. And the Master said: 'Finished. You attained.'

In a single moment it is possible. But if you cling to the duality, then for lives together you can go on and on and on.

Try to see the point. It is only a question of vision and clarity. Try to see the point that you cannot choose one without choosing the opposite. If you choose love, you have already chosen hate. Love is a love-hate relationship. If you choose love, you have already chosen hate. It will lurk just behind your love, and many times it will come up. And you will have to relax, because nobody can love for twenty-four hours.

Where will you relax? You will relax in hate; it is lurking just by the side. You will fight. After a fight, again you are ready to love. Now you are fed-up with hate. Again you fall in love. This way you go on moving: happy, unhappy; sad, ecstatic; in anguish, in bliss. But these opposites are two aspects of the same coin. When the head is up, the tail is hidden. When the tail is up, the head is hidden.

Just close by, like a shadow, the opposite follows.

To understand this is to become a Buddha. Then you don't desire, because every desire will be a choice. Then you don't say: 'I would like love, and I don't want hate.' If you want love you have already wanted hate, you have already fallen into the trap. Once you understand the duality and the trap of it, you simply laugh, you don't choose. You say: 'Enough. I understand now. I don't choose.'

In that choicelessness a pillar of awareness arises in you, a flame. You are transformed.

Choicelessness is the alchemy of transformation, of inner mutation. A new being is born who has nothing to do with the past, who is absolutely discontinuous with the past. He has no desire. And when there is no desire, for the first time you live.

Desire doesn't allow you to live. It goes on forcing you towards the future. It doesn't allow you to be here-now. It doesn't allow you to let go. It doesn't allow you to flow. It doesn't allow you to move with the tide. The desire creates fight. The desire says: 'Fight for the goal. You have to reach somewhere.' Life is not reaching anywhere. It is sheer delight I It is just here-now! The desiring mind is always somewhere else.

What Gurdjieff said about that man is true about many - you are never at home. You have made your abode in desires. Life is always here, and you are always somewhere else. Except here, you may be anywhere. But you are never here. A choiceless consciousness is here-now. It lives. Only IT lives. Only IT can live. You only hope. You never live. You think to live; you plan - but you never live. Your whole life goes in planningthinking of the morrow, thinking how to enjoy tomorrow, and missing today. And there is no tomorrow.

Question 3:

This is from Swami Vishnu Chaitanya. Boredom is your chief characteristic, so don't avoid it. Be bored. Know it. Watch it. Be aware of it. There are many people whose chief characteristic is boredom, who are always bored in everything.

Maybe in the beginning.... you fall in love with a woman and you are not bored, but the next day, or the next hour, or the next minute, you are bored - the same face, the same eyes, and the topography is known, and the geography travelled. Now there is nothing. Finished. You are bored.

Every day the same sun rises, and every day the same moon, and every day things move in a circle and a routine, and you are bored. And every second the breathing comes in and goes out. Nothing seems to be new.

You are excited sometimes when you see something new. but soon it will be old. Once it is old, excitement is gone. Then you are again searching for something new.

I have heard: Henry Ford was celebrating his fiftieth wedding ceremony - golden jubilee. He was a very happy man. Rarely, after fifty years of marriage, is one so happy with a wife as he was.

Somebody asked: 'This seems unbelievable, and particularly in America. It seems unbelievable that you are still happy with a woman that you have been married to for fifty years. Fifty years looks almost like fifty centuries. It looks like it is almost from the very beginning. Fifty years, the whole life - and you still feel happy? And you still look still love? What is the secret?'

Henry Ford said: 'The same rule that I follow in manufacturing cars - I stuck to the same model. I have never tried to change the model of my cars, and I have not tried to change the model of my wife But she is new every day. She has never been old and I'm not bored.'

So boredom is because you don't know how to find the newness every moment. In a way it is true that the same sun rises every day, but it is not the same. If you have the eyes to see, it has never been the same. The sky is different. The poetry is different. The colour is different. It is never the same. The climate is changing every moment. Nothing has ever been the same. In existence nothing repeats, but it feels repetitive because you are not intensely alert.

If you are intensely alert, everything is new. If you are absolutely alert, everything is absolutely new.

Never does any dust of oldness settle on it.

In a way, I go on saying the same thing every day. In another way, I have never uttered any single thing twice. It depends on you. If you listen while you are fast asleep, snoring, you will be bored. But don't blame me; it is your characteristic.

I am not bored with your faces. Nor am I bored with your problems. Every evening, excitedly, I wait for you. Every morning, excitedly, I wait for you. You are bored - so something must be wrong with you.

Just think of me - your problems and your faces, and all sorts of stupidities that you bring. I am always happy listening to them, because to me, every individual is so unique that you cannot bring anybody else's problem; you always bring YOUR problem.

You are changing every moment. You are a river. Today you come in a different mood and climate.

Tomorrow you will come in a different mood and climate. I have never seen the same face twice.

It changes. It is continuously changing. But one needs penetrating eyes to see. Otherwise, dust settles and everything becomes old, and everything seems to be repetitive. That is the attitude that decides.

Listen more consciously. Make yourself alert. Whenever you feel that you are getting bored, give a good jerk to the body. Not others' bodies, your own body - you give a jerk. Open your eyes. Make yourself alert. Listen again.

Boredom is one of the greatest problems of human life. No animal is ever bored. Have you seen any animal bored? No animal, no bird, no tree is ever bored; only human beings are bored. Why?

- they have missed the natural flow of Life. They have moved away from life. The more you move away from your essence and your inner life, the more things will be dead, and you will be bored.

Come back home. Be part of the existence: of the trees and the rocks and the rivers, of the sky and the sun and the moon and the birds and the animals. Come back home.

And look at everything as a child looks: fresh, young. Jesus says: 'Nobody will be able to enter into my kingdom of God unless he is like a child.' What does he mean? What is the quality of a child? - a child is fresh and never bored.

Have you observed? Tell a story to a child. He listens, he gets excited. And he says: 'Uncle, tell it again.' The same story! He is saying: 'Tell it again.' Now he is even more excited. You tell him and he says: 'Now, once more.' You cannot understand what is happening to this child, because it is the same story. But for a child, it is never the same story. Every night he listens to the same lullaby, but it is never the same. His consciousness is so fresh that dust never settles on it.

Your consciousness is so dusty already that you are not in a state to mirror reality. Even when I am saying something, you are understanding something else. Your dust distorts - I say something; you understand something else. And you understand that which you already know. Of course, you become repetitive. You are bored.

I am not saying the same thing. In a very very deep sense I am saying the same thing, but that same thing is absolutely fresh, and it is always fresh. Freshness is its intrinsic quality. Truth is never old. It is eternal. It is not part of time where things are new and become old.

So if you are bored, catch this characteristic of boredom and make yourself more alive, more aware, and you will feel less bored. Bring your awareness to a deeper clarity, transparency, and boredom will disappear. You have to do something with your being.

And it is not only a question while listening to me; it is a characteristic. Everywhere you will find it.

Wherever you will go, you will carry your boredom around you. Everything will bore you.

Nothing can give you the sheer excitement of a child - running after a butterfly, or gathering coloured stones on the sea beach. You think: 'What nonsense. These stones are valueless.' But for a child, these stones are not commodities to be purchased or sold. These stones have nothing to do with money. Each stone is unique, a KOHINOOR. The value is intrinsic. It is not to be decided in any market; it is not a commodity. And you can say whatsoever, the child goes on collecting. Every morning he goes and collects stones.

But sooner or later you will destroy his consciousness; his essence will be lost. A crust of personality will arise, and he will also think: 'These stones are useless. But, diamonds? No. They are not useless.' They are also stones, but they are not useless. Why? - because they have a market value.

Now life itself is not valuable. The value has to be decided by the fools who run the market. They are the valuators. They will decide it. Now you will always be bored. If you want to attain to a fresh stream of consciousness, drop personality, and the values attached to it Become a child again!

That's what meditation is all about: to become a child again, and to look with fresh eyes. Look again with a new consciousness, and trees will be greener, and flowers will be redder, and the sun will be new every morning, and the stars - then they become infinitely valuable things. But the value is not of the market; it is of the heart. Then you listen to me. Then I am not talking to you. Then these are not mere words that I am telling to you.

I will tell you one story.

It happened: A great Hassidic Master had a big book always by his side, and he would never allow anybody to look into it.

When there would be nobody around, he would close the windows and doors. And people thought 'now he is reading.' Whenever there was somebody, he would put the book aside. And it was prohibited - nobody should touch it. Of course, it became a great curiosity.

When he died, the first thing the disciples did.... They forgot about the old Master. He was Lying dead; now nobody was to prohibit them. They jumped on the book. It must carry something tremendously meaningful.

But they were very much disappointed. Only one page was written - and the rest of the book was empty. And on that page also, there was not much, only one sentence. And the sentence was:

'When you can make a distinction between the container and the content, you have become wise.'

If you listen to the container, the words, you will get bored. But if you listen to the content, you will be exhilarated, you will be in deep ecstasy.

I am not speaking for speaking's sake. I have no message that can be delivered through words - but there is no other way to indicate it.

I am not trying to say something; I am trying to show something. These are not words. These words carry my silence. These words are only containers. Don't bother about the containers; look at the content.

These words are alive. They have the throb of my heart. I bring them to you as a gift. They are not doctrines. At the most, you can call them poetries. At the most, you can call me a good storyteller, that's all.

I am not a philosopher, not a theoretician, not a theologian. I have something within me and I would like to share it with you. Because you cannot understand silence, I am forced to use words. Once you are ready to understand my silence, I will drop words. Then I will look into you.

But right now you are not at home! If I look into you, there is nobody, so I have to knock hard. My words are nothing but knockers on your door, so that you can come home.

Accept my gift.

Question 4:

Then be untrue. Then don't create any misery for yourself. But the life for which you are going to be untrue will be taken away from you sooner or later. Death is certain.

So if you want to live in an untrue society, comfortably - then live comfortably. But that comfort is not leading you anywhere except death.

Whatsoever you call a comfortable and convenient life, I call only a comfortable way to die. It is slow suicide.

But the choice is yours. I am not forcing any goal, any structure on you. I am simply stating bare facts: that if you want to be comfortably, conveniently dying, compromise with the lies that surround you. But you will never feel comfortable deep down. An unease will remain inside your heart.

And I know well that if you become authentic and true, it is going to be arduous. Otherwise, why should so many people be liars? Why should so many people live a life of lies? It is arduous. It is TAPASCHARYA. It is austerity.

When you start - becoming authentic, you will be in conflict. But that conflict is worth it. It is the price one has to pay to attain to inner life. One has to pay it. You cannot avoid it.

If you want a life of infinite bliss, a life which is beyond death, a life which is eternal, then you have to pass through the austerity - and the austerity is only in the beginning. It is in the beginning only - because you become a stranger to a life where everybody is a liar, and where everybody is a hypocrite, and where everybody is trying to show the way he is not.

If you become true, you don't fit - but that is only in the beginning. You don't fit with the society, but immediately you fit with God. And one who fits with God does not bother whether he fits with the society or not. He has entered into a greater harmony.

Only in the beginning, while you are not in the greater harmony and you have lost contact with this tiny society and it's so-called harmony, in the transitory period, in this gap there will be a little uneasiness. You will feel a stranger, an alien - alienated. But that is only for a small period of time - and it is worth it.

Once you enter into the greater harmony of God, the cosmic harmony - with the trees and the rivers and the rocks and the sands - who bothers about your stupid society and the establishment and the government? Who bothers? They have nothing to give. The whole structure is false. They only pretend. They only promise. They give you hope, but nothing comes out of it.

Once you know the greater harmony, you are not bothered. You accept the fact that you will be in a little rebellious conflict with the society. That's why every religious man is rebellious. If a religious man is not rebellious, know well, he is simply pseudo-religious, he is not religious.

A Christ is religious, but not the Vatican Pope. The Pope is pseudo, false. He fits with the society.

Christ is rebellious. Christianity is against Christ. All religions are pseudo-religious. Buddhists are against Buddha, and Jains are against Mahavir, and Christians are against Jesus, and Jews are against Moses and Baal Shem. They live in a different harmony; the harmony is of the total.

Your society is a tiny thing. Just think of the earth - what it is: a tiny lump in the vast universe.

Nothing much to brag about. And then on the earth, there is human society - even a smaller part.

And then in that human society, even smaller and smaller patterns: Christians, Protestants even smaller. And it goes on and on. You make smaller wholes against the bigger whole, and then you are suffocated. Then you don't have any freedom to move, you don't have any space around you.

Why not look at the sky and have the whole space which is available? But you say: 'No, I am a Hindu; I cannot move into the whole sky of humanity. I am a man; I cannot move in the whole space of all beings. I am a soul; I cannot move into the whole space of existence.'

Why do you confine yourself? It gives a little comfort, I know. It feels good that you are an Indian; you have somewhere to belong to. It feels good that this country is yours; it gives you a certain solidity, something to stand up on. But then it becomes the imprisonment also.

To be left in the open sky one feels afraid, alone - but freedom is always in aloneness. Aloneness is tremendously beautiful, but in the beginning it looks tremendously terrible, because you have never known aloneness. You have always lived in the family, in the society, in the establishment, this and that. You have never been alone. Religion is: the art to be alone. Religion is: what you do with your aloneness. It has nothing to do with the crowd. It is to come to the original source of one's being, to the very center.

So, the choice is yours. I am not forcing anything on you. If you want to live comfortably - of course a hypocrite's life, false, untrue, tasteless, boring - then live in the prison. It is very comfortable and convenient. But if you want freedom then you have to be a little courageous, because freedom is only for those who are adventurous.

If you want to move into the infinite sky of God, the cosmos, you have to leave the small wholes that you call the society, the religion, the church. You have to come out of them - out of the caves that your mind, in fear, has created.

Remember always, rebelliousness is the very substance of religion. And there is no other beauty in the world, no greater ecstasy than to be a rebel. You have to understand the word. I don't mean that by being a rebel you have to be a revolutionary, no.

A revolutionary is again in the same trap. He is trying to change the society. He is concerned with the society and the stale. A revolutionary may be against this society, but he is not against society as such. A revolutionary is against this society and wants to create another society of his own imagination - his own utopia - but he is not against society.

A rebel is a dropout. He does not bother about this society or any other society. He knows all societies will be imprisonments. At the most, they can be tolerated - that's all.

There is no possibility of any society which will be really free. The society cannot be free. No revolution is going to succeed; all revolutions have failed. And those who know - they know that revolution as such is not possible.

To change the crowd is not possible because the crowd doesn't have any heart. To change the structure is not possible because people cling to structure. They can change it if you give them another structure. They can change this structure for another.

A capitalist society can become a socialist society. A socialist society can become a communist society. A communist society can become a fascist society. They can change structure, they can change their presence, they can change their slavery. But they cannot be free. A crowd is afraid to be free. It clings. It wants to belong.

The inner emptiness forces everybody to belong to somebody, to something - to some dogma, to some party, to some nation, to some philosophy, to some church. Then one feels: 'I am not alone.'

Freedom is the capacity to be alone. And when you are infinitely alone, a purity, an innocence is achieved. That purity is religiousness.

A rebel is one who has dropped all hope of social revolution. A rebel is one who knows that society will always remain the same. Revolution will change the outer form but deep down it will remain the same.

Only the individual can change, only the individual can become a Buddha. The society can never become enlightened. All societies will remain barbarous, crude, primitive. Only individuals can reach to that height - the peakest peak - of being totally alone, totally silent, totally one with existence.

Be rebellious. And don't mistake revolution for rebellion. Revolution is the game of society. Rebellion is the insight that the society is going to follow its own rotten, beaten path.

You drop out - I am not saying that you escape from it. That dropping out is an inward phenomenon.

You remain in it, but you are no more of it. You don't belong to it. On the surface you go on.

You go to the market, you go to the office, to the factory. You fulfill things, but deep down, you are no more part of it. You become a lotus flower; the water of the society does not touch you. This is what I mean by a dropout.

I don't mean a hippie, because the hippie will come back sooner or later. He will have to come back.

That's why there are not old hippies - only young people. By the time they reach thirty, they are going back to the establishment; then they become afraid. By the time they reach thirty, they get married, they have children. Now, what to do? They move back to the establishment. Now their children will become hippies, but they themselves become squares.

Even when hippies or others drop out of the society, they create their own society. Then they start belonging to THAT society.

If you are a hippie and you don't have long hair, you will be a stranger among hippies. If you are a hippie and you are not dirty. and you wash your face, and you take a shower every day, you will not fit.

They have their own rules; they have their own alternate society. It is small, but they have their own rules, forms, manners, language, ways of relating, and they are as traditional as anybody else. They have their own tradition. Maybe it is a tradition against tradition, but it is a tradition. They have their own conformity.

A real dropout is one who has dropped out from within. On the surface he goes on moving, lives in the society because there is nowhere else to go - but deep down he has moved. He closes his eyes and he is no more a part of the society. When he comes home, he forgets the factory, the market, the office - everything. The society remains an outer thing; he doesn't allow it to enter inwards.

That's what I mean when I say a dropout.

A dropout is a drop-in!I Drop in, and you will be a real dropout.

Question 5:

WHEN DO WE COME TO KNOW LOVE? It is really a very very difficult thing to understand, because it has nothing to do with understanding.

George Gurdjieff never talked about love in his whole life. He never wrote a single line about love.

Once, his disciples pressed him very much and they said: 'Say at least a few words. You have never said anything about love. Why don't you talk about love?'

Gurdjieff said: 'As you are, love is impossible. Unless you know love, whatsoever I say, you will not understand.' He condensed his whole feeling about love in one sentence. He said: 'If you can love, you can be; if you can be, you can do; if you can do, you are.' And he said: 'Don't force me any more. I won't say much.'

Love is not possible ordinarily. Love is a fallacy. Where you are, love is a fallacy. It is not possible.

You cannot love! - because in the first place, you are not; you simply think that you are.

You are not one; you are a crowd. How can you love? One mind falls in love; another mind doesn't know anything about it. One mind says that it loves; another mind, at the same time, is thinking how to hate, another mind is already moving towards hatred.

You are a crowd inside; you are not a crystallized whole, you are not one - and only one can love who is one.

Love is not a relationship; love is a state of being. So whatsoever you call love is not love. That's why it is happening: the more inside you go, the less love you seem to have - because whatsoever you have called love was not love; it was a counterfeit, it was not real. It belonged to the personality, to the world of lies, falsifications.

When you move inwards, you go away from the personality. You go away from the love that your personality was thinking to be love.

Don't be afraid. It is good to drop the false, because only when the false disappears, the real arises.

Soon a different quality of love will happen when you have settled within. But then it will not be a need. Then it will not be a desire. Then it will not be a relationship. You will be simply loving; it will be just a quality of your being. And then it has a totally different flavour. Then it never creates a bondage. Then you share unconditionally. Then your love is just the way you are. Then you sit lovingly. Then you stand lovingly. Then you move lovingly. Then you look lovingly. Then whatsoever you do has the quality of love.

It happened: A Hassidic mystic was travelling with his disciples. They came to a SARAYA. They rested the whole night. In the morning, the keeper of the SARAYA served tea and breakfast. While they were drinking their tea, suddenly, the keeper fell at the Master's feet, ecstatic - crying and laughing together.

The disciples were puzzled. How could he know that this man was the Master? - because this was a secret thing, and the disciples were told that nobody should be told who the Master is. The Master was travelling in a hidden way. Who had told this SARAYA-keeper? The disciples were worried.

They inquired, but nobody had told; nobody had even talked to that man.

The Master said: 'Don't be puzzled. Ask this man himself - how he recognized me. Nobody has told him; he has recognized.'

So they asked: 'We cannot recognize. Even we are suspicious about whether he is truly enlightened or not, and we have lived with him for many years. Still, a suspicion somewhere goes on lurking.

How have you recognized?'

The man said: 'I have been serving tea and breakfast and food to thousands of people. I have been watching thousands of people, and I have never come across a man who has looked with such deep love at the teacup. I could not help but recognize. I know all sorts of people passing from here - millions of people - but I have never seen anybody looking at the teacup with such love, as if somebody is looking at one's beloved.'

This man must have something of a totally different quality, a being full of love. Otherwise, who looks at a teacup with such love?

A teacup is a teacup. You have to use it. It is a utility. You don't look with love. In fact you don't look at your own wife with love. She is also a utility - a teacup to be used and thrown away. You don't look at your husband with love. The husband is a means.

Love is possible only when everything becomes the end. Then even a teacup has the quality of the beloved. Love is not a relationship; love is a fragrance that arises in you when you have reached home. Before that, you can talk about love, you can fantasize about love, you can write beautiful poetries about it, but you will not know what it is.

Try to enter within yourself. There will be much difficulty, because your love will start disappearing.

It has never been there, so it is good that a false thing disappears. In fact, it is not disappearing; you are only becoming aware that it is false.

It has never been there. You have been deluding yourself. When it has disappeared completely, when your essence is separate from your personality, when that which you have brought into the world is separated from all that the society has given to you, when you are naked in your being and all clothes have been dropped, a new love arises. That is the love Jesus calls'God'.

Jesus says: 'Love is God.' Your love has been nothing but a hell. It has never been God. It has not even been a heaven. It may have promised a heaven, but it always proved to be a hell. And Jesus says: 'Love is God.' That love only arises when you have arrived to your innermost core.

You will have to lose the false to gain the true. You will have to lose darkness to attain to light. You will have to lose death to become really, authentically alive. That is the price one has to pay! But you are so egoistic that you cling. You feel: 'If this love disappears then I will be empty.' And your ego creates a problem: 'Maybe it is false. Let it be false. Something is there. The ego can feed on it.'

It happened once: A king felt thirsty. He said to his courtiers: 'My throat feels dry.' He could have simply said: 'I am thirsty' - but a king is a king; they have their own way. It is too common to say: 'I am thirsty.' So he said: 'My throat feels dry.'

His lackeys ran to the market immediately. They thought and pondered over what to do when the throat is dry. Of course, they couldn't think of bringing common water, because that won't suit for a king. So they brought lubricating oil.

The king drank it. His throat was no more dry, but he was in more difficulty than before because his whole mouth was tasting awful and he was feeling nausea.

He said: 'What have you done? Of course, the throat is no more dry, but I am in more of a mess than before.'

So the greatest doctor of the capital was called. He came and suggested pickles and vinegar. So it was taken. It helped a little, but it gave a stomachache.

More medicines were given. Somehow the stomachache disappeared, but again the throat was dry.

So somebody brought scented syrups, wine and other things. He drank the wines, the syrups. and everything else that was given. He felt a little relieved, but his digestion was disturbed.

An old man, a wise man who was watching this whole nonsense said: 'I think, your Highness, you need water, common water. You are thirsty.'

Of course the king was very angry, and he said: 'This is an insult - to suggest common water to a great king. This is for common people - to feel thirsty and be quenched by common water. I am not a common man. You have been insulting me. And moreover, it is illogical. Look at the illness; it is so complicated. So many medicines have been given and nothing helps. You are a simpleton to think that by common water it can be helped. The greatest doctor has come and even he was not of much help. So what do you think about yourself? Are you a physician?'

The man said: 'No, I am not a physician. I am just a common man, but whenever it happens... but I don't know about kings.... Sorry. Excuse me. I don't know about kings. I am not a king. But whenever it happens to me, common water helps, but that may be because I am a common man.'

The king said: 'You are not only a common man, you are an idiot.'

Amidst idiots, wise people prove to be idiots.

Your disease is very ordinary. Common water will do, but that doesn't suit the ego of the king.

People come to me and they bring their complex illnesses. I say: 'Don't be worried. Just meditation will do.' They look suspicious. They say: 'But why do you go on suggesting and prescribing meditation to everybody, each and everybody? And my problem is different. Maybe it helps others, but it won't help me. Tell me something specific, something special. What should I do? I cannot love. I cannot feel.'

Or somebody says: 'I am very angry, and the anger continues like an undercurrent. What should I do?'

Or somebody says: 'I am too sexual, and the fantasy continues in my mind. What should I do?'

Or somebody is greedy, miserly, with millions of diseases - very complicated. And they have been to psychoanalysts, and they have failed. And they have been to this saint and that, and everybody has failed. In fact, they feel very good that everybody has failed because they are not ordinary people; their disease is very complex, complicated. If I just suggest common water, if I just suggest that meditation will do, they look suspicious. And I tell you - meditation will do.

Your ego has to be put aside. It creates all sorts of problems. Only meditation will do.

And what is meditation? - it is just putting the mind aside. Being without mind for a few moments is meditation.

And once you know for a few moments, you have the key. Then whenever you need, you can move withinwards. It is just like the ingoing and the outgoing breath. You go out in the world, it is the outgoing breath. You come into yourself, it is the ingoing breath. Meditation is the ingoing breath.

Forget about love, anger, greed - a thousand and one problems. Problems may be a thousand and one, but the medicine is only one. And you may be surprised: the word 'meditation' comes from the same root from where 'medicine' comes. 'Medicine' and 'meditation' come from the same root.

Meditation is a medicine; it is THE only medicine. So forget about your problems; just move into meditation. And the deeper you move, the more false things will disappear.

First there will be emptiness, nothingness. You will feel afraid, but don't be afraid. That's how it happens to everybody. I have been in that same state of fear. I know it happens. I can understand.

But be courageous and move on.

If you can move on and on, any day, any moment, suddenly it happens - just a click, something clicks. The old has disappeared, and the new has appeared. You are resurrected.