The sky of completion

Friends,

Question 1:

First, a few questions. Somebody has asked:

It is a very complicated question, but if you are ready to understand I am willing to answer. Everybody is carrying other people's wounds. In the first place, you are living in a sick society where people are angry, full of hate, enjoy to hurt - that is the superficial level which can be understood easily.

But there are subtle levels, there are so-called religious saints who are creating feelings of guilt in you, who are condemning you to be a sinner. They are giving you an idea which will create misery around you.

And the older the idea is, people accept it more easily. Everybody around the world is saying, "We are living in sin... all these people cannot be wrong." I am alone in declaring to you that you have chosen to live in misery; it is your choice. You can drop it immediately and dance in joy, in blissfulness.

But the wound is deep. And one becomes very much familiar with one's misery. One clings to it as if it gives you a certain coziness, but it only gives you a life of hell. But your hell is supported by everybody. If you are miserable everybody is sympathetic to you. Have you ever gone into the matter? When you are miserable, those who are sympathetic to you are nursing your misery. Have you ever seen anybody sympathetic to you when you are dancing with joy? When you are blissful, people are jealous, not sympathetic.

According to me, the whole foundation of life has to be changed. People should be sympathetic only when there is pleasure and joy and rejoicing, because by your sympathy you are nourishing.

Nourish people's joy, don't nourish their sadness and their misery. Be compassionate when they are miserable. Make it clear that this misery is chosen by yourself.

On a deeper level... perhaps the questioner has not asked me to go that deep, but the answer will remain incomplete if I don't go deep enough.

The very idea of reincarnation, which has arisen in all the Eastern religions, is that the self goes on moving from one body to another body, from one life to another life. This idea does not exist in the religions that have arisen out of Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism. But now even psychiatrists are finding that it seems to be true. People can remember their past lives; the idea of reincarnation is gaining ground.

But I want to say one thing to you: the whole idea of reincarnation is a misconception. It is true that when a person dies his being becomes part of the whole. Whether he was a sinner or a saint does not matter, but he had also something called the mind, the memory. In the past the information was not available to explain memory as a bundle of thoughts and thought waves, but now it is easier.

And that's where, on many points, I find Gautam Buddha far ahead of his time. He is the only man who would have agreed with my explanation. He has given hints, but he could not provide any evidence for it; there was nothing available to say. He has said that when a person dies, his memory travels into a new womb - not the self. And we now can understand it, that when you are dying, you will leave memories all around in the air. And if you have been miserable, all your miseries will find some location; they will enter into some other memory system. Either they will enter totally into a single womb - that's how somebody remembers one's past. It is not your past; it was somebody else's mind that you have inherited.

Most people don't remember because they have not got the whole lump, the whole heritage of a single individual's memory system. They may have got fragments from here and there, and those fragments create your misery system. All those people who have died on the earth have died in misery. Very few people have died in joy. Very few people have died with the realization of no-mind.

They don't leave a trace behind. They don't burden anybody else with their memory. They simply disperse into the universe. They don't have any mind and they don't have any memory system. They have already dissolved it in their meditations. That's why the enlightened person is never born.

But the unenlightened people go on throwing out, with every death, all kinds of misery patterns. Just as riches attract more riches, misery attracts more misery. If you are miserable, then from miles, misery will travel to you - you are the right vehicle. And this is a very invisible phenomenon, like radio waves. They are traveling around you; you don't hear them. Once you have the right instrument to receive them, immediately they become available. Even before the radio was there, they were traveling by your side.

There is no incarnation, but misery incarnates. Wounds of millions of people are moving around you, just in search of somebody who is willing to be miserable. Of course, the blissful does not leave any trace. The man of awakening dies the way a bird moves into the sky, without making a track or a path. The sky remains empty. Blissfulness moves without making any trace. That's why you don't get any inheritance from the buddhas; they simply disappear. And all kinds of idiots and retarded people go on reincarnating in their memories and it becomes every day thicker and thicker.

Today, perhaps, it has come to the point to be understood and to be dissolved; otherwise it is too thick to allow you to live, to allow you to laugh.

Your own consciousness has no wounds.

Your own consciousness knows nothing of misery.

Your own consciousness is innocent, utterly blissful. To bring you in touch with your own consciousness, every effort is being made to detract you from the mind. The mind contains all your misery, all your wounds. And it goes on creating wounds in such a way that, unless you are aware, you will not even find how it creates them.

Just today, Anando told me Zareen used to be very happy when she came to the ashram from her house. Seeing the beauty and the freedom and the joy of the commune, she finally moved, took a revolutionary step in her life - left the home and became part of the commune. But since then, she has not been seen so joyous.

I said, "Anando, tell Zareen clearly what has happened: If you are aware, you will understand very clearly."

She used to come to the commune from her house which was dark and dismal and miserable. In a free open sky it was a joy. But since she moved to the commune... deep inside, the mind made the commune her house. And all the misery of her house has started erupting, and now she has nowhere to go. Once she understands it - that the misery is created by a concept that she has carried, and although she has moved spaces, she has not moved the concept... Once in a while the idea must come to her - "It is better to go home." But it won't make any change. In the first place the home will be more dark, more miserable, and the husband will look more of a stranger than he has ever been. But one thing will be good: then she can come to the commune and be happy.

But why not simply understand the point, and be happy wherever you are? And going back to the home is not just in your hands. As far as I know, your husband is not going to accept you back. He has told it to a sannyasin.

Don't keep the past burning you. You have come into an open space, now learn the ways of freedom and love and friendliness. And you all have the capacity; there is no question of being miserable for any reason. No reason is valid to make anyone miserable. In fact, we have to search for a valid reason to be miserable. Otherwise people will ask, "Are you mad? Without any reason and you are miserable?" So somehow you go on inventing reasons. But remember, those are only invented reasons. Nobody asks you when you are happy, "Why are you happy?" There is no reason to be happy. Happiness is our nature. To be joyful needs no reason, no cause.

This commune has to be a commune of understanding, awareness, looking into one's own mind patterns and remembering that they are not yours. You are simply the watcher, and the watcher is outside the mind.

I teach you the watcher.

The only way to get out of misery patterns, whether ancient or new, is witnessing. I say it is the only way, because nobody has escaped from the mind without becoming a witness. Just witness, and suddenly you will start laughing at your own misery. All our miseries are so superficial - and most fundamentally, they are all borrowed.

And everybody is giving his misery to everybody else he comes in contact with. People are talking continuously about their miseries, about their troubles, about their conflicts. Have you ever heard anybody talking about his joyous moments? About his dances and songs? About his silences and blissfulness? No, nobody talks about these things. People go on sharing all their wounds, and whenever you are talking about your misery to somebody, without your knowing, you are transferring a miserable pattern. The person may be thinking that he is only listening to you, but he is also catching the vibe of misery, the wounds.

When I said that you carry other people's wounds, my statement meant that your own consciousness has no wounds. If everybody becomes alert, meditative, there will be no wounds in the world. They will simply disappear. They will not find any house, any shelter. This is possible. If it is possible for me, it is possible for everybody.

And in your question you also ask why "we can so easily accept someone else's wound," and why it is "so difficult to accept our own buddhahood."

You can accept somebody's wounds because you also have wounds. You understand the language of wounds, miseries, sufferings.

And you ask why we cannot accept the idea of being a buddha.

In the first place, you rarely come across a buddha. Very rarely does a buddha exist in the world, so even if you meet him you will not understand his language. Most probably you will misunderstand him. You know misery, and he is talking about bliss. You know wounds, and he is talking about eternal health. You know only death, and he is talking about eternity.

In the first place, it is difficult to find a buddha. In the second place, it is difficult to understand his language because it is not your language. Otherwise, this must be the simplest thing in the world - to understand one's buddhahood. It is so obvious. Your very being is already a buddha, but you have forgotten the path to your inner being. You have traveled long on many paths, but they all lead outside. And slowly, slowly you have forgotten that there is a small space within you which you have not explored.

Meditation is nothing but an exploration of your ignored inner space. That small space will suddenly remind you that you are a buddha. And unless it becomes a mindfulness in you that you are a buddha... It is not a concept; nobody can convince you that you are a buddha... you cannot be otherwise.

If you simply go in, the very experience of the interior space explodes in the recognition and remembrance of your buddhahood. It is not a philosophy, it is an existential experience.

Question 2:

The second question:

The whole past of humanity has tried to keep them separate, and this has been an unfortunate experiment. The Zorba has remained incomplete, just superficial. And Zen has remained incomplete; it has only the inner world, and the outer is missing.

My Manifesto of Zen is that Zorba and Zen are not antagonistic to each other. The Zorba can melt into Zen, and only then will both be complete.

The man who has lived outside has lived very superficially, and the man who does not know anything about the inner, knows nothing about the existential, about the eternal. And on the other hand, the man who knows something of the inner starts thinking that the outer is illusory.

Nothing is illusory.

The outer and the inner are part of one existence.

I want Zorbas to be buddhas and vice versa. And unless this becomes possible, there will not be many buddhas, and there will not be many Zorbas either. In the completion of Zorba and Zen, a tremendous quality comes to your life: you relish every moment of the outside world, every flower of the outside world. And you relish simultaneously the inner freedom, the inner joy, the inner drunkenness. There is no question of any division. But humanity has lived in a divided way, and that has been a catastrophe.

It is time for Zorba to start meditating, and it is time for the people who are meditators not to allow themselves to escape from the world. They have to come to the world with all their juice, with all their ecstasy... to share.

It seems very difficult to understand, because the whole tradition of the world goes against it. But I don't see any difficulty.

In myself I have joined Zorba and Zen together; hence I don't see any difficulty. I am in the world, and yet I am not of the world.

I rejoice in the birds, the flowers, the trees.

I rejoice in myself, in my silence, and I don't see there is any difference. The inner and the outer slowly have become melted into one whole. And unless your inner and outer become one whole, you will remain incomplete - and incompletion is misery.

Only in completion is there bliss.

Only in completion have you come home.

You have come to existence without any conflict, in tremendous ease, relaxed.

The Zorba in the past has been tense and worried that perhaps he is not the right person. And the man of Zen has been with the tension that he has to avoid this, he has to avoid that - that he has to become a recluse far away in the mountains. But the very fear of the world shows your misunderstanding.

The world has not to be feared, it has to be loved.

We are the world.

There is no question of escaping from anything. Every moment everything has to be enjoyed without any guilt, without any inhibition. But all the religions have been against it.

I proclaim with this manifesto a totally new sky for religious consciousness: the sky of completion, the joining of the inner and the outer, of the material and the spiritual, of Zorba and the buddha.

Question 3:

The third question:

It is unfortunate, but it is true that even a Buddha or a Mahavira remained within the conditioning of their social structure. That is a flaw in their enlightenment. It is not as high as it can be; some weights go on dragging them down.

My effort here is to destroy all conditioning - Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jewish... It does not matter what kind of conditioning you are carrying, I want you to drop it. It is a weight.

And through all the therapies, I am trying to do something else which the West has not understood yet. Through therapies they try to bring you to normal humanity. Their psychoanalysis brings people to what they call sanity.

My therapies here, and all the psychoanalytic methods used, have a different purpose. It is not to make you into normal, average, so-called sane people, it is to cleanse you of all traps, all theories, all religions, all kinds of conditionings. All these therapies here are deprogramming you, and leaving you free without any program.

The negative part is being done by the therapies - they destroy your programming. And the positive part is done by meditation. As your minds are deprogrammed there is a danger, because you have become accustomed to live according to a pattern, a life-style. If it is taken away you will immediately jump into another life-style, into another prison. You cannot live alone.

Therapies are doing the negative part, and meditation is giving you the joy of living in freedom, the joy of living in awareness - not according to any scripture, and not according to anybody, but according to your own light.

The day you start living according to your own light, your buddhahood is far more complete than even Gautam Buddha's. He is a good pioneer. He started a process, but in the beginning perhaps it was impossible to do it completely. After twenty-five centuries it is possible now to complete the process of Gautam Buddha, and not to create buddhas as against Zorbas, but to transform the Zorba into a buddha, make the Zorba the foundation of the temple of the buddha.

Man is not to be divided, and man has to be given the total freedom of being himself. But this is possible only when, first, therapies cleanse you of all the garbage that society has forced upon you, and when meditation takes you inwards so you don't have to look into any scripture for guidance.

The scripture is within you.

And you don't have to borrow light, the light is burning always inside you, the inner flame. Once you have found your inner flame, you have found the whole universe in its completion.

You are the complete man.

The new man has to be the complete man.

A little biographical note:

WHEN TANKA WAS EIGHTY, HE WENT TO MOUNT TANKA AND MADE A HUT WHICH ATTRACTED HUNDREDS OF SEEKERS. WITHIN THREE YEARS A BIG MONASTERY HAD GROWN.

The sutra:

ONCE HOTETSU - A DISCIPLE OF MA TZU - AND TANKA TENNEN, WERE ON A ZEN TOUR VISITING VARIOUS ZEN MASTERS TO ASK QUESTIONS.

It is part of the Zen world that even masters go on traveling to different monasteries to ask questions.

Questions are asked all over the world, but not the way it is being done in Zen.

Masters who have arrived, who know the answer, just playfully go on traveling from monastery to monastery to ask questions to see whether this master is just a pretender. And out of their questions, a whole beautiful tradition has arisen: masters pulling each other's legs, and after finding that both know it, rejoicing in it like children dancing on the beach.

Hotetsu - a disciple of Ma Tzu - and Tanka Tennen, were on such a tour to ask Zen masters questions, and both were already enlightened.

ONE DAY, HOTETSU SAW FISH IN A POND AND MOTIONED TO THEM WITH HIS HAND. TANKA SAID, "TENNEN."

The word tennen has been given to Tanka because he was one of the most natural, simple, innocent persons.

When Hotetsu saw fish in a pond and motioned to them with his hand, Tanka simply said, "Tennen" - it is natural; don't feel embarrassed. A great buddha playing with the fish... don't be worried. Tanka said. "It is natural."

THE FOLLOWING DAY, HOTETSU ASKED TANKA, "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF WHAT YOU SAID YESTERDAY?"

TANKA THREW HIS BODY TO THE GROUND AND LAY THERE, FACE DOWN.

What is he saying? "A fish is born out of the water, lives in the water, disappears in the water - it is natural. And now if you ask me again, 'What is the meaning of what you said yesterday?'..."

Zen masters are not recorded to repeat their answers, they respond: TANKA THREW HIS BODY TO THE GROUND AND LAY THERE, FACE DOWN. He is saying, "I am also a fish made of the earth, and one day I will disappear into the earth. I am not anything more special than a fish."

ON HIS LAST DAY, TANKA SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES, "PREPARE A BATH FOR ME - I AM NOW GOING."

THEN HE PUT ON HIS STRAW HAT, HELD A STICK IN HIS HAND, PUT ON HIS SANDALS AND TOOK A STEP FORWARD. BUT BEFORE HIS FOOT TOUCHED THE GROUND, HE HAD DIED.

What a way of dying! - with such clarity. Death is coming - be prepared for a journey. And the people who saw him standing with one foot up, could not see that that foot was indicating towards the invisible. He had left the body, and the consciousness had become part of the cosmos.

But a man of meditation becomes aware to leave the body when the time is ripe, or when the body is trying to get rid of his consciousness. A Zen man dies consciously, hence his death is not a death but an entry into immortality.

And Tanka Tennen would be the right figure - with his straw hat on, holding his stick in his hand, putting on his sandals, and taking a step forward... But before his foot touched the ground, he died, standing, ready for the eternal journey. This shows an intense awareness of one's being. And it also shows that the man is free of the mind.

Only a man free of mind has the clarity to see things as they are going to happen. And he is always ready, even for death. Most of the people are not found ready for death. If you ask them, "Are you ready for death?" they will say, "Wait, there are so many things to do." Only a man of meditation is always ready. He has done everything in each moment with such totality, with such completion, that he will not ask death to wait.

Tanka ordered his disciples to prepare a bath. They had no idea why he was asking for a bath. They had no idea why he was putting on his straw hat. Where was he going? He did not say anything.

The only thing he said was, "Prepare a bath for me - I am now going." Going where? Going into nowhere, going into the cosmos: "Enough I have lived in the body. Now I am going to dissolve like ice dissolves in the ocean" - a beautiful way of dying.

Zen is both a beautiful way of living, and a beautiful way of dying.

A haiku:

AUTUMN WIND.

THE STRENGTH OF THE LOTUS IN A SINGLE FLOWER.

There is a strong autumn wind, but that does not make the lotus flower freak out, although it is very fragile. The strength of the lotus in a single flower... a small stem.

Such is life. Any moment the strong autumn wind - and the lotus flower is gone. But go the way the lotus flower goes, without any misery, without any fear, without any concern. Existence is our home.

Whether we are in the body or not in the body, it does not matter; in fact, not to be in the body gives you a tremendous space. You are everywhere. Once you used to be somewhere.

Now if you ask about Tennen's address, it will be "care of nowhere," or "care of everywhere" - both mean the same thing. But he died so naturally, just as he lived.

Question 4:

A question from Maneesha:

Maneesha, the content of Hubert Benoit's statement is absolutely true, but in practice it does not happen so. It is true that if you want to learn philosophy you need a professor, but if you don't want to learn you don't need a professor. He has forgotten one thing, and that is: you have already learned a philosophy; now what to do with that philosophy? You will need a professor to help you to get rid of that philosophy. In practice, nobody is unconditioned, hence, somebody is needed to indicate that your mind is conditioned, and a conditioned mind cannot know the truth.

So in content, he is right, but in practice, he is just philosophizing. He understands Zen intellectually, and perhaps he has written the most complete treatise on Zen, but what he is writing, he himself has not practiced.

Practice is a totally different phenomenon from learning. You will have to be told how to relax, although you don't need to be told. But if you don't need - according to this man who has written extensively on Zen... If nobody needs to relax, if nobody needs to be told to relax, why are people tense? If nobody needs to be told to unlearn, then why are there not innocent people? In practice, things take a totally different standpoint.

I will agree with him philosophically, but I know practically - you have to be told how to relax. You have to be told how to unlearn. You need a master. In reality, there is no need, because you are the buddha. But who is going to remind you? You have forgotten it for so long that you have become accustomed to the idea that you are not the buddha.

Maneesha, even beautiful things can be said, but only with intellectual understanding. It is not Hubert Benoit's experience. His intellectual grasp is clear, but his existential experience is missing.

Now, it is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

After so much philosophy, one needs to laugh....

It is a bright Monday morning in downtown Santa Banana, California. Getting ready for his first patients to arrive, is the neo-specialist in super-surgery, Doctor Decapitate. Doctor Decapitate looks around at his modern, high-tech, computerized, chromium-plated office, pushes a button, and in walks his first patient, Porky Poke.

"Doc!" cries Porky, his head wrapped in bandages.

"Ah! Don't tell me!" shouts Doctor Decapitate. "It is your head!"

"That is fantastic!" cries Porky. "How did you know?"

"I could tell immediately," replies Doctor Decapitate. "I have been in this business for thirty years!"

Then the doctor fiddles with some switches and buttons on his computer, and cries, "There is no doubt about it - you have a splitting migraine headache."

"That is incredible!" says Porky. "I have had it all my life. Can you cure me?"

"Okay," says Decapitate, consulting his computer screen, "this may sound a little drastic, but there is only one way I can help. I will have to remove your left testicle."

"My God! My left ball?" cries Porky. "Well, okay. I will do anything to stop this headache!"

So one week later, Porky Poke waddles out of Decapitate's private surgery, missing his left nut, but feeling like a new man.

"It is gone!" cries Porky, trying to dance, but finding his movements painfully restricted. "My migraine is gone!"

To celebrate the occasion, Porky goes directly to Moishe Finkelstein's Tailoring Boutique to get a whole new wardrobe of clothes.

Moishe takes one look at Porky and says, "You must be a size forty-two jacket."

"That's right!" exclaims Porky. "How did you know?"

"I could tell immediately," replied Moishe, "I have been in this business for thirty years. And you wear a size thirty-six pants - with a thirty-four inch leg."

"Amazing!" shouts Porky. "That is incredible. You are absolutely right!"

"Of course I am right," replies Moishe. "I have been doing this all my life. And you take a size nine and a half shoe."

"Unbelievable!" cries Porky. "That is exactly right."

"And," says Moishe, "you wear a size four underwear."

"No!" replies Porky. "You are wrong. I wear a size three."

"That is not possible," snaps Moishe, taking a closer look. "You wear a size four underwear."

"Ah no, I don't!" says Porky. "All my life I have worn size three!"

"Okay," says Moishe, "you can wear a size three - but it is going to give you a terrible migraine!"

One afternoon, on the little Greek island of Crete, Bishop Kretin is visiting old Mrs. Metaxa, his last remaining church member.

"Oh, dear," cries old lady Metaxa, fanning herself and feeling faint. "I am so worried, Your Holiness.

All our congregation are gone. There is only me and you left - what are we going to do?"

"Don't worry, my child," replies Kretin, pouring the old lady a cup of tea. "Nothing can happen to us.

God is taking care."

Just then there is the smell of smoke in the room, and a voice from downstairs cries - "Fire! Fire!

Everyone run for your lives!"

Freaked out, the bishop and old Mrs. Metaxa get up and run for the window as huge flames suddenly engulf the apartment. They get out on the window ledge ten stories up, and hang there by their fingertips, calling for help.

At that moment, Old Saint Plato, the Greek Orthodox angel, appears before the two good Christians dangling in the air, as the flames burn closer.

"I can help you out of your trouble," announces the ancient angel. "I can grant you one wish each - you can choose wherever you would like to be!"

Immediately Mrs. Metaxa cries out, "Ah! I wish I was relaxing peacefully at the church of the Blessed Bleeding Virgin!"

"Okay," says Old Saint Plato, shaking his head. "If that is what you want!" And, POOF! - a new gravestone appears in the churchyard, inscribed: "Rest in Peace - Mrs. Metaxa."

Then, Saint Plato turns to Bishop Kretin. "And what about you, bishop? Where would you like to be?"

Just at that moment, a bird flies over and shits right in Bishop Kretin's eye. "Ah!" cries Kretin, "bloody hell!"

One afternoon in the Solly Saperstein Salesroom of Salami Sandwiches, the phone rings.

"This is Solly," says Solly, as he picks up the phone.

"Hello," says the voice on the other end. "Is that you, Solly?"

"Yes," says Solly, "this is Solly."

"It does not sound like Solly," says the other voice.

"Well," replies Solly, "this is me, alright - Solly Saperstein here!"

"Are you sure you are Solly?" says the voice.

"Sure I am sure!" replies Solly, looking in the mirror. "It is me - this is Solly!"

"Hm," says the voice, "I want to speak to Solly - Solly Saperstein, please."

"Hey!" cries Solly. "It is me, you idiot! This is Solly!"

"Really?" asks the voice. "Is this really Solly?"

"Yes! Christ!" cries Solly. "This is Solly!"

"Well, listen Solly," says the other voice, "this is Moishe. Lend me one hundred dollars, will you?"

"Okay," says Solly, "I will tell Solly when he comes in!"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Be silent...

Close your eyes... and feel your bodies to be completely frozen. This is the right moment to enter inwards.

Gather all your energies... gather all your consciousness. And rush towards the center of your being, which is just two inches below your navel inside your body, with an urgency as if this may be the last moment of your life.

Deeper and deeper... Faster and faster...

As you are coming closer to the center of your being, a great silence will descend over you, and a great light, just like a flame, will arise from the very center of your being. This flame, this fire, is your eternal nature. This is your original face.

The only thing that needs to go deeper and deeper into the center is witnessing.

Witness, you are not the body.

Witness, you are not the mind.

Witness, you are only a witness, a pure awareness, symbolized by Gautam Buddha.

This moment you are the buddha. Next moment, it depends on your remembrance. You can remember and never forget it. It is up to you to live a miserable life of the mind, or to live a blissful, peaceful, rejoicing of no-mind.

Witnessing is the secret.

Make it deeper...

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Relax... and just disappear.

This moment you are melting, and Gautama the Buddha Auditorium is becoming an ocean of pure consciousness....

This is the art of both life and death. If you can live with this consciousness, your whole life will become a path of roses, and your death will be the crescendo of your dance.

Sadness, misery, are man manufactured.

Bliss, joy, are your natural potentialities.

Meditation is just to know your potential.

Before Nivedano calls you back, gather all the light, all the joy, all the peace, all the silence - the whole truth of this moment.

And persuade the buddha, the flame, to follow you. It will come along, it has to come; it is your very nature.

These are the three steps: first, the buddha, the flame of light, follows you like a shadow; second step, the flame is ahead of you, you become a shadow; and the third step, even your shadow disappears, only the flame, the flame of awareness remains. Gautam Buddha is simply a symbol, a metaphor.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Come back... but come with grace and peace and silence.

And for a few seconds sit just to remember where you have been, what space you have entered in. And feel the flame behind you, the warmth, the love, the compassion. The buddha is standing behind you.

The day is not far away when you will be standing behind the buddha. And once you are behind the buddha, just a shadow, it does not take much time for the shadow to disappear and become part of the buddha.

The buddha is only a symbol of pure awareness. Don't take it literally.

This awareness, this silence, this peace, makes you the most blessed people on the earth at this moment.

You can remain twenty-four hours in this blissfulness. It is up to you. Don't get into old patterns of misery. It takes a little while to get rid of them, but once you have some inner light within you, they start disappearing on their own.

Except meditation, there is no other religion.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.