The Emperor's Nightmare

The first question:

Question 1:

TURNING INWARDS is not a turning at all. Going inwards is not a going at all. Turning inwards simply means that you have been running after this desire and that, and you have been running and running and you have been coming again and again to frustration. That each desire brings misery, that there is no fulfillment through desire. That you never reach anywhere, that contentment is impossible. Seeing this truth, that running after desires takes you nowhere, you stop. Not that you make any effort to stop. If you make any effort to stop it is again running, in a subtle way. You are still desiring - maybe now it is desirelessness that you desire.

If you are making an effort to go in, you are still going out. Any effort can only take you out, outwards.

All journeys are outward journeys, there is no inward journey. How can you journey inwards? You are already there, there is no point in going. When going stops, journeying disappears, when desiring is no more clouding your mind, you are in. This is called turning in. But it is not a turning at all, it is simply not going out.

But in language it is always a problem to express these things.

There is an ancient parable: It was a beautiful afternoon, and a tortoise went for a walk on the land.

And he rested under sunlit trees and he roamed around in the bushes just for the delight of it. Then he came back to the pond. One of his friends, a fish, asked 'Where have you been?' And he said 'I went for a walk on the land.' And the fish said 'What do you mean by "a walk on the land"? You must mean swimming.' And the tortoise laughed and he said 'No, it was not swimming, it was nothing like swimming. It was a walk on the solid land.' And the fish said 'Are you kidding or something? I have been to every place, you can swim everywhere. I have never seen a place where you cannot dive and swim. You are talking nonsense. Have you gone mad?'

You understand the difficulty of the fish? She has never been on the land, walking on the land makes no sense. If the tortoise wants to make sense of his statement he will have to say 'I went swimming on the solid land.' Which will be absurd. But only the word 'swimming' can be understood by the fish.

A mind full of desires can only understand desire. Hence the desire for God. It is absurd, you cannot desire God. God comes to you when desire leaves. The cessation of desire is the coming of God to you. Again, I am using the word 'coming', which is not true. Because God is already there - you only recognize when the desire has ceased. Nothing ever comes, nothing ever goes, all is as it is.

That's what Buddha means when he says: YATHA BHUTAM - things are as they are. Nothing has gone wrong, nothing needs to be put right. Things are as they are, and they always remain as they are. The trees are green and the roses are red and the clouds float in the sky. Everything is where it has always been, the way it has always been. That is the meaning of the word 'nature' - YATHA BHUTAM.

But man has a capacity to dream, to desire. That capacity to dream is the problem. Then you start moving into the future, then you start planning for the future. You remain here, but your mind can move into the future. It is like a dream. You fall asleep in Poona but you can dream of Calcutta or Chicago or Washington or Moscow. You are here the whole night - in the morning you will not wake up in Moscow or Chicago, you will wake up in Poona. And then you will laugh, 'I have been roaming too much.' While you are dreaming of Moscow you have not reached there, you remain here.

You always remain here. Here and now is the only reality, there is no other. But desire can create a dream. And in desire you go on moving outwards.

Now, what does it mean to turn inwards? Tao's question is significant, it is very relevant. What does it mean to turn inwards? It means seeing the futility of desire, seeing the futility of dreaming, seeing the illusoriness of dreaming. In that very seeing, desire disappears. In that clarity, desire cannot exist. And when you are with no desire, you are in. Not that you have to turn in. Not that first you have to stop desiring, then you have to turn in. The cessation of desire is the turning, the transformation - what Jesus calls 'metanoia', the conversion. Suddenly another gestalt opens. It was there, but you were not aware of it because you were too much obsessed with the desire. The desire for money, the desire for power, the desire for prestige, does not allow your meditation to bloom. Because the whole energy goes down the drain in desires.

Once the energy is not moving anywhere... Remember, I repeat again, turning in is not moving in.

When the energy is not moving at all, when there is no movement, when everything is still, when all has stopped - because seeing the futility of desire you cannot move anywhere, there is nowhere to go - stillness descends. The world stops. That's what is meant by 'turning in'. Suddenly you are in.

You have always been there, now you are awake. The night is over, the morning has come, you are awake. This is what is meant by Buddhahood - to become aware, awake, of that which is already the case.

Remember Hakuin's saying: From the very beginning all beings are Buddhas. From the very beginning to the very end. In the beginning, in the middle, in the end, all are Buddhas. Not for a single moment have you been anybody else. But the emperor is having a nightmare of becoming a beggar, and is tortured by the nightmare.

The second question:

Question 2:

First, there is no path. The very idea of a path is fallacious. The path necessarily leads you away - the path necessarily takes you from this to that, from here to there, from now to then. There is no need for any path for enlightenment, because enlightenment is being here. The path will be a distraction; all paths are distractions. Follow any path and you will be following a wrong path - and there are no paths which are RIGHT paths.

Let it sink deep in your heart: There are no right paths, paths as such are wrong. To be on a path is to be going into a wrong direction, because you will be going away and away from yourself. Not really, but in desire, in dream. That's why all the religions have become other-worldly - they are all paths. To be a path, it is needed that the God should be far away. The farther the better, because then the path can be created. Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism - paths can be created. God has to be really far away - so far away that the path is non-ending and the priest can go on exploiting.

In Dostoevsky there is a parable: Jesus comes back after eighteen hundred years, just to see how things are going now. And he thinks things must be going beautifully now, because almost half the world is Christian. He appears in the marketplace of Bethlehem, people surround him and they laugh and they joke. And he feels a little embarrassed: What is the matter? Why are they laughing?

And he asks, and they say 'You look like Jesus - you have almost succeeded in looking like Jesus.'

And he says 'But I am Jesus.' And they laugh even more. And they say 'Whosoever you are, either you are a pretender or you are a madman. But escape from here. If the priest comes to know, you will be in difficulty.'

And it is Sunday, Jesus must have chosen Sunday, and the people are coming out of the church.

But he remains there under the tree waiting for the priest. Because he thinks 'If ordinary people cannot recognize me, at least my priest will recognize me.' And comes the priest. And he is so angry - angry the same way as Jewish rabbis had been eighteen hundred years before. And he pulls Jesus down and tells the people to take him into the church - this man seems to be either mad or dangerous, a pretender.

Jesus cannot believe his own eyes. 'My own priest...has just a few minutes before been preaching about my words.' And it is happening, the same drama is happening again. And he starts feeling as if he is going to be crucified again. And the priest takes him inside, locks him into a.small cell.

And he wonders, sitting there, 'Now what is going to happen? But what type of Christians are these people? If they cannot recognize me then whom are they going to recognize? And they have been waiting for me, and continuously praying to me "Come back!" and "We need you!" And now I am here!' This seems to be unbelievable.

And the whole day he remains in the cell. In the middle of the night comes the priest with a lamp.

And the priest touches the feet of Christ and he says 'I recognized you. But I cannot recognize you in the marketplace. You are not needed any more, we are doing your job so perfectly well. And you are a great disturbance - you have always been. You need not come, we are taking care of your business here. And everything has settled, and you will unsettle it and you will destroy everything that we have done down these eighteen centuries. It has been an arduous journey but now we are established. The whole earth belongs to us, almost. Every town has the church, and millions of missionaries and priests are roaming around the world converting everybody to Christianity. Sooner or rater, by the end of this century, we will have converted the whole earth. You need not come - because you are a disturber, an ancient disturber. You will start saying dangerous things again and all our effort will be undone.

'I recognize you in this darkness of the night. But in the morning, before people, I cannot recognize you. You had better escape, otherwise I will have to crucify you.'

Jesus Christ so close is dangerous to the priest. Because then the priest is not needed at all. The mediator is not needed, the agent is not needed, the medium is not needed. When Christ is standing by your side, there is no need tor anybody to become a link. God has to be far away, very very far away, so the priest can play the role of becoming a messenger. So he can become the bridge between you and God.

All paths are created by the priest. Buddhas have not given any path. They have given an understanding to you that there is no need to go anywhere. You just be silent, you just be in, and all is available to you. God is not outside, He is your inside. God is not an object, He is your subjectivity. God is YOU! So where are you going? What path is needed?

No path is needed. No path is the right path.

You ask, IS THERE AN INTELLECTUAL PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT?

First, there is no path. And second, God cannot be recognized and realized by any of your parts.

God can only be realized through your totality. Neither is there an intellectual path nor is there an emotional path, neither head nor heart. You come to God as a total being, all is included in it.

Your intellect, your emotions, your logic, your love, your blood, your bones, your guts. Everything is included in it, you as a totality. But paths are bound to be fragmentary, no path can be total. So there are intellectual paths - in India they call them GHYANA yoga, the path of knowledge. Then there are emotional paths - BHAKTI yoga, the path of devotion. And then there are paths of action - KARMA yoga.

Man has three layers in his being: knowing, feeling, doing. Now, these three paths are evolved because of these three layers in man's being. Intellect can know but cannot feel. Emotion can feel but cannot know. Action can do but cannot know, cannot feel. Knowledge cannot do, feeling cannot do. Man is this trinity, this triangle: action, knowledge, feeling. And they all have to be integrated together in one unity. Only then, you know God.

Not only has man divided man, man has divided God too - God the father, God the son, God the holy ghost. Or, in Indian mythology, TRIMURTI - the three faces of God. God has no face, God is facelessness. God has no form, how can He have a face? God is not three, God is one. Even to say 'one' is not right, because the one creates the idea of two and the two creates the idea of three, and on and on you go.

God simply is. Neither one nor three, neither one nor many. God is a simple is-ness. And when you are in your is-ness you are God. Remember, you don't come to see God, you don't encounter God, you don't come to realize that 'This is God.' When you come to God you are God. God is not something outside you but is your innermost core, is the center of the cyclone.

So there is no path, first. And there are no intellectual or emotional or other kinds. There are no paths, you have to become a totality. In that very totality you become divine.

Intellect can go on and on analyzing. It is dry, it is analysis, it is logic, it cannot feel.Through intellect, science is born. That's why science cannot say God is. Science has to deny God. That denial comes because of its presuppositions. Because science believes only in reason, and it believes in a very detached reason. Your feelings should not come into it. You should remain aloof, detached, indifferent to whatsoever you are looking at. You should be just an observer, with no feeling, with no heart. Your heart should not beat, your knowledge should be devoid of feeling.

Naturally, science stumbles upon matter. Not that only matter is; science stumbles upon matter because of its methodology. The methodology is such that consciousness cannot be caught hold of. Consciousness is excluded from the very beginning, the method excludes it.

For example, if you start seeing through the ears then you will stumble upon only sounds. You will not come to see flowers and colors and rainbows and the sun and the moon and the stars. And sooner or later you will conclude that only sounds exist, there are no flowers and there are no colors.

Logic has given science. Love has given the so-called religions - the religions of yesterday, the religions which are no more relevant. They were as partial as science. That's why there was so much conflict between science and religion - that conflict was not accidental. The conflict was of methodology. Religion was basically emotional, of feeling. Logic was denied, reason was prohibited.

Tears were okay, prayers were okay, but no intellect. The intellect was the enemy. So when science started growing, it was natural that the church and the religious people would be in conflict with it.

The religion of yesterday was as partial as today's science.

Nobody has ever been able to see the human being in its totality. But that moment has come. Now man is no more childish. That moment has come - the moment for that idea, the idea of totality, to be accepted, has come. And when the moment for some idea comes then nothing can prevent it. All partial efforts have failed. Science has failed, religion has failed, politics has failed - politics means action. They all have failed. In fact, partiality has failed.

The East has suffered because it leaned too much towards the feeling part. Hence the poverty, hence the misery, because science could not grow. And without science there is going to be poverty, without science there are going to be a thousand and one problems on the material plane. The West has developed technology. The poverty has disappeared, many illnesses have disappeared, it has been a blessing. But on the other hand, man has also disappeared. And man has turned into a machine. The heart is no more functioning, love flows no more, the juice of feelings has dried up and man is becoming a desert. Man is feeling meaninglessness and is very close to committing suicide. Individuals have been committing suicide, their number grows every day. And sooner or later, if balance is not brought, if partiality is not dropped and totality is not brought, there is every possibility man may commit a global suicide. There are great preparations for it.

Love has disappeared from the West, as logic has disappeared from the East. This is a lopsided situation.

My approach is that of totality, of wholeness. And whatsoever is whole I call holy. With me, you have to learn this thing. You are not to choose one, you have to choose totality. You have to be a whole man. Nothing should be rejected. You should be whatsoever you are, with great acceptance. It is difficult to accept all, because if you accept logic then it becomes contradictory to accept love. If you accept love then it feels difficult to accept logic. But what can you do? This is how things are. It is not a question of choice; it is how you are made, it is how existence functions.

Existence is paradoxical. And man has been carrying a very foolish, stupid idea that he has to be non-paradoxical. So when he chooses intellect he destroys feeling, because feelings don't fit with intellect. But what is the need to fit? Or when he chooses feeling he becomes antagonistic to logic and reason. He becomes superstitious. Because then he feels afraid that if logic comes in then where will be faith? Then faith will be destroyed.

But I tell you there is no need to be afraid. You can accept all. Just one thing has to be understood, that life is paradoxical. And life is richer, the more paradoxical you are. If you can contain contradictions you will be vast. If you can contain contradictions you will have variety, you will have multiplicity in you, you will have all dimensions in you. And that will be the real birth of man.

Man has yet to come, man is still a promise. We are just stumbling and groping for the man to come.

Man is not yet born, we are in the womb. Hence so much anxiety. And it seems the day of birth is very close. Hence so much crisis. For the first time man is going to be born - man in the sense of totality, in the sense of paradoxicalness. In the sense of vastness that contains contradictions. A man should be a poet and a man should be a lover and a man should be rational and a man should be active. A man should be all. And there is no problem in it. In fact if there is logic and love both, logic will support love and love will support logic. Your logic will never go dry, the juice of love will keep it green. It will have its green and red and gold. And if reason is there your love will never become a kind of insanity, it will retain a certain quality of reasonableness. It will not take you to extremes. You will remain in the middle, you will remain balanced and symmetrical.

So there is no intellectual path, there is no emotional path. Wholeness, totality, is required. Nothing less than that will do. You have to take the risk of being total.

The third question:

Question 3:

I don't profess anything. I simply clarify things to you, I don't profess. I am not giving you any ideology, I am only giving you insight. Take note of the difference. An ideology has to be professed, an insight has to be imparted. I simply make things clear to you, I simply help you to clarify things. I am not giving you a dogma. I am not giving you a theory that will solve all your problems - there is none. I am simply telling you: Open your eyes, become more aware. And that awareness will help you in every kind of difficulty, in every kind of problem. That awareness will be like a light in the dark night. And wherever you go that light will remain with you, you will be able to see.

I don't give you a theory. You have depended too much on theories. Theories are cheap, because they don't require any transformation on your part. Dogmas are very easy to accept. Then you have an idea which you go on trying to fit everywhere in your life, and you start depending on the idea.

That dependence on the idea makes you more and more blind. If you are a Christian you are blind, if you are a Hindu you are blind, if you believe in any dogma you are blind. Because only blind people believe.

A blind man believes in light. But a man who has eyes, he does not believe in light, there is no need.

He KNOWS light - why should he believe? You don't believe in light, you don't believe in the sun, you don't believe in these trees, you KNOW. But a blind man, he believes that trees are green, that the rainbow has seven colors, that the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, that there are colors in the world. A deaf man believes in sounds; you don't believe. Belief is an ugly word.

I help you to see. That's what Buddha says: 'IHI PASSIKA - Come and see.' You see the difference?

Jesus says 'Come and follow me.' Buddha says 'Come and see.' Both are enlightened - but Jesus must be talking to a very low level of consciousness, he has to say 'Come and follow me.' 'Follow me' means believe. Buddha must be talking to highly evolved conscious people, he says 'Come and see.' There is no question of following anything, there is no question of believing in anything. He just says 'I have seen - come and see through my eyes. Just come close to me and see through my window. Maybe that will give you an insight and you can open your own window.'

I also say to you: IHI PASSIKA - Come and see. Seeing is a totally different matter. I don't teach anything, I am not a teacher. In fact I destroy teachings. I don't help you to learn anything, in fact I help you to unlearn. You have already learned too much.

But the question is relevant. Many people interpret me in that way, they think I am professing licentiousness. I am neither professing licentiousness nor am I professing repressionI Christianity created a very repressive atmosphere in the West. That has created licentiousness. For your sinners, your saints are responsible. The world will never be without sinners unless it decides to be without saints. The saint creates the sinner, the saint cannot exist without the sinner. They are partners, they are together.

The Vatican has some deep support for the playboy. If you are repressive you will create pornography. If you are repressive, people will start finding ways and means to go to the other extreme. Because normality is not allowed. Life has been forced to be either white or black - either be a saint or be a sinner. The priests have not allowed you the possibility that there is something else too. Life really is grey. It is neither black nor white. Black and white are two extremes of grey, but life remains grey.

I am neither teaching licentiousness nor repressiveness. I am simply helping you to become sane.

It is your life, it is nobody else's life. And you have to be sane about it, otherwise you will miss the great opportunity, the great blessing, the great gift of God. Don't be repressive, otherwise one day, in this life or in some other life, you will become licentious. And don't be licentious, otherwise in this life or in some life you will become repressive. The pendulum goes that way. The pendulum has to stop in the middle. And have you watched? If the pendulum stops in the middle, the clock stops.

When the mind stops in the middle, time stops. When the mind stops in the middle, the world stops.

And in that silence one knows God.

But listening to me - and you are all carrying a thousand and one repressions - you listen through the screen of your repressions and you interpret that it is licentiousness. Your unconscious is too full of repressions. I am not teaching anything like that, I am simply saying to be a man is enough.

You need not be a saint and then you will not need to be a sinner. Be natural. Don't interfere with your nature, don't mould it into pattern. Don't be ideological and don't be always hankering to be somebody else. Don't hanker for betterment, just be natural and relax into your being. And whatsoever is natural is good.

This is the meaning of Tao, this is the meaning of Zen. But you have your repressed unconscious.

And when you hear me, naturally you hear from the repressed unconscious. That repressed unconscious immediately gives colors, changes meanings, interprets.

I have heard:

A Cockney was in great difficulties over which of his two girlfriends he should marry. One was called Margaret and the other Maria. The first was rich but very ugly, and the second was poor but immensely beautiful. So he was divided. The head was saying 'Marry the rich girl and then you will have no problems. And what is ugliness? You will become accustomed to it. And even beauty is so fragile - today it is there, tomorrow it may not be there. And if you get even the most beautiful woman, after a few days you become accustomed to it and the beauty disappears. It is only a question of a few days. Marry the rich girl.' But the heart was longing for the beauty. And he was going nuts.

A friend said to him 'Ere, Bert, why don't you go to Lourdes?'

'Lourdes?' said Bert. 'Where's that?'

'It's in France' said his friend. 'It's a sort of shrine where people go to get cured. But maybe you could find the answer to your problem there - you know, a sort of miracle from heaven!'

So Bert saved up and went over to Lourdes. A week later he was back and his friend asked him how he had got on. 'Great!' said Bert. 'I got the answer all right. I went into the big church place - and there, up at the altar, was a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes with a big banner next to it, saying "Ave Maria".'

So he married Maria, the beautiful girl.

When you hear, it depends on you what color you will give it to it. You are already too full of repressions, you are ready to become licentious - so when you hear me you interpret it as licentiousness. It is nothing of the sort. Be very careful with me.

I have heard:

It was some time since Patrick and Michael had met, so Michael was anxious to hear if there had been any addition to Patrick's family.

'Not one' answered Patrick very sadly. 'We've still got the four.'

'Still four?' said Michael. 'Are you at the birth-control or something?'

'Not exactly' replied Patrick. 'You see, it's all to do with this new hearing-aid.'

'What do you mean - this new hearing-aid?'

'Well, you see, when Bridget and I would get to bed, I'd say to her "Darling, is it sleep or what?" And Bridget would reply "What?" And we would make love. But now, with this new hearing-aid of hers, when I say to her "Well, dear, is it sleep or what?" she just turns on her side and says "Sleep" and off she goes.'

That 'what'.... You already have an idea, and the interpretation follows. Listen to me directly, just put your mind aside.

That's why so many therapy groups are being run here. Just to help you to put your mind aside. Just to help you to see your unconscious, to help you to cathart your unconscious, to vomit it. So that you can become more and more empty and can listen to me through your emptiness. Otherwise you are carrying so much rubbish, rubbish of the ages. You have been going through so many ideals, ideologies, you have accumulated so much nonsense. And when you hear me, that nonsense comes in-between.

I am neither for repression nor for licence, they are both aspects of the same coin. The whole coin has to be thrown into the Ganges. You have to become natural, you have to accept all that you are.

In that acceptance is flowering. All is good that God has given to you. How can it be otherwise? - it is a gift from God.

So listen to me, not through your thoughts, your prejudices. Listen to me without your prejudices, just put the mind aside. While listening to me don't go on interpreting, while listening to me get en rapport with me. Don't be in a hurry to conclude; that hurry is harmful. You are in such a hurry to conclude, you want to achieve some results so fast, that's why you go on missing many things. There is no hurry and there is no need to conclude right now. While listening to me, first listen TOTALLY.

And then later on you can think about it. If you have listened rightly then your thoughts will not be able to distort the meaning, they will not be able to distract you. Once you have listened rightly, without any interpretation, without any thinking about it, then later on you can bring your whole mind to it. There will be no problem, you will have followed what I have said to you.

Otherwise, while listening to me you are continuously thinking by the side. While you are listening to me you are thinking - many thoughts are going, rushing in and out. They are very very dangerous.

Then whatsoever conclusion you arrive at through them will be your conclusion, will not be mine.

But it feels good to throw the responsibility on me. You have become so disrespectful towards yourself that you always throw the responsibility on somebody else. You have forgotten that you are responsible to yourself. Only you. All that happens to you and all that is going to happen to you is going to happen through you. You are wholly and solely responsible for your life. Nobody else is the saviour.

And you cannot throw your responsibilities on me. If you want to be licentious BE licentious. I am nobody to interfere - who am I? If you want to be repressive be repressive. But don't impose meanings on what I say.

The third question:

Question 4:

I am not coming back. About that you must be absolutely certain: I am not coming back. That is also a hope through which you would like to postpone, through which you would like to create a future, so that you can go on avoiding the present. I am not coming. If you want to have any contact with me, this moment you have to make it. Nobody knows about the tomorrow, I may not be here. And I am not coming back. Don't be tricky with me. You have been tricky with Jesus and Buddha and everybody. Mm? You go on hoping that Jesus is coming, he will come and he will deliver you. Why should he come to deliver you?

Can't you stand on your own feet? Can't you become responsible for your own self? If you are not responsible for your own self you will not have any soul, because the soul arises only by taking responsibility. Responsibility is of immense value, it gives you integration.

And why are you worried? WHEN YOU ARE GONE, HOW CAN SANNYAS AVOID BECOMING JUST ANOTHER EMPTY CHURCH? Why should it avoid? And how can it avoid? And there is no need. When I am gone it will be an empty church.

This is a trick again. You would like the empty church to still give you the protection and the shelter.

You would like the empty church to help you believe that it is not empty. That's what goes on. Jesus is gone. The day he left, the day he was crucified, Christianity also died with him - not only Christ.

How can there be Christianity without Christ? It is a deception. How can there be Buddhism without Buddha? When the flower is gone the fragrance is gone.

You don't ask a rosebush 'When your roses are gone how can we make the bush go on appearing as if the roses have not gone? The bush will look empty, how can we avoid it?' Yes, you can avoid it.

You can go to the marketplace and purchase plastic flowers and hang those plastic flowers on the rosebush. That's what your popes are, plastic flowers. The rose is gone, the rose died. And ail real roses have to die. Only the unreal ones don't die. Plastic flowers can remain for ever, they have a kind of eternity and permanence. Real flowers can't have that permanence, otherwise they will be plastic.

The real flower is born in the morning, will have its day. Will whisper with the winds, will release its fragrance, will have a dialogue with the sun and the birds, and by the evening will be gone. And that's how real flowers should be. It cannot go on, go on; then it will be a corpse.

Why should you be worried? When a Buddha is gone, Buddha is gone. When Christ is gone, Christ is gone. But there is a reason why you ask the question. You cannot be here with me, you cannot be here with me right now. You would like a promise from me that I will be coming back, that the church will remain alive. If I am not there it will still be alive - my representatives will be there, I will appoint popes and they will be there, and they will go on guiding you. So that you need not worry about me. If I am gone nothing is gone, something will be available.

No, I want it absolutely clear, I want it to be recognized absolutely, that when I am gone I am gone.

And the church WILL be empty. And I am not going to appoint anybody. How can you appoint anybody? Buddhas are not appointed. And nobody can represent me. How can anybody else represent me? I don't represent anybody, how can anybody else represent me? The church will be empty. So if you want to have something from me, if you want the transmission from me, if you want to enkindle your life through me, if you want to partake of my fire and my passion, then don't postpone.

You ask: WHEN YOU ARE GONE, HOW CAN SANNYAS AVOID?

There is no need to avoid. All avoidance is dangerous. That's what Christianity has been doing for two thousand years. Avoiding the fact that Jesus is gone, that the church is empty. Putting plastic Jesuses instead. Trying to believe that he is still there. He is not there, he cannot be there.

So there is no need to avoid, the church WILL become empty. Before it becomes empty enjoy it.

Before it becomes empty pray in it. Before it becomes empty, drink of it, partake of it.

Question 5:

Nothing can be done and nothing SHOULD be done. Because all that will be wrong. That's how religions die and become sects, that's how everything goes false. No more of that. I am here, you are here, why bother about the future? I am knocking on your heart: listen to it right now! And you are asking 'When you are gone, who will be knocking at my heart?' And I am knocking already and you are not listening and you are planning for the future:

'When you are gone who will knock at my heart?'

I am knocking. Listen to it.

But you want to avoid me. You see the danger, so you postpone. You say 'Tomorrow. But will you be there tomorrow to knock on me? And if you are not there then who will knock at my door?' Tomorrow never comes. Only fools live in the tomorrows. The wise person, the intelligent person, lives in this very moment. He knows no other time. He neither lives in the past nor in the future, he neither goes into the memories nor into the imagination. He lives this small moment. And this small moment is all, it contains eternity.

The fifth question:

Question 6:

The question is from Amida.

You must be feeling empty. And you are not yet courageous enough to accept that emptiness. Hence one goes on stuffing in many ways. People stuff with food, people stuff with knowledge, and people stuff with many things: money, power.... Deep inside, everybody is empty. And that emptiness is divine, that emptiness is God. Buddha calls it SUNYATA - nothingness. And sooner or later one has to come to terms with that inner emptiness.

There are only two types of people, the worldly and the other-worldly. The worldly is one who goes on stuffing the emptiness. And the other-worldly is one who comes to see the point that there is no way to stuff it. It remains empty. So why not face it? Why not BE it? Why not accept it? In that very acceptance, the revolution. The radical transformation. The metamorphosis.

And that is the whole art of meditation. But people ARE afraid - the emptiness looks like death.

So what I should suggest to Amida, I will suggest: Stuff a little more. Hoard a little more. Go on stuffing. So that you can see the foolishness of it. It seems you have not yet been able to see that the emptiness is eternal and cannot be stuffed by anything. Go on in this nightmare a little more, make it more nightmarish. People change only from the extreme.

It seems Amida has been doing the thing moderately. Only lukewarm. The jump comes only from the hundred-degree point. Go on stuffing as much as you can. Put your whole energy into stuffing.

In that very stuffing, a moment comes when you see clearly that the emptiness is eternal, that the emptiness is your very nature, that there is no way to stuff it. You can forget it for a moment by stuffing, but it remains there and asserts itself again and again.

Seeing that, stuffing stops - not that you stop it. Seeing that, stuffing stops. And suddenly the benediction of emptiness spreads all over you. To be empty is to be divine. To be empty is to have come home. But do a little more.

I have heard a beautiful story:

A man came to see his Rabbi, to ask his advice. He said 'Oh Rabbi, my life is so miserable. I have a small house, just one room, and it is much too crowded. There are my wife and myself, our twelve children, her old parents and mine, my deaf uncle and my crippled sister. I cannot pay for a bigger house - what to do?'

The Rabbi thought for a while and said 'Do you have any animals?'

'Yes' said the man. 'There are five goats, three cows, ten chickens, two cats, two horses and a dog.'

Said the Rabbi: 'Bring them all into your house and let them live there for a week.'

The man was very puzzled, but since he respected his Rabbi very much he went and did as he was told. Life became nightmare. He had to sleep while standing, it was so crowded. And it was so impossible to breathe, it was stinking. He ran to the Rabbi after a week, completely crazy, and the Rabbi said 'I see that you have done what I told you. Very good. Now go home and take all the animals out. You will be surprised to see how much space is there now!'

Amida, do that.