Valleys and Peaks

Question 1:

If you make it a goal - egolessness - then you will always remain with the ego. Don't make it a goal, because all goals belong to the ego. If you think that you should remain egoless, who is this "you" who should remain egoless? This is the ego. So the first thing, don't make it a goal. Any goal will feed the ego - even the goal of egolessness.

When you are egoless enjoy it; when you feel the ego again, be alert - but don't expect the contrary.

If you start expecting you will be more entangled with the same thing. Whenever egolessness is there enjoy it, feel grateful, thank God, and when the ego comes again, be alert. Soon more and more egolessness will happen to you, less and less ego will return. And the moment will come when ego will disappear, but don't make it a goal. All goals belong to the ego.

Secondly, don't expect anything, because when you start expecting you have moved from the here and now into the future. When you start expecting something you have started to bring your memory, your past, into the present. This very moment you feel egoless - it is okay. Then it goes, the ego comes. You want to repeat the past again - you must be egoless. You project the past in the future and you miss the present.

And remember, egolessness is possible only if you are here and now. If you move into the past, if you move into the future, the ego will persist. So don't ask for any constancy because constancy means you want to continue the past into the future. Remain with the moment and don't expect anything. The ego will drop by itself, no other effort is needed. If the ego has moved it means you are not in the present. So don't fight with the ego, simply move into the present and ego will drop.

And this is what is happening.

You say: "Many times I feel so merged in you that it is as if I have died and only you are."

I am here and I am now. I have no past and no future. If you really relate with me you relate with my nowness and hereness, because there is no other thing with which to relate. If you feel a love, a trust, flowing towards me, that love and trust can flow only in the present. That's why you feel you have died. It is not because of me that your ego is dying, it is because you have moved with me in the present. Then your past is forgotten, your future is no more. You are here, totally here.

So don't think that it is something that I am doing to you, it is something that you are doing to yourself - I am just the excuse. Try to understand this because otherwise it will become a clinging. The same can happen anywhere. Remember the secret. If you love me, if you listen to me deeply, if you are here present with me, receptive, open, you are in the present. That's why for a few seconds the ego will disappear. Then you are not. If you can be in the present anywhere, you will not be.

You can be only either in the past or in the future - you cannot be in the present. Just think about it, how can you be in the present? There is no need. The past accumulates, becomes crystallized, and you feel 'I'. Then the past projects in the future and says, "This should be, this should not be. I desire this, I don't desire that." This is your past desiring - all the bad experiences you don't want to repeat and all the good trips you want to repeat in the future. This is past asking for something in the future - and you are missing the present, which is the only existence.

Past is no more, it is already dead; future is not yet, it is yet unborn. Both are not. And ego can exist only in nonexistence, it is the most false thing possible. The present moment is, it is the only is-ness; nothing else exists. If you relate with the present you cannot exist as an ego, because the present is the real and the real never creates anything false. Out of the real nothing false is created; only out of the false, false comes.

So it can happen... it may be happening to you that for a few moments you disappear. While listening to me, while just sitting with me, you disappear. But I am not doing anything to you. If you think I am doing something then you will cling to me, you will become attached to me; a new attachment will be formed. And then through that attachment you will ask again and again for the same.

Just try to understand the basic law. Then move into the forest, sit under a tree, and be in the here- and-now. Then be with your friends, remain silent, and remain in the here-and-now. Listen to music, forget the past, forget the future, and be here and now. And if you can be in the present anywhere, suddenly the ego will not be found. And if you ask that this should happen again, ego has come again, because now you are asking for the future, planning for the future. This is the mechanism.

"But this feeling does not remain constant, and always the ego returns." It will remain constant only when you don't ask that it should remain constant. It will happen again and again every moment, it will be continued, but don't ask for its constancy. Rather, enjoy it moment to moment and don't project it. It will arise again and again every moment, but remember, it is never the old, it is always the new arising, every moment being born again and again. It is not the past continuing, it is the new being born every moment.

"This happens whenever I again have to communicate with others or return to activity." Why does it happen when you communicate with others? Really you don't communicate, that's why. If you communicate it will not happen. While you are here with me, this is a communication. You relate with me, you become silent, you drop your past. You listen so attentively that thinking stops. This is communication.

When you communicate with somebody else you are not communicating, you are just throwing out your inner talk. You are thinking of many things. You may be saying something and thinking something else, meaning something else, doing something else. You are many while you communicate with others - then the ego enters.

In activity also the ego can enter because you become the doer. While I am speaking you are not doing anything at all, you are simply here listening. Listening is not a doing, listening is passive, it is a non-act. You need not do anything; you simply be there and it will happen. If you do something you won't be able to listen, if you go on doing something you will only appear to be listening but you won't be listening. When you don't do anything, listening happens. It is a passive thing. You need not do anything to create this capacity, it is always there.

But when you return to activity the ego can return, because again the doer has come. So what is to be done? When you return to activity remain the witness and don't become the doer. Go on doing things but remain the witness. Or if it is difficult then just leave everything to the divine and say that the divine is doing everything, you are just a vehicle, a passage, an agent. That's what Krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita: "You leave everything to me, surrender everything to me. You become just a medium and let things happen. Don't you be the doer, God is the doer."

Or if you cannot think of any God then there is another technique, and that is destiny or fate, that everything that is happening is destined. You are not doing it, it was bound to be so, it was going to happen, it was predestined. These are simple things, but you feel these simple things are difficult because they have become difficult in this age.

In the past these simple techniques helped millions to attain silence, peace, egolessness, because they could trust. Fate, or what Sufis call kismet, helped millions... because then simply you say, "I am not the doer. The whole existence has predetermined everything in me and I am just following."

This is the whole secret of astrology. Astrology is not a science but a technique of religion. If a person can believe that things are settled already and one cannot change anything, then the doer cannot arise. But simple faith is needed for that.

If you feel this is difficult - and this is difficult for the modern mind - then only one thing remains, and that is, be alert and move again and again to the present. No faith, no God is needed. But then the path is very arduous because every moment you will have to pull yourself back to the present.

It is such an old habit to move ahead, it has become such a fixation that you will have to constantly struggle.

Remember not to move in the past and not to move in the future. Then every moment egolessness will arise, it will become a continuous flow. And the more egoless you are the more moments of egolessness, the more glimpses in the divine. The more you are the less the divine is for you, the less you are the more the divine.

The second question:

Question 2:

A NUMBER OF TIMES I HAVE FELT IN THE PAST THAT I HAD REACHED A STATE OF EFFORTLESSNESS. IT LASTED FOR SOME TIME, FOR DAYS OR EVEN WEEKS, BUT THEN I FELL BACK FROM IT. WHY DOES THIS FALLING BACK HAPPEN? CAN ANYTHING BE DONE TO PREVENT IT?

Whenever it happens again don't get miserable about it - let it happen and accept it. This is difficult.

Whenever happiness happens you accept it, whenever you feel blissful you never ask any questions about it. You never ask, "Why has it happened?" You accept it. But whenever misery comes, whenever unhappiness comes, whenever you are in pain and anguish, immediately you ask, "Why has it happened?" Behave equally to both, have the same attitude to both.

There are two possibilities: one, do the same with unhappiness as you have done with your happiness, or do the same with your happiness as you are doing with your unhappiness. Either accept both or reject both, and then you will have a transformation. If you can accept both, when misery comes accept it as part of life, suddenly the nature of the misery is transformed. Through acceptance the quality has changed - because nobody can accept misery. If you accept it you have changed it, it is no more misery - because we can accept only happiness. Or if you can understand the deeper meaning of it, this is the meaning: whatsoever you accept becomes happiness, and whatsoever you reject becomes pain, misery, unhappiness.

Nothing is happiness, nothing is unhappiness, outside you - it is your rejection and acceptance. Try it. And you know, many times this has happened to you unknowingly. You love a person, you are happy. You accept the person, there is happiness. And then a moment comes when you reject the same person. The person is the same; you don't love him, you don't accept him. The person is creating unhappiness now, and the same person was creating happiness before. The same object can give you happiness and unhappiness. So the object seems to be irrelevant. It depends on you, on whether you accept or reject.

A person who can accept both misery and happiness equally will transcend, or a person who can reject both will transcend. And these are the two ways, the most fundamental ways of transformation.

One is to accept everything - this is the positive path Hindus have been following. The Upanishads belong to this path, accept everything. Then there is the negative path, reject everything. Buddhists, Jainas have been following that, that is the negative path.

But both do the same thing. If you reject happiness you can never be unhappy, if you accept unhappiness you can never be unhappy. How can you make a man unhappy if he accepts it? How can you make a man unhappy if he rejects happiness? You cannot make him unhappy. The problem arises because you divide. You say this is happiness and that is unhappiness. And division is in your mind - reality is not divided. In reality unhappiness becomes happiness, happiness becomes unhappiness. They are flowing.

It is just like peaks and valleys: if a peak is there a valley is bound to be there. And the valley and peak are not against each other, they are part of one phenomenon. If you reject the valley and you accept the peak you will be miserable, because wherever a peak is the valley will be. And the higher the peak the deeper will be the valley. So if you love Everest then you will have to love deep valleys also. Happiness is like a peak and unhappiness is like a valley.

Go to the sea and meditate on the waves. The wave rises high, but just behind it there is a gap, a valley. Each wave is followed by a valley. The higher the wave the deeper will be the valley just following it. This is what happiness and unhappiness are - waves. Whenever you reach a high peak of happiness, immediately unhappiness will follow. You have to accept that this is how life is. If you say, "I will accept only peaks and not valleys," you are just behaving stupidly. Then you are going to be miserable.

It has been happening in every camp. People do so much towards meditation, acceptance, happiness, and they achieve small, high peaks. Then they go back, and then suddenly the valley comes in. They feel very miserable after the camp.

Somebody has asked a question:

Question 3:

WHY DON'T YOU CARRY ON YOUR CAMPS AT LEAST FOR THREE MONTHS, OR SIX MONTHS?

Because of this... because if I keep a camp continuing for three months you will reach Everest and then back home you will simply go mad with misery. And you will have to go back - and if it is difficult after nine days it will be impossible after three months. This is good, and part of the training, that you accept both the peak and the valley. Go home and accept the valley also.

The real thing is to learn acceptance. And if you accept the valley then the valley is also very mysterious and beautiful. It has its own splendor. Even anguish has its own beauty if you accept it, even sadness has its own depth. Not only laughter is beautiful; sadness has its own beauty, a depth which no laughter can carry. Sadness has its own poetry, its own rhythm. If you allow me the expression, sadness has its own ecstasy. But one has to accept, only then one will be able to know.

The light is good, but darkness has its own mystery. You may be afraid but that is because of you, not because of darkness. Darkness has its own silence, its own silky expanse, its own infinity. This choice is yours - that you go on saying that light is good. And every book, the Koran and the Gita and The Bible, goes on making parallels between God and light. They go on saying, "God is light."

This is because man is afraid of darkness. Otherwise darkness is more godly than any light because light is always limited, darkness is always unlimited. Light has to be produced, darkness is there eternally, there is no need to produce it. You can bring light in, you cannot bring darkness in. Simply put off the light and you find that the darkness was already there, there is no need to bring it. It is always there, the eternal and always infinite.

Light has a tension with it, that's why you cannot sleep in light. It is difficult to sleep because a tension continues on the mind. Darkness has a relaxation. Darkness absorbs you, it takes you in its womb and relaxes you. Darkness is like death. But we are afraid of death so we are afraid of darkness. No one says that God is darkness. This is because of our mind. But I tell you, God is both. And unless God becomes both to you, you will never enter him.

Don't choose. Accept without any choice. Be choiceless and accepting. Whatsoever falls upon you, accept it and feel grateful for it. Try this - you have tried everything else. When misery comes to you thank God, feel happy that misery has befallen you and now you can experience it. Don't be scared.

Try to experience what misery is and you will start enjoying it. You will start feeling new dimensions in it, new depths of which you were never aware.

This is why comedies in literature are never as deep as tragedies. And a person who has not known misery remains always shallow - always shallow. He may be laughing, smiling, but his laugh and smile are always shallow, just on the surface. He has no depth. A person who has passed through miseries, many miseries, gains depth. He knows both the heaven and the hell. And a person who knows both really becomes integrated.

Nietzsche has written many beautiful things, fragments of course. One of the most beautiful things he has ever asserted is that if you want to reach heaven, if you want to touch heaven, your roots must go to hell. It is just as if a big tree arises on the earth: the higher it reaches into the sky, the lower it has to penetrate in the earth. The highest tree must have the deepest roots. And it is proportionate, always the same: if the tree is twenty feet high the roots reach twenty feet down, if the tree is one hundred feet high the roots reach one hundred feet down. A man who really wants to reach a peak of bliss must send his roots deep into sadness, anguish, misery, and the proportion will always be the same.

If you accept both you transcend. Then neither misery can make you miserable nor happiness can make you happy - you remain the same. Misery comes and goes, happiness comes and goes, you remain untouched. Just like day comes and night comes, and they go on moving in a circle and you remain untouched, life comes and death comes and you remain untouched. Until this is achieved your bliss is just a deception. The bliss that exists against misery is no bliss. Only that bliss is called bliss, ananda, which doesn't exist against misery, which transcends happiness, unhappiness, both.

So when the peak has gone and the valley has come, accept it. It will be difficult, but try. Accept it, feel it, be sensitive to it. Allow it to happen and you are changing its quality, and you are changing yourself also through it. And don't divide, don't say happiness, unhappiness; these are two aspects of the same coin. Accept both or reject both; only then tranquility, calmness, peace, become possible.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

DO YOU FEEL THAT THE HIPPIE WAY OF LIFE - A LIFE OF NONACHIEVING, ALL PLAY AND NO WORK, LIVING FOR THE MOMENT, WANDERING ABOUT INSTEAD OF REMAINING IN ONE PLACE - IS BETTER FOR A SPIRITUAL SEEKER THAN THE USUAL LIFE OF MARRIAGE, FAMILY AND CAREER?

The first thing: the hippie is not the alternative, he is a by-product. He has always existed in different forms. But remember, he depends on the established society. He is not an alternative, he's just a shadow, a by-product of the society. He can go on moving, wandering, because many are established. If everybody is wandering nobody can be a hippie. A wandering monk, a wandering hippie, needs a society which is established, otherwise where is he going to wander? And he can afford play because others are working.

This is new in the West, because the West has become for the first time affluent. It is one of the ancient traditions in India. Right now five million sannyasins exist in India, wandering. They have been always there. They don't stay in one place, they don't work - they simply exist. They beg, the society supports them. But they can exist only because a society exists, and the better the society is established the better they can exist. That is why only in America is the hippie way of life possible.

Because American society is now well established, rich, it can afford a few young men wandering here and there, playing with life. It can afford it. In a poor society hippies cannot exist, a poor society cannot afford them.

So the hippie way of life is not an alternative, it is a by-product. And it happens only when a society has reached a particular point of establishment, richness. Then it can allow a few young men to wander here and there and experiment. This hippie way of life cannot become universal and I never suggest that which cannot become universal because it is useless. And if you have to depend on the society you condemn, then the whole thing seems to be bogus.

I don't say no work and play, I say make your work your play. That is totally different, that can exist universally. Then you are not exploiting; otherwise hippies are exploiting. They may be exploiting their parents, their families, but they are exploiting. Their father and their mother and their brothers are working hard and they are enjoying a hippie way of life. This is sheer exploitation. Somebody has to work, and if somebody has to work it is better you work yourself. But change the work into play. If the work itself becomes the play then the whole world can go hippie, then there is no problem.

And unless the whole world goes hippie it cannot become a way of life.

Hippies have always existed and then they have disappeared. Many times they come into existence and then they disappear. Sometimes they were called Bohemians, sometimes other names, but they could not create a permanent way, they couldn't make it universal. It is impossible to make it universal, somebody has to work somewhere. So I don't say only work, I don't say only play - I say make your work your play.

Secondly, wandering, a life of a wanderer, is good for a few, it is not good for all. And that too is good only for a particular period of life, not for the whole life. My feeling is that every young man and woman should be allowed to wander for a few years, wander carelessly, just experimenting with everything that is possible, good and bad both; moving with many types of people, different societies, countries. Before one gets established one should have wandered the whole earth.

This will give a richer family life. Then you are more experienced, more sensitive, multidimensional.

And when you have wandered and then you settle your settlement has some meaning. You have known the opposite, and it is always good to know the opposite. It is said that whenever a person comes back to his own home country after wandering long, for the first time he comes to know it. It is true, because unless you have knocked at other doors you cannot recognize your own. So this must be a sort of university, this wandering.

Every young man and woman should be allowed to move for a few years carelessly, without any responsibility, because soon responsibilities will happen, will come. They will have to settle and they will have to carry many burdens. Before this happens they must be allowed a floating life, just to know whatsoever exists on earth - the bad and the good, the establishment and the anti-establishment - they must know everything.

The more you have moved around the richer becomes your consciousness. But this cannot be the whole pattern of life, this can be just a training, because wandering gives many things and then settling in a family life also gives many things that no wanderer can know. Both have their own richnesses.

You may love many women. That has its own significance, because you come to know many types of personalities, and the more you know the richer you are. But then to love one woman has a different significance, because loving many women may be a vast, rich experience, but it is never deep, it is always superficial. Depth needs time, depth needs a deep long contact. So when you love one woman and you have settled, all the wandering of the mind has ceased and now your desire never craves for anyone else, you can move deeply with one person. Now you can relate, now love can flower.

While making friendships and love with many women and men, you may come to know many techniques, many experiences of sex, but you will not be able to know love, what love is, because love needs seasoning. Just a hit-and-run experience cannot be of much depth - it cannot be. When you live with a person, and not only outward but inward wandering also has ceased, and nobody can create the craving in you, now this person is the sole and whole, then a depth starts happening.

Then you start mingling, merging into each other, and higher peaks of love will be available to you.

And a moment comes when two persons become one.

Both have to be known. So I am neither for this nor against that. I am always for a richer life - the richer the better. But it is better if the first wandering part is done when you are not responsible.

It must precede, and the latter part should succeed. And you will have your experience with many persons, many places, which will help you to settle somewhere, to choose the right person.

The first love can almost never be the right love. It is bound to be childish, it is a baby love. You don't know anything about love. When you have loved many persons you know what love is. You know the misery and the bliss both, the expectations and frustrations both, and then you can choose.

I am in favor of many trial love affairs, and then also in favor of a fixed, permanent marriage. But marriage must happen after you have wandered here and there and knocked at many doors, tasted at many wells. Only then allow marriage to happen. Then there will be no divorce; otherwise divorce is bound to be there. The first love is dangerous, one should never marry in the first love.

Wait, because you don't know your mind, how it will change. It will change, it may be just a mood.

Experiments are good.

But there have been only two types of people. One type says, "Marry. You should remain true forever to the first person you fall in love with." This is nonsense. Then there is the other party, the other extreme, who says, "There is no need for marriage, go on experimenting. Even when you are on your deathbed, go on experimenting." That too is foolish. They are both foolish.

My attitude is absolutely the third. There is a time to experiment; when you are young, experiment.

Know many persons, allow many happenings, don't be shy, don't feel guilty, let life flow so you can become acquainted with it. And when you feel that now you are acquainted, you have known, you have a certain experience to settle with, then settle, and then settle forever. Both these things will give you the highest peaks possible.

And this is my attitude in every dimension of life: allow both the opposites to happen. Don't choose between the opposites, allow both the opposites to happen. Then you have depth, then you have height, and you will have a growth which cannot happen to persons who get married and have not known many persons, which cannot happen to persons who go on changing. Both miss.

But these are the two parties: one is known as the orthodox, the other is known as the hippie - and both are wrong. A deep synthesis is needed. There are moments you should be a hippie and there are moments you must be a conformist. And if you can allow both, if you can enjoy both, you will be richer for that.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

HOW IS ONE TO OVERCOME BOREDOM? HOW CAN ONE REDISCOVER MYSTERY IN THINGS THAT HAVE BECOME BORING, REPETITIVE, DEMYSTIFIED?

The first thing to remember is that it is not that things are repetitive - it is your mind, not the things.

The sun rises every day, you can say that it is repetitive. It is not, because the sun rises every day in a different way. The colors are different, the mood is different, the sky is different. The sun never repeats, it is always new. It is your mind which says, "This is repetitive, so what is the beauty there?"

Looking at the sun rising every day will create boredom, but the boredom is coming because you are not sensitive enough to see the newness. Everything is new every moment. It looks old because you carry the past in your mind and you look through the past.

You may have lived with a person for thirty years - your wife, your husband, your friend - and you may have noticed that for years you have not seen the face of the person, for years. You may be living with the person but you have not seen those eyes, the face. You think there is no need, you know the person well. The face is changing every day, the eyes are changing every day, the mind is changing every day. Life is a flux. Nothing is old, nothing can be old here. Never is a thing repeated, it is nonrepetitive. And if you think that things are old it is only because you are not sensitive enough to see the newness.

Just try to see a person; observe for twenty-four hours, and see how many persons exist in that one person. And this is not only so with a person, even a rock has its moods. Sit by the side of a rock and feel the mood. Sometimes the rock is happy and then the rock will receive you, will welcome you. And you can feel, you can touch and feel a warmth, a receptive welcome. Sometimes the rock is sad. You touch it and it will be cold. She will not be receiving you, it is as if she is saying, "Go away." In the morning look at the rock, in the evening look at the rock. When the stars have appeared in the night then look at the rock. It is not the same rock because the whole milieu is changing, it is part of a great milieu. When the whole milieu is changing how can this rock remain the same? It goes on changing but you don't have eyes to see.

Your eyes are old, this is the first thing to remember. Nothing is old in the world, everything is new - only your eyes get old. You become fixed, you start seeing patterns. Now scientists say that ninety-eight percent of the information that goes on coming from the outside world is not taken in by your senses, only two percent is taken. And that two percent of information that is taken in by your senses, you have a fixed pattern of taking, you choose it. That's why the thing becomes old.

You come to the house, you look at your wife in a particular pattern that has become fixed. You may not observe - you are not observing many things. The wife may be happy but you have become fixed with an idea: "My wife and happy? - it is impossible!" She may be happy but you cannot see.

You have a pattern, you see only that which you believe.

And if the wife sees that you are seeing only unhappiness when she is happy suddenly she will become unhappy, because happiness cannot exist unsupported. She may have been smiling and waiting for you. Then she looks at your face and reads your face and sees that you are seeing that she is unhappy. Suddenly the smile disappears and your pattern is proved right. And the wife is doing the same with the husband....

Everybody has a fixed pattern, that's why things become old, look repetitive. Drop this pattern.

Boredom comes because of you, the world is not creating boredom. It is one of the most wonderful worlds possible. Everything is new and everything is changing, nothing fixed, no pattern is followed.

It is an alive movement. But you have a dead mind, so you see only those things which you have fixed. Drop this mind and start looking afresh.

What to do? Meditate. Whenever you see a thing which you feel is old, meditate. Look deeper, look again, think twice, feel, touch, be sensitive. Try to discover something new in it and you will always be enriched, you will always find something new there. Sometimes sit with your wife or with your child, with your friend, and look in the eyes, touch the face as if you are meeting for the first time.

Close your eyes, put the light off, touch the face of your wife or your husband and feel the lines, the curves, as if for the first time. And suddenly the boredom will disappear, the person will become new. The person has always been becoming new only you never touched, your touch was dead.

You never felt, your feeling was dead.

"How is one to overcome boredom?" The first thing to remember, drop your pattern; your mind creates the boredom. And then you will feel mystery all around you. Every day you go to the table, you take your food - it has become a routine. Tomorrow, or this very night when you are eating, close your eyes. First feel the bread with your hands, smell it - you have never smelled it. Touch it on your cheek - you have never touched it. And be slow, so you can feel and you can absorb. And then eat it, then taste it. Chew it as much as possible.

It should be the rule that while drinking water, eat it, and while eating food, drink it. Chew it so much that it becomes just like water and you can drink it. And when you drink water, don't drink it abruptly, don't just throw it down. Taste it. When you are thirsty just feel the water on your tongue, in your throat going down, the thirst disappearing - the feel of it. And even ordinary food can become wonderful. An ordinary woman can give you all the mysteries that any Cleopatra can give. An ordinary man is all - because ordinariness is just in your mind; otherwise everybody is extraordinary, everybody is unique. But you have to discover it.

Life is not given readymade, it has to be discovered. You get bored because you think life is readymade, somebody is going to give it to you. Nobody is there to give it to you. You have to discover it moment to moment, every day. The discovery must continue to the very end. If you stop discovery you will be bored.

You have stopped discovery, long ago you stopped discovery completely. Start again. Start feeling things, persons, try to find out something new always. Wherever you look - in the sky, at the trees, at the market, at the shop - wherever you look just be in a search to see something new. And there is enough, you will never feel a failure. Always the new will bubble up, the life will again become a mystery.

And when life becomes a mystery you become religious. A demystified life cannot lead you towards the divine. The divine means the deepest mystery that is hidden in this life.

The last question:

Question 6:

DOES A BUDDHA EVER GET BORED?

That's impossible, for many reasons. One, a buddha means one who has dropped his past, so he can never feel that anything is old, he can never feel that anything is repetitive. He is new. His mind is fresh and new every moment, he goes on dropping the past, the whole life is a new discovery.

Once it happened, a man came who was very angry with Buddha because Buddha asserted something which was against his creed. The man was very angry, he started abusing Buddha.

But that was not enough, so he spat on Buddha's face.

Buddha asked the man, "Okay, have you anything more to say?" He wiped his face and asked the man, "Have you anything more to say?"

The man could not believe his ears, because he expected some reaction - irritation, anger, hatred.

Buddha's disciples were very angry. When the man had left they said, "This is too much! And we could not do anything because of you. We could have put this man right in his place."

Buddha is reported to have said, "I was feeling sorry for that man and now I am feeling sorry for you.

And that man can be forgiven; you cannot be forgiven so easily. You have been with me for so many years. You have not learned a simple lesson." Buddha said, "I enjoyed that man's anger. It was so authentic, it was so real; it was not bogus. He was a very authentic man. This is how he felt so he expressed it. He was no hypocrite. You are hypocrites. If you were feeling angry, why didn't you express it? You have been suppressing. That man was more innocent than you." Buddha said, "I enjoyed that man's authenticity. It was his childishness of course - but real."

Next day the man came again. The whole night he must have thought about it and he said, "Sorry."

He felt that he had done something wrong, he felt guilty. Next morning he came, fell down at Buddha's feet and started crying. Tears were flowing down from his eyes onto Buddha's feet.

Buddha again asked that man, "Have you anything more to say? You are a man of body language; when you were angry you spat - it is a body language. Now you feel sorry, you are crying and weeping and your tears are falling on my feet. But you are authentic and I love your authenticity."

The man said, "I have come just to ask your forgiveness for the wrong act that I did yesterday."

Buddha said, "Forget it. Yesterday is no more. And I am not the same person you spat upon, so how can I forgive you? But I can assure you, the man who was there yesterday was not angry. You were already forgiven at that very moment because I don't carry anything, I close my accounts every moment. And now this is not the same man, because the consciousness is just riverlike."

Buddha is reported to have said, "As the Ganges is flowing... and if you go to the bank today you will not find the same water that you found yesterday. The water has gone. Consciousness is like a river. So," Buddha said, "you have come to the same bank again, but the river is not the same. So who will forgive you? But it is good that you ask, the very asking is enough. I am happy - you are authentic, honest."

You cannot make such a man bored. Everywhere he will find something he can enjoy, even your anger he can enjoy. You cannot make this man bored because out of his riverlike consciousness he creates newness everywhere. He never exists with the past.

Secondly, only the ego can get bored. If you are not, who is going to get bored? For many years I have been living in one room, so many of my friends come and they say, "Don't you get bored just in one room?" Ordinarily I never go out - twenty-four hours in one room, almost only sitting in one chair. Their question is relevant. They ask me, "Don't you get bored? The same room, the same chair - and an empty room, there is nothing in it, nothing even to see - don't you get bored?"

Their question is relevant - but you can get bored only if you are there. So I sometimes tell them, "The room may be getting bored with me - the same person. I am not bored. There is no one who can get bored." And life is so rich, even in an empty room. And every moment the room is changing, it is not the same. Nothing can be the same - even the emptiness goes on changing, it has its own moods.

A buddha has no ego, you cannot bore him. He exists like an emptiness, as if he is not. If you penetrate him you will not find anyone there. The house is vacant, no one lives there really. You can move in a buddha but you will never meet him.

One Zen monk, Bokuju, used to say about Gautam Buddha, his own master, "The whole story of Buddha is false. He was never born, he never died, he never walked on this earth, he never preached a single word." And every day he would go into the temple and bow down before a Buddha statue.

So his disciples said, "Are you mad? You go on saying this man is just a myth - he was never born, never died, never walked on the earth, never asserted a single word - so to whom do you go every day? Before whom do you bow down? And we have heard you even praying there; you do prayers, and we have heard that you say 'namo buddhaya' - so whom do you address?"

Bokuju started laughing and he said, "Nobody. This statue is not of anybody. This statue is just of a nobody, of nothingness. And I say he was never born because he was not an ego, he never walked on this earth because who will walk? He never asserted a single word because who will assert?"

He's not saying that really Buddha was not born, he is simply denying any entity there. You cannot say, "An emptiness is born, an emptiness is walking, an emptiness is speaking, an emptiness is dying." We can say this, this can be said, but there is no substance in it, no ego.

Try - if you cannot do anything else, then only do this: commit suicide as far as your ego is concerned. You will never get bored. You will be like an empty mirror. Whatsoever is reflected is always new because the mirror is empty, it cannot compare. It cannot say, "I have seen this face before."

Become the empty mirror, become egoless. And then there is no boredom - all life is a beatitude, a blessing, a deep ecstasy.