The potentiality of the seed

The first question:

Question 1:

A Buddha, a Krishna or a Christ, they are not ideals for YOU; you are not to follow them. If you follow them you will miss them, and your own buddhahood will never be achieved. Buddhahood is the ideal, not Buddha. Christhood is the ideal, not Jesus. Buddhahood is different from Gautam Buddha; christhood is different from Jesus. Jesus is only one of the christs. You can become a christ, but you can never become a Jesus. You can become a buddha, but you can never become Gautam. Gautam became a buddha and YOU can become a buddha. Buddhahood is a quality, it is an experience! Of course, when Gautam became a buddha, Gautam had his own individuality.

You have your own individuality. When you will become a buddha, these two buddhas will not be the same. The inner most experience will be the same, but the expression will be different - absolutely different. No comparison is possible. Only at the innermost core will you be the same.

Why? Because at the innermost core there is no individuality. The individual is on the periphery. The deeper you move, the more the individual dissolves. At the innermost core you are as if no one. At the innermost core you are just a deep void, a nothingness - a SHUNYA, a zero. And because of this nothingness there is no difference, because two nothings cannot be different. But two somethings are bound to be different. Two "somethings" can never be the same and two "nothings" can never be different. When one becomes just absolutely nothing, a zero point, that is similar in a Jesus, in a Krishna, in a Buddha. When you will reach to the ultimate, you will reach to this SHUNYA - this nothingness.

But your personality, your expression of that ecstasy, is bound to be different. A Meera will dance; a Buddha can never dance. It is impossible to conceive of Buddha dancing, it looks absurd. But Meera sitting under a bodhi tree like a Buddha also looks absurd. She will lose everything, she will not be a Meera at all; she will be imitation. The real Meera can only be conceived of as dancing in ecstasy in her own love madness. That is her expression. The innermost core is the same. With Buddha sitting under the bodhi tree and Meera dancing in mad ecstasy, the innermost core is the same. In the dancing Meera and in the silently sitting Buddha who is just like a statue, the innermost core is the same but the periphery is different. The dancing and the silent sitting are just on the periphery. If you move within Meera, as you go deeper the dance will cease, the Meera will cease.

If you go deep into Buddha, the sitting will cease, the Buddha will cease as an individual.

You can become a buddha, but you can never become a Gautam buddha: that is what is meant.

Don't make them your ideals; otherwise you will start imitating them. And what can you do if you imitate? You can force something from without, but that will be a fake phenomenon. You will become pseudo - just painted. You will look Buddha-like - more than Buddha. You can look, but that will be just a look, an appearance; deep down you will remain the same - and this will create a duality, a conflict, an inner anguish, and you will be in suffering.

You can be in bliss only where you are authentically yourself. You can never feel any happiness when you are acting as someone else. So remember tantra's message: YOU are the ideal. You are not to imitate anyone; you are to discover yourself. Looking at a buddha, there is no need to imitate him. When you are looking at a buddha, the possibility hits deep in you that something of the beyond can happen. Buddha is just a symbol that something has happened to this man - and if it can happen to this man, it can happen to EVERY man. Then the whole possibility of humanity is revealed.

In a Jesus, in a Meera, in Chaitanya, just a possibility is revealed, the future is revealed. You need not be whatsoever you are. Something more is possible. So Buddha is just a symbol of the future.

Don't imitate him; rather, let his life, his being, the phenomenon that is happening, become a new thirst in you, that is all. You must not be content with yourself as you are right now. Let Buddha become a discontent in you, a thirst to transcend, to go beyond, to move into the unknown. When you reach to the peak of your own being, you will know what happened to Buddha under the bodhi tree or what happened to Jesus on the cross or what happened to Meera when she was dancing in the streets. You will know, but your expression will be your own. You are not going to be a Meera or a Buddha or a Jesus. You are going to be yourself, and you have never been before. You are unique.

So nothing can be said; you are not predictable. No one can say what will happen, how you will manifest it. Whether you will sing, dance, paint or remain silent no one can say. And it is good that nothing can be said, nothing can be predicted. That is the beauty. If it is predictable that you will be like this or that, then you will become a mechanical thing.

Predictions are possible only about mechanical devices. Human consciousness is unpredictable; that is its freedom. So when tantra says don't follow ideals, it doesn't mean to deny Buddha. No, it is not a denial. Really, it is how you can find your own buddhahood. Following another, you will miss it. Following your own path, you can gain it, you can achieve it.

Someone came to a Zen master, Bokuju. Bokuju's master was very famous, well known, a very great man, so someone asked "Are you really following your master?"

Bokuju said, "Yes, I am following him."

But the man who asked the question was disturbed because it was well known all over the country that Bokuju was not following his master at all. So the man said, "Are you trying to deceive me?

Everyone knows and you are also aware that you are not following your master at all, and still you say that you are following. What do you mean?"

Bokuju said, "I am following my master - because my master never followed his master. This is what I have learned from him. He was himself!"

This is how a Buddha, a Jesus is to be followed. This is how! They are unique! If you are really following them, YOU must be unique.

Buddha never followed anyone, and he achieved enlightenment only in that moment when he had completely stopped following. When he became himself, when he left all paths, all teachings, all doctrines, then he could achieve. If you follow him, you are not following him. It is not paradoxical, it only looks so. If you follow him as a dead routine, if you imitate him, you are not following him. He never followed anyone, and only then could he become the peak. Understand him, don't follow him; and then a subtle following will happen. But that is inner - not an imitation.

In Nietzsche's great work THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA, the last message of Zarathustra to his disciple is "Beware of me. Now I have told everything that was to be told to you. Now beware of me.

Don't follow me; just forget me. Leave me and go away."

This is the last message of all the great masters. No great master would like to make you a puppet because then he is killing you. He is a murderer then. He will help you to be yourself. And if you cannot be yourself in the intimacy and communication with your master, then where will you be yourself?

The master means an opportunity for you to be yourself. Only small minds, narrow minds who pretend to be masters and who are not masters, will try to impose themselves on you. Great masters will help you to grow on your own path, and great masters will create every barrier so that you don't become a victim of following. They will create every barrier! They will not allow it because your tendency will be to follow. It is easy, imitation is easy; to be authentic is arduous. And when you imitate you don't feel responsible for it, the master is responsible. No great master has ever allowed anyone to imitate. He will create every hindrance so that you cannot imitate him. He will throw you by every means to yourself.

I am reminded of one Chinese saint who was celebrating his master's enlightenment day. Many followers had come. They said, "But we never heard that this man was your master. We never knew that you belonged to this man." That old man was dead. They said, "Only today did we come to hear and know that you are celebrating your master's enlightenment day. This man was your master?

But how? We never saw you with him!"

The saint replied, "I had been with him, but he had refused. He had refused to become my master, and because of his refusal I could become myself. Now, whatsoever I am is because of his refusal.

I am his disciple. He could have accepted me; then I would have thrown all responsibility on his shoulders. But he refused, and he was the last man. There was no comparison. When he refused, I could not go to anyone else because he was the only shelter. If he had refused, then there was no meaning, no purpose in going anywhere. I left going to anyone. He was the last. If he would have accepted me, I would have forgotten myself. But he refused, and he refused very rudely. The refusal became a shock and a challenge, and I decided that now I would not go to anyone. If this man had refused, then there was no one worth going to. Then I started working on my own, and only then did I realize by and by why he had refused. He had thrown me to myself, and only then did I know that he had accepted me. Otherwise why should he refuse?"

This looks contradictory, but this is how the deeper dynamism of consciousness works. Masters are mysterious. You cannot judge them; you cannot be sure what they are doing unless the whole thing happens. Then only retrospectively will you be able to know what they were doing. Now it is impossible. On the middle path you cannot judge what is happening, what is being done. But one thing is certain: imitation cannot be allowed.

Inspiration is a different thing. Through inspiration you start on the journey, not on any effort of copying. You move on your own path. Inspiration is just a challenge. A thirst arises, and then you move.

Tantra says be inspired, but don't become imitators. Always remember that you are your own goal.

No one else can be, and unless you achieve that point from where you can say, "I have achieved my destiny and now I am fulfilled," don't stop. Go on transcending, go on being in discontent, go on moving. And if you don't make any ideal, then you can be enriched by everyone. The moment you become obsessed with an ideal, you are closed. If you become obsessed with Buddha, then Jesus is not for you, then how can Mohammed be for you? Then you are obsessed with an ideal; then you are trying to copy it. Then all the contrary ones, all the different ones are inimical in your mind. How can a follower of Mahavira conceive of being open to Mohammed? It is impossible. He is totally different. Not only different, they are contraries. They look like polar opposites. If you put both in your mind you will be in deep conflict, so you cannot put both.

That is why followers are always enemies of others' followers. They create enmity in the world.

A Hindu cannot conceive that Mohammed can be enlightened; a Mohammedan cannot conceive that Mahavira can be enlightened; a follower of Krishna cannot conceive that Mahavira can be enlightened, that Jesus can be enlightened. Jesus looks so sad and Krishna looks so blissful.

Krishna's bliss and Jesus' sadness are total opposite poles. Jesus' followers cannot conceive of Krishna being enlightened. So much misery in the world and he is playing on his flute? It looks to be too selfish. The whole world is suffering, and he goes on dancing with his GOPIS?

The followers of Jesus will think this to be profane - but I say "followers." A Jesus and a Buddha and a Krishna can exist together without any problem, without any conflict. Rather, they will enjoy each other very much - but not the followers. Why? Why is this so? This will be so because there is a deep psychological reason. The follower is not concerned with Mohammed or Mahavira; he is concerned with himself. If he thinks both are good, he will be in difficulty. Then whom to follow and what to do? Mohammed is with his sword in his hand and Mahavira says that even to kill an insect means that for lives you will suffer. Mohammed is with his sword, so what to do? Mohammed goes to war, and Mahavira escapes from life completely. He escapes so much that he is afraid even to breathe, because while you breathe, many lives - many, many lives - are killed through it. He is afraid to breathe and Mohammed goes to war.

How can a follower of either make accommodations for the opposite? Then his heart will be divided and he will be in constant conflict. To avoid this, he says that everyone else is wrong and only this is right. But this is his problem. This is created because he is trying to imitate. There is no need.

If you are not an imitator, then you can taste the water of many rivers and many wells, and there is no problem if the taste differs. Rather, it is beautiful. You are enriched by this. Then you are open to Mohammed and Mahavira and Christ and Zarathustra and everyone. They all inspire you towards yourself. They are not ideals; they all help you to be yourself. They are not pointing towards themselves, they are pointing towards you in different ways, in different methods. They are pointing to one goal, and that is YOU Laura Huxley has written a book. The name of the book is YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET. But I tell you, you ARE the target of all these - of Buddha, of Mahavira, of Krishna, of Christ. They all indicate towards you. You are the target, you are the goal. Through you life is trying, striving, to achieve a unique peak. Be happy about it! Be grateful about it! Life is trying to achieve a unique goal through you, and that goal can be achieved only through you. No one else can achieve it. You are meant for it, you are destined for it. So don't waste time following others. But that doesn't mean not to get inspired. Really, if you are not following anyone you can become inspired easily. If you are following, you have become dead. You will not get inspired. Inspiration is an openness; following is being closed.

The second question:

Question 2:

Many things will have to be understood. It is not so - it is not that very few are there who achieve their peaks. Many are there, but you don't have the eyes to see them. Whenever you look around you, you see that which you can see. How can you see that which you cannot see? Your capacity to see determines many things. You hear that which you can hear, not that which is there. If a buddha passes, you may not be able to recognize. And you really were there when Buddha passed, but you missed him. You were there! You were there when Jesus was alive, but you crucified him. It is difficult to see because you see in your own ways. You have concepts, you have categories, you have attitudes. Through them you look at a Buddha and a Jesus.

Jesus looked like a criminal to you. When Jesus was crucified he was crucified with two other criminals; on each side there was a thief. Three persons were crucified together, and Jesus was just between two thieves. Why? He was considered to be an immoral criminal somehow and you were there to judge. Even if Jesus comes right now, you will judge again in the same way because your judgment, your criteria, have not changed.

Jesus lived and stayed with anyone and everyone. He stayed in a prostitute's house, and the whole village went against him. But his values were different. The prostitute came, washed his feet with her tears and said, "I am guilty. I am a sinner and you are my only hope. If you come to my home, I will be relieved of my guilt. I will become alive again. If Jesus could come to my house, then I am accepted."

So Jesus went. He stayed there, but the whole town went against him. What type of man is he, staying with a prostitute? But for Jesus love is the value, and no one has given such a loving invitation ever. He couldn't say no. And if Jesus had said no, he could not have been an enlightened man. Then he would have just been seeking after social respectability. He was NOT seeking after respectability.

In another village, the whole town came to Jesus with a woman who had sinned. In the Old Testament it is written that if someone sins she should be stoned to death. It is not that HE should be, it is that SHE should be stoned to death, because only women sin; man never sins - because all these scriptures are written by men. And this was a great problem, so they asked Jesus about it.

They were playing a trick, because if Jesus would have said, "No, don't kill this woman, don't be the judges," then they could say, "You are against the scriptures." And if Jesus would have said, "Yes, kill this woman, stone her to death," then they would say, "Where has gone your message 'Love your enemy' and where has gone your message 'Judge ye not that ye should be not judged'?"

So they were playing a trick. They were creating a dilemma - a logical dilemma. Whatsoever Jesus would have said, he would be trapped. But you cannot trap an enlightened man, it is impossible. It is impossible, and the more you try to trap him you will get trapped with him. So Jesus said, "The scripture is absolutely correct. But come forwards only those who have never sinned. Take these stones in your hands and murder this woman, but only those who have never sinned." The crowd started disappearing. Those who were standing in front went back - because who will stone this woman?

But they became enemies of Jesus. And when I say "they," I mean you. You have always been here.

You cannot recognize, you cannot see. You are blind! That is why you always feel that the world is bad and there is no enlightenment - that everyone is pathological. It is not so, but you can only see pathology because you are pathological. You can understand illness because you are ill. You cannot understand health because you have never been healthy. The language of health simply escapes you.

I have heard about one Jewish mystic, Baal Shem. Someone came and asked Baal Shem, "Which is more significant, which is more valuable - wealth or wisdom?"

The man was asking the question for a reason, so Baal Shem laughed and said, "Of course, wisdom is more significant, more valuable."

Then the man said, "Then, Baal Shem, the second question: I always see you, the wise man, waiting on the wealthy. You always go to rich people's houses. I have never seen any wealthy man waiting on you, the wise one, and you say that wisdom is more valuable than wealth. Then explain this phenomenon to me."

Baal Shem laughed and said, "Yes, wise men go to the wealthy ones because they are wise and they know the value of wealth, and the wealthy ones are just wealthy - simply wealthy and nothing else - and they cannot understand the value of wisdom. Of course, I go - because I understand the value of wealth. And those poor idiots? They are just wealthy - nothing else. They cannot understand the value of wisdom, so they never come to me."

If you see a saint going to a palace, you will say, "Okay! This man is not the saint." It is finished because you look through your own eyes. Wealth has meaning for you. You can only follow a saint who renounces wealth because you are wealth obsessed. You look through you, and whatsoever you say is more about you than about anyone else. It is always about you; you are the reference.

When you say that Buddha is not enlightened, you don't mean that. You simply mean, "For me he does not look enlightened."

But who are you? And does his enlightenment depend in any way on your attitude, your approach, your standpoint? You have fixed categories of thought and you go on using them. To you pathology is recognizable, but enlightenment is not. And you cannot understand that which is higher than you - remember. You can only understand that which is lower than you or at the most on the same level. You cannot understand the higher, that is impossible. To understand the higher you will have to move higher. You can understand the lower.

Look at it in this way: a madman cannot understand you. It is impossible for a madman to understand you; he looks through his madness. But you can understand a madman. He is lower than you. The normal human being can understand abnormals who have gone below, pathological, but he cannot understand higher ones. Even a Freud is afraid.

Jung has written in his memoirs that once it happened to him that he wanted to analyze Freud's dreams. He was one of Freud's greatest disciples. They were traveling to the United States on a ship, so for many days they were together. One day Jung gathered courage. He was the most intimate disciple in those days, and he asked Freud, "I would like to analyze your dreams, so just tell me any dream. For many, many days we will be together, so I will analyze it."

What did Freud say? Freud said, "What do you mean? If you analyze my dreams I will lose my authority. I cannot tell you my dreams."He was so afraid because in his dreams the same pathology, the same illnesses will be revealed as he is revealing in others' dreams. He said, "I cannot lose my authority. I cannot tell you about my dreams."

Freud, the greatest psychologist of this age, is prone to all the illnesses that anyone else is. When Jung said that "I am going to leave you," he fell from his chair and became unconscious. He swooned.

For hours he was unconscious because he was so shocked just by the idea of a disciple leaving him, just by a disciple saying, "I am going to leave you."

If you say to a buddha, "I am going to leave you," can you conceive of him falling down and becoming unconscious? Even with all of the ten thousand disciples leaving him, he will be happy - so happy that he will feel it will be good if you go. Why? Your psychologists are also like you. They are not from above. They have the same problems, so one psychologist goes to another psychologist to be analyzed. It is not like one doctor going to another doctor to be treated. For doctors it is okay; they can be forgiven. But for psychologists it seems absurd. One psychologist going to another to be analyzed? What does it mean? He is an ordinary man. Psychology is just a profession.

Buddha is not in any profession, he is not an ordinary man. He has awakened to a new reality; he has reached to a new state of being. Now he can look from a peak. He can understand you, but you cannot understand him. And howsoever he tries, it is really impossible to make you understand him. You will go on misunderstanding him unless you are caught not by his words, but by his personality - unless you are caught by his magnetism, not by his words. Unless you become just like an iron piece and you are caught by his magnetism, you will not be able to understand him; you will misunderstand. That is why you cannot see. But the world always has its enlightened persons.

Pathology is recognized because we are pathological, so we can see and understand it.

Secondly, even if there is only one - only a single human being who has ever achieved enlightenment throughout human history, even if there is only one buddha, he is enough to show you the possibility.

If it can happen to one human being, why can it not happen to you? If one seed can become a flower, then every seed has the potentiality to become a flower. You may be just a seed, but now you know your future. Now you are aware that much more is possible.

But with the human mind the reverse is happening. It has been happening always. You see a cocoon and then it breaks, and then the butterfly moves. With man it seems to be quite the reverse. Man is born as the butterfly, and then he enters the cocoon. Every child is more buddha-like than he will ever be again. Look at a child, look at the eyes. They are more buddha-like than any adult's eyes.

The way he sits, the way he moves - the grace, the beauty, the living in the moment, even his anger is beautiful. It is so total, and whenever anything is total it is beautiful.

Look at a child in anger jumping and screaming. Just look! Don't be concerned with yourself, that he is disturbing you. Just look at the phenomenon. The anger is beautiful - because the child is so totally in it that nothing is left behind. He IS the anger, and he is so authentic that nothing is being suppressed. He is not withholding, he has moved and become anger. Look at the child when he loves, when he welcomes you, when he comes near to you: he is like a buddha. But soon you will help him, the society will help him to enter the cocoon, and then he will die in it.

From the cradle we enter into the grave immediately. That is why so much pathology is there - because no one is allowed to be natural. The pathology is forced. You are caged, imprisoned in a dead pattern, and then your spontaneous being suffers and you cannot come out of it. That is why so much pathology is there. This pathology is man-created - and the more man becomes civilized, the more pathological he becomes. So now this is a criterion: if in your country there are less madmen, know well that you are less civilized. If in your country the madmen are growing, and everyone is going insane and everyone is going to the psychoanalyst, know well you are the most civilized country in the world.

When any country achieves the optimum, everyone will have become mad. Civilization drives you mad because it is not allowing you to be your natural self. Everything is suppressed, and with suppression everything is disturbed. You cannot even breathe naturally; anything else is out of the question. Even your breath is unnatural. You cannot breathe deeply because the society does not allow you deep breathing.

Breathe deeply, because if you take deep breaths you cannot suppress your instincts. If you want to suppress anything, you can observe the changes in breathing in yourself. If you are angry and you want to suppress it, what will you do? Immediately you will stop breathing. With anger breathing goes deep, because anger will need a hot flow of blood in you, anger will need more oxygen. Anger will need some chemical changes within you, and through breathing those changes happen. So whenever you feel angry and you want to repress it, you will not be able to breathe naturally. You will take shallow breaths.

Look at a child and tell him not to do something. Immediately his breathing will be shallow. Then he will not be able to breathe deeply, because if he takes deep breaths he cannot follow your commands. Then he will do whatsoever he likes to do. So no one is even taking deep breaths.

If you take deep breaths, your sex center is massaged from within and the society is against this.

Take slow breaths, shallow breaths. Don't go deep, then the sex center is not hit!

Really, civilized man has become incapable of deep sexual orgasm because he cannot take deep breaths. In the love act your breathing must be so deep that your whole body becomes involved.

Otherwise you will not achieve orgasm, and then you will feel frustrated. So many people come to me and they say, "There is no pleasure in sex. We go on doing it like a mechanical act, and energy is only lost. After it we feel frustrated, depressed." The reason is not sex, the reason is only that they are not getting into it totally. It becomes local, so only semen is released. Then they feel weak, and nothing is gained through it.

If the whole body is involved like an animal, if every cell of the body is excited and starts shaking, if the whole body becomes like an electric force and feeling moves, if you become egoless, headless, and thinking is not there, if you are the body moving in a rhythm, vibrating in a rhythm, then you will have a deep pleasure out of it. You will feel relaxed - in a certain sense, fulfilled.

But this cannot happen because you cannot take deep breaths. You are so afraid... Look at the body. The body has two poles. One pole is for intake - your head is for intake. The upper pole is for intake of food, air, impressions, thoughts, anything. You take in from the upper part; this is one pole. The lower body is for release. It is not for intake, you cannot take anything in from the lower.

The lower body is to release, to relax. You take from the upper, and from the lower you release it.

But the civilized man only takes in - never releases. That creates pathology. You go mad. It is just like eating food and then continuing to store it, never defecating. You will go mad. The other pole has to be used. If someone is a miser, automatically he becomes constipated. Look at any miser: he will be suffering from constipation. Miserliness is a sort of spiritual constipation. So go on hoarding, don't leave anything.

Those who are against sex without knowing what they are doing are misers. They go on taking in food, but they will not release the sex energy. Then they will go mad. There is no need to release it only from the sex center. There is another possibility - to release it from SAHASRAR, the highest center at the top of the head. That is what tantra teaches. But it must be released, you cannot hoard it. Nothing can be hoarded in the world. The world is a movement, it is a river. Take in and give out.

If you take in and never give out, you will become mad.

That is what is happening: everyone is taking and no one is giving. You become afraid when a moment of giving comes. You want just to take - even with love. You want that someone should love you. The basic need is that you should love someone, then you will be released. If someone loves you that will not help, because then you are taking in again. Both of these poles must be balanced; then health happens. And that is what I call a normal being. A normal being is one whose taking in and giving out is parallel, balanced. He is normal.

I call that man abnormal whose taking in is too much and whose giving out is unbalanced. He is not giving out at all. Even if he gives sometimes, it has to be forced. It is not his own. You can snatch something from him, you can force him to give, but he will not give. His giving out is just like an enema, it is not natural. You can force, so he will defecate. But HE is not defecating, he is not ready.

It is abnormal to just go on hoarding everything. Then he will go mad, because the whole system is disturbed. This is abnormal, and supernormal is the one who gives and never takes in.

These are three things - the abnormal one who takes in and never gives out, the normal one whose give and take are balanced, and the supernormal who never takes in and only gives. A buddha is a giver; a madman is a taker. He is at the opposite pole of a buddha. If both poles are balanced, you are a normal man. At least be normal, because if you cannot be normal you will fall down and you will become abnormal.

That is why DANA - giving - is so much emphasized in all religions. Give! Whatsoever it is, give, and don't think in terms of taking. Then you will become supernormal. But that is a very far-off thing.

First be normal, be balanced. Whatsoever you take in, give it back to the world. You just be the passage. Don't hoard. Then you will never become mad, you will never be neurotic, schizophrenic, psychotic or whatsoever you may call it.

My definition of a normal man is one who is balanced - absolutely balanced. Nothing is retained.

He takes the breath in and then he allows it to move out. The incoming breath and the outgoing breath are just the same - balanced. Try to be balanced, and always remember that you must give back that which you have received. You will be alive, healthy, silent, peaceful, happy. A deep rhythm will happen to you, and this rhythm happens through a balance of give and take.

But we go on thinking in terms of taking in more and more. Whatsoever you take in without giving it out again will create disturbance, tension, suffering. You will become a hell. Before you take something in, always think to release something out. Have you observed that you always emphasize the breath that goes in? You never emphasize the breath that goes out. You take the breath in, and then the body throws the breath out. Reverse it: you will be more normal. Emphasize the outgoing breath. Throw the breath out as much as you can, and let the body take in.

When you take in and you have not released, your lungs become filled with carbon dioxide. Then you go on taking in, and you never release the entire lungs. You go on forcing the carbon dioxide inwards. Then your breathing becomes shallow, and the entire lungs are filled with carbon dioxide.

First throw it out, and forget about taking in. The body will take care of that itself. The body has its own wisdom, and it is more wise than you. Throw the breath out and forget taking in. Don't be afraid, you are not going to die. The body will take in, and it will take in as much as is needed. As much as you have thrown out it will take in, and the balance will be there. If you take in, then you will disturb the balance because the hoarding mind is there.

I have stayed in many, many houses and I see that people have collected so many things that they cannot live, there is no space to live - and they go on hoarding. They go on hoarding, and they think that someday the things will be needed. Whatsoever is not needed, don't hoard it. And if something is needed more by someone else than you, it is better to give it. Be a giver, and you will never be pathological. All the old civilizations were based on DANA - on giving, and this modern civilization is based on hoarding. That is why more people are going abnormal, neurotic. Everyone is asking from where to get, and no one is asking where to go and give, to whom to give.

The last question:

Question 3:

When I say that awareness cannot be attained by mind, I mean that you cannot attain it by thinking about it. You can go on thinking about and about, but you will be moving in a circle. When I say that it cannot be attained by the mind, I mean that it cannot be attained by thinking. You have to practice it, you have to DO it. It can be attained only by doing, not by thinking; that is the first thing. So don't go on thinking about what awareness is, how to achieve it or what will be the result. Don't go on thinking; start doing it.

When walking on the street, walk with awareness. It is difficult and you go on forgetting, but don't be afraid. Whenever you remember again, be alert. Take every step with full alertness, knowingly, remaining with the step, not allowing the mind to move somewhere else. While eating, eat; chew with awareness. Whatsoever you are doing, don't do it mechanically - and that is different. And when I say that it can be felt only, the meaning is this: for example, I can raise my hand mechanically, but then I can also raise my hand with full alertness. My mind is conscious that my hand is being raised. Do it, try it - once mechanically and then with alertness. You will feel the change. The quality changes immediately.

Walk with alertness, and you walk differently; a different grace comes to your walking. You move more slowly, more beautifully. If you walk mechanically - only because you know how to walk and there is no need to be alert, then the walking is ugly, there is no grace in it. Do whatsoever you are doing with alertness, and feel the difference. When I say "feel," I mean observe. First do it mechanically and then with awareness, and feel the difference. And you will be able to feel the difference.

For example, if you eat with awareness, then you cannot eat more than is needed by the body.

People go on coming to me and they say, "Put us on a diet. My weight is constantly increasing, the body is constantly hoarding. Put us on a diet."

I tell them, "Don't think of diet, think of consciousness. By dieting nothing will happen. You cannot do it. You will do it one day and the next day it will go. You cannot continue it. Rather, eat with awareness."

The quality changes. If you eat with awareness, you will chew more. With unconscious, mechanical habits, you simply go on pushing things into your stomach. You are not chewing at all, you are just stuffing. Then there is no pleasure, and because there is no pleasure you need more food in order to get the pleasure. There is no taste, so you need more food.

Just be alert and see what happens. If you are alert, you will chew more, you will feel the taste more, you will feel the pleasure of eating, and much more time will be taken. If you take half an hour to eat your meal, then by taking the same quantity of a meal with full awareness you will need one and a half hours - thrice the time. In half an hour you will have eaten only one-third of the quantity, and you will feel more fulfilled; you will have enjoyed the meal more. And when the body enjoys, it tells you when to stop. When the body has not enjoyed at all, it never says when to stop, so you go on.

Then the body becomes dull. You never hear what the body is saying.

You are eating without being there; that creates the problem. Be there, and every process will be slowed down. The body will itself say, "No more!" And when the body says it, that is the right moment. If you are aware, you cannot trespass the body's order. You will stop. So allow your body to say something. The body is saying things every moment, but you are not there to hear it. Be alert and you will hear it.

And when I say, "feel it," I know it is difficult. How can you feel awareness without being aware? I am not saying that you can feel Buddha's enlightenment right now, but one has to start somewhere.

You may not get the whole ocean, but a drop - just a drop - will give you the taste, and the taste is the same. If even for a single moment you become aware, you have tasted buddhahood. It is momentary, a glimpse of it, but now you know more. And this will never happen to you through thinking; it will happen only through feeling.

The emphasis is on feeling because the emphasis is on a "lived" experience. Thinking is false, you can go on thinking about love and creating theories. You can even get a doctorate on the thesis of love, on what love is, and without ever being in love. You may not know what love is; you may have never felt it. You can grow in knowledge without in any way growing in being. And these are two different dimensions. You can go on growing in knowledge. Your head will go on growing bigger and bigger, but you will remain the same tiny self.

Then nothing is growing really - only accumulation. When you start feeling things, you grow, your being grows. And one has to start somewhere, so start! There will be errors, there are bound to be.

You will go on forgetting, it is natural. But don't get frustrated, don't throw the effort away saying, "I cannot do it." You CAN do it! The same possibility exists in you that existed in Jesus or Buddha.

You are the seed; you are not lacking anything at all. You are just an arrangement, you are just a chaotic whole; everything is there. You can become a buddha, but a reorganization of your qualities is needed.

Right now you are chaotic because there is no arrangement. The arrangement comes in when you start being aware. Just by your being aware things start falling in line, and this chaos that you are becomes a symphony.