The mind is very clever

Question 1

THE beggar is not the problem. If the beggar was the problem then everybody who passes by would feel the same. If the beggar was the problem then beggars would have disappeared long ago. The problem is within you: your heart feels it.

Try to understand it.

The mind interferes immediately whenever the heart feels love, the mind immediately interferes. The mind says, "Whether you give him something or not, he will remain the beggar all the same.'' Whether he remains the beggar or not is not your responsibility, but if your heart feels to do something, do it. Don't try to avoid. The mind is trying to avoid the situation. The mind says. "What is going to happen? He will remain the beggar, so there is no need to do anything." You have missed an opportunity where your love could have flown.

If the beggar has decided to be a beggar, you cannot do anything. You may give him: he may throw it. That is for him to decide.

The mind is very clever.

Then the question, it says:

Because there is no love in the human heart. But again, the mind interferes: HAVE NOT THE RICH TAKEN AWAY FROM THE POOR?

Now you are forgetting the beggar and the heartache that you felt. Now the whole thing is becoming political, economical. Now the problem is no more of the heart: it is of the mind. And mind has created the beggar. It is the cunningness, the calculativeness of the mind that has created the beggar. There are cunning people, very calculative: they have become rich. There are innocent people, not so calculative, not so cunning: they have become the poor.

You can change the society -- in Soviet Russia they have changed. That makes no difference. Now the old categories have disappeared -- the poor and the rich -- but the ruler and the ruled, a new category, has come up, Now the cunning are the rulers and the innocent are the ruled. Before, the innocent used to be poor and the cunning used to be rich. What can you do?

Unless the division between mind and heart is dissolved, unless humanity starts living through the heart and not through the mind, the classes are going to remain. The names will change, and the misery is going to continue.

The question is very relevant, very meaningful, significant "What can I do with a beggar?" Beggar is not the question. The question is you and your heart. Do something, whatsoever you can do, and don't try to throw the responsibility on the rich. Don't try to throw the responsibility on history. Don't try to throw the responsibility on the economic structure. Because that is secondary if humanity remains cunning and calculative it is going to be repeated again and again and again.

What can you do for it? You are a small part of the total. Whatsoever you do will not change the situation -- but it will change you. It may not change the beggar if you give something to him, but the very gesture, that you shared whatsoever you could, will change you. And that is important. And if this goes on -- the revolution of the heart -- people who feel, people who look at another human being as an end in itself if this goes on increasing, one day, the poor people will disappear, the poverty will disappear -- and it will not be replaced by a new category of exploitation.

Up to now all the revolutions have failed, because the revolutionaries have not been able to see the basic cause why there is poverty. They are looking only at superficial causes. Immediately they say, "Some people have exploited him, that's why their possibility. This is the cause; that's why there is poverty.

But why were some people able to exploit? Why could they not see? Why could they not see that they are gaining nothing and this man is losing all? They may accumulate wealth, but they are killing life all around. Their wealth is nothing but blood. Why can they not see it? The cunning mind has created explanations there also.

The cunning mind says. "People are poor because of their karma. In the past lives they have done something wrong, that s why they are suffering. I am rich because I have done good deeds, so I am enjoying the fruit." This is also mind.

And Marx sitting in the British Museum is also a mind: and thinking about what is the basic cause of poverty comes to feel that there are people who exploit. But these people will be there always. Unless cunningness disappears completely, it is not a question of changing the structure of the society. It is a question of changing the whole structure of human personality.

What can you do? You can change, you can throw out the rich people -- they will come back from the back door. They were cunning. In fact, those who are throwing, they are also very cunning; otherwise they cannot throw. The rich people may not be able to come from the back door, but the people who call themselves revolutionaries, communists, socialists -- they will sit on the throne and then they will start exploiting. And they will exploit more dangerously because they have proved themselves more cunning than the rich. By throwing out the rich, they have proved one thing absolutely: that they are more cunning than the rich. The society will be in the hands of more cunning people.

And remember, if someday some other revolutionaries are born -- which are bound to be, because again people will start feeling the exploitation is there, now it has taken a new form -- again there will be a revolution. But who will throw the past revolutionaries? Now more cunning people will be needed.

Whenever you are going to defeat a certain system, and you use the same means as the system has used for itself, just names will change, flags will change, the society will remain the same.

Enough of this befooling. The beggar is not the question: the question is you.

Don't be cunning, don't be clever. Don't try to say that this is his karma -- you don't know anything about karma. That is just a hypothesis to explain certain things which are unexplained, to explain certain things which cause heartache.

Once you accept the hypothesis, you are relieved of the burden. Then you can remain rich and the poor can remain poor and there is no problem. The hypothesis functions as a buffer.

That's why in India poverty has remained so ingrained and people have become so insensitive towards it. They have a certain theory which helps them. Just as you move in a car and the car has shock absorbers, the roughness of the road is not felt, the shock absorbers go on absorbing this hypothesis of karma is a great shock absorber. You come constantly against poverty, but there is a shock absorber the theory of karma. What can you do? It has nothing to do with yourself. You are enjoying your riches because of your virtues -- good deeds done in the past. And this man is suffering from his bad deeds.

There is in India a certain sect of Jainism, Tera-Panth. They are the extremist believers of this theory. They say, "Don't interfere, because he is suffering his past karmas. Don't interfere. Don't give him anything, because that will be an interference, and he could have suffered in a short time -- you will be delaying the process. He will have to suffer."

For example, a poor man you can give him enough to live at ease for a few years, but again the suffering will start. You can give him enough to live at ease in this life, but again in the next life the suffering will start. Where you stopped it, exactly from there the suffering will start again. So those who believe in the Tera- Panth, they go on saying don't interfere. Even if somebody is dying by the side of the road, you simply go on indifferent on your path. They say this is compassion; interfering, you delay the process.

What a great shock absorber.

In India people have become absolutely insensitive. A cunning theory protects them.

In the West they have found a new hypothesis: that it is because the rich have exploited -- so destroy the rich. Just look at it. Looking at a poor man, love starts rising in your heart. You immediately say this poor man is poor because of the rich. You have turned love into hate now hate arises towards the rich man. What game are you playing? Now you say. "Destroy the rich! Take everything back from them. They are the criminals." Now the beggar is forgotten; the heart is full of love no more. On the contrary, it is full of hate... and hate has created the society in which beggars exist. Now again hate is functioning in you. You will create a society in which categories may change, names may change, but there will be the ruled and the rulers, the exploited and the exploiters, the oppressors and the oppressed. It will not make much difference; it will remain the same.

There will be masters and there will be slaves.

The only revolution possible is the revolution of the heart. When you see a beggar, remain sensitive. Don't allow any shock absorber to come between you and the beggar. Remain sensitive. It is difficult because you will start crying. It is difficult because it will be very, very uncomfortable. Share whatsoever you can share. And don't be worried whether he will remain a beggar or not -- you did whatsoever you could. And this will change you. This will give you a new being, closer to the heart and farther away from the mind. This is your inner transformation; and this is the only way.

If individuals go on changing in this way, there may sometime arise a society where people are so sensitive that they cannot exploit, where people have become so alert and aware that they cannot oppress, where people have become so loving that just to think of poverty, of slavery, is impossible.

Do something out of the heart, and don't fall a victim of theories.

The questioner goes on:

Yes, I have said again and again that one has to accept the polarities. But meditation is not a pole. Meditation is the acceptance of the polarities, and through that acceptance one transcends beyond the polarities. So there is no opposite to meditation. Try to understand.

You are sitting in your room full of darkness. Is darkness the opposite of light, or just the absence of light? If it is opposite to light, then it has its own existence.

Does darkness have its own existence? Is it real in its own way, or is it Just the absence of light? If it has a reality of its own, then when you light a candle it will resist. It will try to put the candle off. It will fight for its own existence; it will resist. But it gives no resistance. It never fights, it can never put a small candle....

Vast darkness and a small candle, but the candle cannot be defeated by that vast darkness. The darkness may have ruled in that house for centuries, but you bring a small candle: the darkness cannot say, "I am centuries old and I will give a good fight." It simply disappears.

Darkness has no positive reality, it is simply the absence of light, so when you bring light it disappears. When you put the light off, it appears. In fact it never goes out and never comes in, because it cannot go out and cannot come in.

Darkness is nothing but the absence of light. Light present, it is not there; light absent, it is there. It is absence.

Meditation is the inner light. It has no opposite, only absence.

The whole life is an absence of meditation, as you live it, the worldly life -- the life of power, prestige, ego, ambition, greed. And that is what politics is.

Politics is a very big word. It does not include only the so-called politicians, it includes all the worldly people, because whosoever is ambitious is a politician, and whosoever is struggling to reach somewhere is a politician. Wherever there is competition there is politics. Thirty students studying in the same class and calling themselves class fellows -- they are class enemies, because they are all competing, not fellows. They are all trying to overtake the other. They are all trying to get the gold medal, to come first. The ambition is there: they are already politicians.

Wherever there is competition and struggle there is politics. So the whole ordinary life is politics-oriented.

Meditation is like light when meditation comes politics disappears. So you cannot be meditative and political. That is impossible: you are asking for the impossible. Meditation is not one pole: it is absence of all conflict, all ambition, all ego-trips.

Let me tell you a very famous Sufi story. It happened A Sufi said, "None can understand man until he realizes the connection between greed, obligement, and impossibility."

"This," said his disciple, "is a conundrum which I cannot understand."

The Sufi said, "Never look for understanding through conundrums when you can attain it through experience directly."

He took the disciple to a shop in the nearby market where robes were sold.

"Show me your very best robe," said the Sufi to the shopkeeper, "for I am in a mood to spend excessively."

A most beautiful garment was produced, and an extremely high price was asked for it. "It is very much the kind of thing I would like," said the Sufi. "but I would like some sequins around the collar and a touch of fur trimming.

"Nothing easier," said the seller of the robes, "for I have just such a garment in the workroom of my shop.'' He disappeared for a few moments and then returned having added the fur and the sequins to the selfsame garment.

"And how much is this one?" asked the Sufi.

"Twenty times the price of the first one," said the shop-keeper.

"Excellent," said the Sufi. "I shall take both of them."

Now, the impossibility, because it is the selfsame garment. The Sufi was showing that greed has a certain impossibility in it impossibility is intrinsic to greed.

Now don't be too greedy, because this is the greatest greed there is to ask to be a politician and a meditator together, simultaneously. That is the greatest greed possible. You are asking to be ambitious and nontense. You are asking to fight, to be violent, to be greedy, and yet peaceful and relaxed. If it were possible then there would have been no need for sannyas, then there would have been no need for meditation.

You cannot have both. Once you start meditating, politics starts disappearing.

With politics all the effects of it also disappear. The tense state, the worry, the anxiety, the anguish, the violence, the greed -- they all disappear. They are by- products of a political mind.

You will have to decide either you can be a politician or you can be a meditator.

You cannot be both, because when meditation comes, the darkness disappears.

This world, your world, is an absence of meditation. And when meditation comes, this world simply disappears like darkness.

That's why Patanjali, Shankara, and others who have known, go on saying that this world is illusory, not real. Illusory like darkness: appears to be real, when it is there, but once you bring light in, suddenly you become aware it was not real, it was unreal. Just look into darkness. How real it is. How real it looks. It is there surrounding you from everywhere. Not only that -- you are feeling afraid. The unreal creating fear. It can kill you, and it is not there!

Bring light. Keep somebody by the door to see whether or not he comes to see the darkness going out. Nobody ever sees darkness going out; nobody ever sees darkness coming in, It appears to be and it is not.

The so-called world of desire and ambition, politics, only appears to be and it is not. Once you meditate you start laughing about the whole nonsense, the whole nightmare that has disappeared.

But please don't try to do this impossible thing. If you try you will be in much conflict; you will become a split personality. "Can I choose both politics and meditation? Can I choose to change the world and to change myself at the same time?" Not possible.

In fact, you are the world. When you change yourself you have started to change the world -- and there is no other way. If you start changing others you will not be able to change yourself, and one who is not able to change himself cannot change anybody. He can only go on believing that he is doing great work, as your politicians go on believing.

Your so-called revolutionaries are all ill people, tense people, mad people -- insane -- but their insanity is such that if they are left to themselves they will go completely mad, so they put their insanity in some occupation. Either they start changing the society, reforming the society, doing this and that... changing the whole world. And their madness is such they cannot see the stupidity of it you have not changed yourself -- how can you change anybody else?

Start closer at home. First change yourself, first bring the light within yourself, then you will be capable.... In fact to say then there will be any capacity to change others is not right. In fact once you change yourself you become a source of infinite energy, and that energy changes others on its own accord. Not that you go on and work hard and become a martyr in changing people, no, nothing of that sort. You simply remain in yourself, but the very energy, the purity of it, the innocence of it, the fragrance of it, goes on spreading in ripples. It reaches to all the shores of the world. Without any effort on your side, an effortless revolution starts. And the revolution is beautiful when it is effortless. When it is with effort it is violent, then you are forcing your ideas on somebody else.

Stalin killed millions of people because he was a revolutionary. He wanted to change the society, and whosoever was obstructing in any way had to be killed and removed From the way. Sometimes it happens that those who are trying to help you, they start helping even against you. They don't bother whether you want to be changed or not; they have an idea to change you. They will change -- you in spite of you. They won't listen to you. This type of revolution is going to be violent, bloody.

And a revolution cannot be violent, cannot be bloody, because a revolution has to be a revolution of love and heart. A real revolutionary never goes anywhere to change anybody. He remains rooted in himself; and people who want to be changed, they come to him. They travel from faraway lands. They come to him.

The fragrance reaches to them. In subtle ways, in unknown ways, whosoever wants to change himself comes and seeks a revolutionary. The real revolutionary remains in himself, available. Like a pool of cool water. Whosoever is thirsty will seek. The pool is not going to search for you; the pool is not going to run after you. And the pool is not going to drown you because you are thirsty -- that if you don't listen then the pool will drown you.

Stalin killed so many people. Revolutionaries have been as violent as reactionaries -- and sometimes even more so.

Please don't try to do the impossible. Just change yourself. In fact that too is such an impossibility that if you can change yourself in this life, you can feel grateful.

You can say. "Enough, more than enough has happened."

Don't be worried about others. They are also beings, they have consciousness, they have souls. If they want to change, nobody is hindering the path. Remain a pool of cool water. If they are thirsty they will come. Just your coolness will be the invitation your purity of water will be the attraction.

"Can I be a revolutionary and a sannyasin at once?" No. If you are a sannyasin you are revolution, not a revolutionary. You need not be a revolutionary if you are a sannyasin you are a revolution. Try to understand what I am saying. Then you don't go to change people, don't go to create any revolution anywhere. You don't plan it -- you live it. Your very style of life is revolution. Wherever you will look, wherever you will touch, there will be revolution. Revolution will become just like breathing -- spontaneous.

Another Sufi story I would like to tell you: A well-known Sufi was asked. "What is invisibility?" and he said, "I shall answer that when an opportunity for a demonstration occurs." -- Sufis don't talk much.

They create situations. They don't say much; they show through situations. So the Sufi said, "Whenever an opportunity occurs, I will give you a demonstration" -- Some time later, that man and the one who had asked him the question were stopped by a band of soldiers, and the soldiers said, "We have orders to take all dervishes into custody, for the king of this country says that they will not obey his commands and that they say things which are not welcome to the tranquillity of thought of the populace. So we are going to imprison all the Sufis." -- Whenever there is a really religious person, a revolution, the politicians become very much afraid, because his very presence maddens them. His very presence is enough to create a chaos. His very presence is enough to create a disorder, a death to the old society. His very presence is enough to create a new world. He becomes a vehicle. Absent, completely absent as far as his ego is concerned, he becomes a vehicle of the divine. The rulers, the cunning people, have always been afraid of religious people because there cannot be more danger than a religious person. They are not afraid of revolutionaries, because their strategies are the same. They are not afraid of revolutionaries, because they use the same language, their terminology is the same. They are the same people; they are not different people.

Just go to New Delhi and watch the politicians. All the politicians who are in power and all the politicians who are not in power -- they are all the same people. Those who are in power seem to be reactionaries because they have attained power now they want to protect it. Now they want to keep it in their hands, so they seem to be the establishment. Those who are not in power -- they talk about revolution because they want to throw out those who are in power.

Once they are in power they will become the reactionaries, and the people who were in power, who were thrown out of power, they will become the revolutionaries.

A successful revolutionary is a dead revolutionary, and a ruler thrown out of his power becomes a revolutionary. And they go on deceiving the people. Whether you choose those who are in power or those who are not in power, you are not choosing different people. You are choosing the same people. They have different labels, but there is not a bit of difference.

A religious person is a real danger. His very being is dangerous, because he brings through him new worlds --

The soldiers surrounded the Sufi and his disciple, and they said they are in search of Sufis, all Sufis have to be imprisoned, because the king has commanded so, saying that they say things which are not welcome and they create such thought patterns which are not good for the tranquillity of the populace.

And the Sufi said, "And so you should...." -- And the Sufi said to the soldiers, "And so you should" -- "... for you must do your duty."

"But are you not Sufis?" said the soldiers.

"Test us." said the Sufi.

The officer took out a Sufi book. "What is this?" he said.

The Sufi looked at the title page and said, "Something which I will burn in front of you since you have not already done so." He set light to the book, and the soldiers rode away satisfied.

The Sufi's companion asked, "What was the purpose of that action?"

"To make us invisible," said the Sufi. "for to the man of the world, visibility means that you are looking like something or someone he expects you to resemble. If you look different, your true nature becomes invisible to him."

A religious man lives a life of revolution, but invisible -- Because to become visible is to become gross, to become visible is to come to the lowest rung of the ladder. A religious person, a sannyasin, creates a revolution in himself and remains invisible. And that invisible source of energy goes on doing miracles.

Please, if you are a sannyasin there is no need to be a revolutionary you are already a revolution. And I say a revolution because a revolutionary is already dead, a revolutionary already has fixed ideas -- a revolutionary already has a mind. I say revolution it is a process. A sannyasin has no fixed ideas: he lives moment to moment. He responds to the reality of the moment -- not out of fixed ideas.

Just watch. Talk to a communist and you will see that he is not listening. He may be nodding his head, but he is not listening. Talk to a Catholic, he is not listening.

Talk to a Hindu, he is not listening. While you are talking he is preparing his answer -- from his old, past, fixed ideas. You can even see on the face there is no response, a dullness and deadness. Talk to a child he listens, he listens attentively. If he listens at all he listens attentively. If he does not listen then he is absolutely absent, but he is total. Talk to a child and you will see the response, pure and fresh.

A sannyasin is like a child, innocent. He does not live out of his ideas: he is not a slave to any ideology. He lives out of consciousness, he lives out of awareness.

He acts here-now! He has no yesterdays and he has no tomorrows, only today.

When Jesus was crucified, one thief, who was at his side, said to him. "We are criminals. We are crucified, that's okay -- we can understand. You look innocent.

But I am happy just to be crucified with you. I am tremendously happy. I have never done anything good."

He had completely forgotten something. When Jesus was born, Jesus' parents were escaping from the country because the king had ordered a mass murder of all the children born in a certain period. The king had come to know from his wise men that a revolution is going to be born and there is going to be danger. It is better to prevent it beforehand, take precaution. So he had ordered a mass murder. Jesus' parents were escaping.

One night they were surrounded by a few thieves and robbers -- this thief was one of that group -- and they were going to rob and kill them. But this thief looked at the child Jesus, and he was so beautiful, and he was so innocent, so pure, as if purity itself... and a certain glow was surrounding him. And he stopped the other thieves, and he said. "Let them go. Just look at the child." And they all looked at the child: and they all were in a certain hypnosis. They couldn't do what they wanted to do... and they left them.

This was the thief who had saved Jesus, but he was not aware that this is the same man. He said to Jesus, "I don't know what I have done, because I have never done a good deed. You cannot find a greater criminal than me. My whole life was that of si -- robbery, murder, and everything you can imagine. But I am happy. I am thankful to God that I am dying by the side of such an innocent man."

Jesus said. "Just because of this gratefulness, you will be in the kingdom of God with me TODAY."

Now, after that statement, Christian theologians have been continuously discussing what he meant by "today." He simply meant now. Because a religious man has no yesterdays, no tomorrows, only today. This moment is all. When he said to the thief, "Today you will be with me in the kingdom of God,'' in fact he was saying, "Look! You are already. This very moment, by your gratefulness, by your recognition of purity and innocence -- by your repentance -- the past has disappeared. We are in the kingdom of God."

A religious man lives not out of past ideologies, ideas, fixed concepts, philosophies. He lives in this moment. Out of his consciousness he responds. He is always fresh like a fresh spring, always fresh, uncorrupted by the past.

So, if you are a sannyasin, you are a revolution. A revolution is greater than all the revolutionaries. Revolutionaries are those who have stopped somewhere the river has become frozen, it flows no more. A sannyasin is always flowing the river never stops -- it goes on and on, flowing and flowing. A sannyasin is a flow.

Question 2

Nothing of the nonsense.

Don't try to label me; don't try to categorize. The mind would like to put me in a pigeonhole so you can say this man is this and you can be finished with me. It is not going to be that easy. I will not allow. I will remain like mercury the more you will try to grasp me, the more I will become elusive. Either I am all or I am nothing -- only these two categories can be allowed, and all other categories in between are not allowed, because they are not going to say the truth. And the day you will realize me either as all or as nothing will be a day of great realization to you.

Let me tell you a story I was just reading yesterday In his story "The Country of the Blind,'' H. G. Wells tells how a traveler came to a strange valley, set off from the rest of the world by precipitous walls, in which all the people were blind -- the valley of the blind. A traveler reached there. He lived for a while in this strange place, but was considered queer by the natives. Their experts said, "His brain is affected by these queer things called the eyes, which keep it in a constant state of irritation and distraction." And they concluded that he would never be normal until his eyes were removed. "A surgery is needed, and it is urgent," the experts said.

-- They were all blind. They could not conceive how a man can have eyes.

Something abnormal, something which has to be removed to make this man normal --

The traveler fell in love with a sightless maiden, who pleaded with him to have his eyes removed that they might live together in happiness.

"Because," the woman said, "if you don't remove your eyes, my community is not going to accept you. You are abnormal; you are so strange. Some misfortune has befallen you. One has never heard about these eyes. And you can ask people nobody has ever seen. Because of these two eyes, you will remain a stranger in my community and they won't allow me to live with you. And I am also a little afraid to live with you. You are so different, so alien."

She persuaded him to please let his eyes be removed that they might live together in happiness. And he was just on the verge of accepting the offer, because he had fallen in love with this blind girl -- because of that love and attachment he was ready even to lose his eyes -- but one day when he was just on the verge of deciding one morning he saw the sun rise on the rocks, and the meadows beautiful with white flowers... no longer could he be content in the valley of darkness. He climbed back to the land where men walk in the light.

Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Zarathustra, they are men with eyes in the valley of the blind. Call them what you like -- yogis, Buddhas, jinas, Christs, bhaktas. Call them what you like, but all your categories simply say one thing that they are different than you, that they have a certain quality of vision, that they have eyes, that they can see something which you cannot see.

And you feel offended; hence, in the beginning you oppose them, even when you start following them. Because their visions create a great desire in you -- in spite of your opposition. Deep down in you your own nature goes on saying that these eyes are possible to you also. On the surface you go on denying; deep down an undercurrent goes on saying to you that maybe you are not right. Maybe these eyes are normal and you are abnormal. Maybe you are in a majority, but that doesn't make it a truth.

These people are to be remembered just as people with eyes amongst the valley of the blind.

I am here amongst you. I know your difficulty, because that which I can see you cannot see, that which I can feel you cannot feel, that which I can touch you cannot touch. I know even if you become convinced with me, deep down somewhere a doubt goes on lingering. A doubt -- who knows? -- this man may be imagining. Who knows? -- this man may be just deceiving. Who knows?

Because until it becomes an experience in you, how can you trust?

You would like to categorize me. That will give you a least a name, a label, and you will feel comfortable. Then you will start feeling that you know me if you can categorize, that he is a yogi. Then you don't feel so uncomfortable. At least you feel that you know. By naming, people feel that they know. That's an obsession.

A child asks you, "What flower is this?'' He is uncomfortable with the flower because with the flower he can feel the unknown -- something which makes him aware of his ignorance. Then you tell him. "This is a rose." He is happy. He repeats the name "This is rose, this is rose.'' He goes to other children and he is very happy and says. "Look, this is rose." What has he learned? Just a name. But now he is at ease; now he is no longer ignorant. At least he cannot feel his ignorance now -- now he is knowledgeable. Now there is no unknown there; the rose is no longer an unknown entering into the world of the known; it has become part of the known. Just by giving it a name, just by calling it 'rose,' what have you done?

Whenever you meet somebody strange, you immediately ask. "What is your name?" Why? Why can't you live with the nameless? And everybody is nameless. Nobody comes with a name; everybody is born without a name.

Immediately the child is born, and the family is already thinking what name to give. Why are you in such a hurry? Because again an unknown stranger has entered into your world. You have to label it. Immediately, once you label it, you are satisfied you know this is Ram, Rahim -- something.

All names are absurd. And this small boy has no name. He is as nameless as God. But a name has to be given a certain obsession in the human mind and a certain idea that once you name a thing you have known it. Then you are finished with it.

People come to me. They ask me, "Who are you? Hindu, Jain, Mohammedan, Christian? Who are you?'' If they can categorize, that I am a Hindu, they will feel satisfied -- they know me. Now the word "Hindu'' will give them a false feeling of knowing.

You ask me, "Who are you? A bhakta a yogi, a gyani. a tantrika?" If you can find a name, you will be at ease. Then you can relax, then there is no problem.

But will you be able to know me by giving me a name? In fact, if you really want to know me, please don't bring a name in between me and you. Drop all categories. Just look direct. Let your eyes be open and clean of all dust. Look at me without knowledge. Look at me with a simple, innocent look with no ideas, no prejudices behind, and you will be able to see through and through. I will become transparent to you. That's the only way to know me, that's the only way to know the reality.

Look at the rose and forget the word "rose." Look at the tree and forget the word "tree." Look at the greenery and forget the word "green." And immediately you will become aware of a strange presence surrounding you that is God.

God labeled becomes the world; world unlabeled again, becomes God. God conditioned in your mind becomes the world; the world unconditioned, again unstructured, again unknown, becomes God.

Look at me without any words.

Question 3

There is no "how" to surrender. If you understand the stupidity of the ego, the foolishness of the ego, if you understand the misery of the ego, you drop it. There is no "how." Just the very misery of it you look into it and you find it absolutely miserable, a hell -- you drop it. You go on clinging to it because, still, you are cherishing a dream through it. You have not understood the misery of it; you are still hoping that there may be some treasure in it.

Watch deep in yourself. Don't ask how to drop it; just see how you are clinging to it. The clinging is the problem. If you don't cling to it, it drops on its own accord. And if you ask me how to drop it and you have not seen that you are clinging to it, I can give you a technique; you will cling to your ego and you will start clinging to the technique also. Because you have not understood the process of clinging.

I have heard an anecdote. There was a professor of philosophy, a very absentminded man, as philosophers are, almost always tend to be -- absentminded. Not that they have attained to no-mind because their minds are occupied so much that they are absent from everywhere else. They are only in the heads. He mislaid everything. One day he returned home without his umbrella, and his wife tried to get some indication from him of where to look for it: "Tell me," she said, "precisely, when did you first miss it?"

-- Now this is a wrong question to ask to a man who is absentminded "Precisely, where did you miss it?" or "Where did you for this first time become aware that you are missing it?" This is a wrong question, because the person who has forgotten the umbrella, he must have forgotten by now precisely when -- "Tell me." she said. "precisely, when did you first miss it?"

"My dear," he replied, "it was when I put my hand up to let it down after a short shower. Then I realized it is not there."

You are clinging, and you ask how to drop it. And the clinging mind will start clinging to the technique. Please, don't ask the "how"; rather, search with yourself -- why you are clinging. What has it given to you up to now, your ego? Has it given anything except promises? Has it fulfilled any promise ever? Are you going to be deceived by it forever and forever? Have you not been deceived by it enough by now? Are you still not contented? Are you still not aware that it is not leading you anywhere, just in a whirlpool you go round and round and round, hoping the same old dreams? Every time you get frustrated you don't see that from the very beginning the promise was false. The moment you get frustrated, again you start dreaming a new hope and The ego goes on promising you.

The ego is impotent. It can only promise; it can never deliver. Look into it. And on the way, between promise and no delivery, in between the two much suffering, much frustration, much misery.

The hell that you have heard about is not part of geography, it is not underneath earth. It is just underneath your ego. When you become aware of the misery of the ego, you don't cling, that's all. I don't say you drop you don't cling.

Immediately surrender happens. Surrender is the absence of the ego.

But you never ask, "Why do I cling to the ego?" You ask. "How to surrender?"

You ask a wrong question.

And, then, there are a thousand and one things which people go on saying to you. Then you cling to them. You are clinging to so many so-called methods, techniques, philosophies, religions, churches. Just to drop one ego you have created three hundred religions in the world. Just to drop one small ego. And millions of techniques and methods, and thousands and thousands of books are being written continuously how to drop it. And the more you read, the more you become knowledgeable, the less is the possibility to drop it -- because now you have more to cling to. Now your ego is almost so decorated....

I was reading the autobiography of a very well-known novelist. Towards the end of his life he used to say to everybody and complain, "I wasted my life. I never wanted to be a novelist -- never." Somebody asked him, "Then why didn't you stop? Because for at least twenty years I have been listening to you, and I know people who say that they have been listening to your complaint even longer.

Why didn't you stop?" He said. "How could I? Because by the time I realized that this is not my vocation, I had already become famous. By the time I realized that this is not my vocation, I was already a famous novelist.

You cannot drop the ego if you go on decorating it. Your knowledge decorates it.

Your going to the church decorates it -- you become religious. Your reading the Bible every day, or the Geeta, decorates it. You can look at others with the look "holier than you." You can look with a condemnation in your eye, that the whole world is going to the hell -- except you.

You go on trying to become humble, to become simple, but deep down in your simplicity sits the ego, enthroned.

And you go on finding rationalizations for it. All rationalizations are decorations.

In India there was one man, he died a few years before. Nizam of Hyderabad. He was the richest man in the whole world. Your Rockefellers and Fords are nothing. He was the richest man in the world. In fact nobody knows how much he had exactly because all his wealth consisted of millions of diamonds. In seven big halls the diamonds were put; the halls were completely full. Even he was not aware of the exact number. But the man was a great miser -- you cannot believe.

You will simply say that I am lying. He was such a miser that when guests will come and they will leave their half cigarettes on the ashtray, he will collect them and smoke them. You will not believe me, but this is a truth.

When he became Nizam of Hyderabad, he was enthroned, he used the same cap for forty years. That was the dirtiest cap in the world. It was never washed because he was afraid it may be destroyed. He lived the life of a very poor man, but he used to say to his people. "I am a simple man. Maybe I am the richest man, but I live the life of a poor man." But he was not poor. He was simply a miser! He used to say that because he is not attached to things and worldly exhibitions, that's why he lives such a simple life. He used to think himself a sadhu, a fakir.

He was not. He was the most miserly man ever the richest and the most miserly.

But for his miserliness, He will find rationalizations.

He was so afraid, so superstitious.... He used to pray and he used to pretend that he is a great prayer. But he was not; he was simply afraid. In the night he used to sleep with a peculiar thing. He had a big pot which he used to fill with salt, and in the pot he will put one of his feet -- the whole night. Because Mohammedans have an idea that if your feet are touching salt, ghosts cannot trouble you.

How can this man pray? One who is so afraid of ghosts, how can he love God?

Because one who loves God, his fear disappears. But he deceived many people.

Or, even if he didn't deceive many people, he deceived himself at least.

Remember, always start from the beginning. Look where you are clinging and why you are clinging. Don't ask for the "how" to surrender. Just watch and find out why you are clinging to the ego, why you are stubborn.

If you still feel that the ego is going to deliver some heaven for you, then wait -- no need to surrender. If you feel that all promises are false and the ego is a deceiver, then what is the need to ask how to surrender? Don't cling. In fact, once you know that this is fire, you drop it. It is not a question of not clinging. You simply drop it. When you come to know that your house is on fire, you don't ask anybody how to get out.

Once it happened, I was staying in a house, and just in front of the house a house caught fire. It was a three-storied house, and one fat man who used to live on the third story was trying to jump from the window. The whole crowd was saying, "Don't jump! We are bringing a ladder!" But who listens when the house is on fire? He jumped. He could not even wait for the ladder. And there was no danger yet because the fire was just on the first story. To reach to the third it would have taken time, and the ladder was being brought, and the whole crowd was shouting at him, "Wait!!" But he couldn't listen. He jumped and broke his leg.

Later on I went to see him and I asked, "You did a miracle. You didn't ask how to jump. Have you ever jumped from three-story buildings before?"

He said, "Never."

"Have you ever practiced?"

He said, "Never."

"Any rehearsal?"

He said, "What are you talking about! This is for the first time!" "Did you consult any book? You asked for a teacher? You inquired of somebody?"

He said, "What are you talking about? I could not even wait for my wife to come, my children to come, and I couldn't even understand why the people were shouting so much. Only later on, when I was lying on the ground, then I could understand that they were bringing a ladder."

When the house is on fire you jump out of it. You don't ask the "how." And I tell you Your house is on fire. Immediately, you ask how to jump out of it. No, you have not understood the point. Still you don't feel that your house is on fire I say, so my saying creates in you an idea "how to jump out of it?" If really you understand that your house is on fire, even if I should. "I am bringing a ladder!

Wait!" you are not going to wait. You will jump. You may break your legs.

But at ease, comfortably, conveniently, you ask, "How to surrender?" There is no "how." Just look at the misery that the ego creates. If you can feel it you will come out of it.

"And my heart is paining." It is bound to be so. With the ego there is going to be much pain.

And you ask. "Where is the door of love?" Come out of the ego. There is the door of love. Come out of the ego, and there is the door of the heart. The ego prevents you from love, the ego prevents you from meditation, the ego prevents you from prayer, the ego prevents you from God, but still you go on listening to it. Then it is up to you.

This is your choice, remember. Nobody has forced you to listen to the ego. It is your choice. If you choose, it is okay. Then don't ask the "how." If you don't choose it, there is no need to ask the "how."

Question 4

There is no need. If you have listened to me with total attention there is no need to remember what I have said. It becomes part of you. You eat something do you remember what you have eaten? What is the use? It becomes part of you -- it becomes your blood; it becomes your bones. It becomes you. Once you eat something, you forget about it. You digest it, not that you remember it.

If you listen totally, I am converting into your blood, I am converting into your bones, I am converting into your being. You are digesting me.

There is no need. Whenever there will be a situation, you will respond; and in that response all that you have heard and listened to in totality will be there -- but not as remembered... but as lived. And this difference has to be remembered.

Whatsoever I am trying here is not to make you more knowledgeable, to give you some information. That is not the purpose of my talking or my being here with you. My whole purpose is to give you more being, not more knowledge. So remain with me, listen totally; there is no need to remember afterwards. It becomes part of you. Whenever there will be a need it will arise. And it will not arise as a memory; it will arise as your living response.

Otherwise, there is always a fear it can become your memory. Then you are not changed; only your memory tank becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. Your computer becomes more informed. And whenever there will be a real situation, you will forget: then you will act out of your consciousness, not out of your memory. Then you will forget me. When there will be no real situation and you will be arguing with people and discussing, you will remember.

Watch. If what I say becomes just a memory in you then it will be good for discussion, argument, debate -- showing your knowledge to other people, convincing them that you know -- you know more than anybody. It will be useful for that, but in real life.... If you are talking about love you will be able to talk much from the memory that I have said to you, but when the question arises -- you fall in love -- then you will act out of your self -- not what you have heard - - because nobody can use a dead memory when a real situation arises.

I have heard an anecdote:

One day, while in the jungle, an explorer ran into a tribe of cannibals who were getting ready to sit down to their favorite dish. The head of the tribe, surprisingly, spoke excellent English. When questioned as to the reason, he admitted to having spent a year at college in the United States.

"You have been to college, exclaimed the horrified explorer, "and you still eat human flesh?"

"Well, yes, I do," admitted the chief. Then he added in conciliatory tones, "But now, of course, I use a knife and fork."

That will be all. If you make me only part of your memory, you will still go on being a cannibal but now you will use a knife and fork. That will be the only difference. But if you allow me to enter your innermost shrine of being, you listen totally -- that is the meaning of listening totally -- then forget about the computer and the memory there is no need.

Your real examination is not going to be in any examination hall of some university. Your examination is going to be in the universe itself. There will be the proof of whether you listened to me or not. Suddenly you will see that you are loving in a different way, that the situation is old but you are responding in a different way. Somebody is annoying you, but you are not annoyed. Somebody is trying to irritate you, but you are silent and tranquil. Somebody is insulting you, but somehow you are untouched. You are like a lotus flower: in the water, untouched by it. Then you will realize what has happened being with me.

It is a transference of being, not a communication of knowledge.

Question 5

Never. Then stop meditating. If you want questions then please don't meditate. If you meditate all questions disappear, only the answer remains. If you want more questions to ask, stop meditating. Then you can go on asking a thousand and one questions.

And all are stupid and funny, so there is no need to be worried about it.

But of only one thing should you be aware: Don't meditate! If you want to ask funny and stupid questions, don't meditate. And I say again, all questions are stupid and funny. If you meditate they all will disappear: only silence remains.

And silence is the answer.

Remember, either you have questions or you have answers. You never have both. When you have questions you don't have the answer. I can give you the answer, but it will never reach to you. By the time it reaches you, you will convert it into a thousand and one questions again. When you have questions you have questions. When you have the answer -- and I say answer, not answers, because there is only one answer to all questions when you have the answer, questions do not arise.

Meditate if you want the answer which answers all questions. Stop meditating if you want to go on asking questions.

Meditation is the answer.