Be a seed

Question 1

THIS is from Yatri. The story is true, but Yatri, you have missed the most important point in it. Let me tell you the whole story again: I have heard that Patanjali and Lao Tzu came to a stream. Patanjali began to cross the stream by walking on the surface of the water. Lao Tzu stood on the bank and called him to come back.

"What's the matter?" Patanjali inquired.

Said Lao Tzu, "There is no need to cross the stream, because this shore is the other shore."

That's the whole emphasis of Lao Tzu: There is no need to go anywhere; the other shore is here. There is no need to do anything. The only need is just to be.

Effort is irrelevant because you are already that which you can ever be. Go nowhere. Follow no path. Seek nothing. Because wherever you will go, the very going is missing the point because everything is available here already.

I will tell you another story, one of the most important stories in the world of human consciousness. The story is concerned with Zarathustra, another Lao Tzu, who believed in being natural, who believed in being easy, who believed in being just to be: Once, when Vishtaspa, king of Persia, was returning from a victorious campaign, he came near to the place where Zarathustra lived. He decided to visit the mystic. The king said to Zarathustra. "I have come that you may explain to me the laws of nature and the universe. I cannot tarry as I am on my way home from a war and important matters of state await me at my palace."

Looking at the king, Zarathustra smiled and took a grain of wheat from the earth and gave it to him. "In this small grain of wheat," he declared, "are contained all the laws of the universe and the forces of nature."

The king was much astonished by this answer, which he didn't understand, and when he saw smiles on the faces of those around him, he was angry and threw the grain upon the ground thinking that he was being mocked. And to Zarathustra he said, "I was foolish to waste my time by coming here to see you."

Years passed. The king was successful as a ruler and a warrior, and led a life of luxury and apparent contentment, but at night when he went to bed, strange thoughts came into his mind and troubled him: "I live in luxury and abundance in this splendid palace, but how long shall I enjoy this -- this abundance, this power, this wealth -- and what will happen to me when I die? Can my power and my riches save me from illness and death? Is everything lost with the coming of death?"

No one in the palace could answer these questions, but meanwhile, the fame of Zarathustra grew. So putting aside his pride, he dispatched a great caravan of treasure to Zarathustra and with it an invitation and a request. "I regret." he wrote, "that when I was impatient and thoughtless in my youth, I asked you to explain the great problems of existence in a few minutes of time. I have changed and do not want the impossible now, but I am still deeply interested to know the laws of the universe and the forces of nature, even more so than when I was a young man. Come to my palace. I pray you. Or if that is not possible, then send to me the best of your disciples that he may teach me all that he can about these questions."

After an interval, the caravan and the messengers returned. These told the king that they had found Zarathustra, who sent him greeting, but returned the proffered treasure. The treasure, Zarathustra had said, was of no use to him because he has attained to the ultimate treasure. Moreover, Zarathustra had sent the king a gift wrapped in a leaf and had asked the messengers to tell him that this was the teacher who could teach him everything.

The king opened it and found the same grain again -- the same grain of wheat that Zarathustra had given him before. He thought there must be something mysterious and magical in it, so he put it in a golden box and hid it among his treasures. Almost every day he looked at it expecting some miracle to happen, such as the turning of the grain of wheat into something or someone that would teach him all he wished to know.

Months went by, and then years, but nothing happened. At last the king lost patience and said. "It seems that Zarathustra has deceived me again. Either he is making a mock of me or else he does not know the answers to my questions, but I will show him that I can find the answers without his help." So the king sent a caravan to a great Indian mystic, Tshengregacha, to whom came disciples from all over the world, and with the caravan went the same messengers and the same treasure that he had once sent to Zarathustra.

After many months, the messengers returned from India with the philosopher, but the philosopher said to him, "I am honored to be your teacher but in frankness must tell you that I come chiefly to your country that I may meet the great Zarathustra."

Then the king took the golden box containing the grain of wheat and answered, "I asked Zarathustra to teach me. See, this is what he sent me. Here is the teacher who shall teach me the Laws of the universe and the forces of nature. Is this not ridiculous?"

The philosopher looked long at the grain of wheat, and silence fell upon the palace while he meditated. At length he said, "I do not regret my many months of journeying, for now I know that Zarathustra is in truth the great teacher that I have long believed him to be. This tiny grain of wheat can indeed teach us the laws of the universe and the forces of nature, for it contains them in itself right now. You must not keep the grain of wheat in its golden box. You are missing the whole point.

"If you plant this little grain in the earth, where it belongs, in contact with the soil, the rain, the air, the sunshine, and the light of the moon and the stars, then like a universe in itself it will begin to grow bigger and bigger. Likewise you, if you would grow in knowledge and understanding, must leave your artificial life and go where you will be close to all the forces of nature and of the universe, to the sum total of things. Just as inexhaustible sources of energy are ever flowing towards the grain planted in the earth, so will innumerable sources of knowledge open and flow towards you till you become one with nature and the organic universe. If you watch the growth of this seed of grain, you will find that there is an indestructible and mysterious power in it -- the power of life. The grain disappears, and in that disappearance there is victory over death."

"All that you say is true," answered the king, "yet in the end the plant will wither and die and will be dissolved into the earth."

"But not," said the philosopher, "until it has done an act of creation and has turned itself into hundreds of grains, each like the first. The tiny grain disappeared as it grew into a plant, and you too as you grow must turn yourself into something and someone else. Life always create more life, truth more abundant truth, the seed more abundant seeds. The only art one needs to know is the art how to die. Then one is reborn. I propose that we journey to Zarathustra himself that he may teach us more of these things."

In a few days, they came to the garden of Zarathustra. His only book was the great book of nature, and he taught his disciples to read in it. The two visitors learned another great truth in Zarathustra's garden that life and work. Leisure and study, are one and the same: that the right way to live is a simple, natural life -- a creative life within which individual growth is a single, total dynamism.

They spent a year in the garden, learning to read the laws of existence and of life from the vast book of nature. At the end of that time, the king returned to his own city and asked Zarathustra to set out systematically the essence of his great teaching. Zarathustra did so, and the result was the great book of the Zend- Avesta, the great book of the Parsis.

This long story is the whole story of how a man becomes God, how that which you are hiding within yourself can become revealed.

Be a seed. You are, but you may be still in a gold box, imprisoned. Fall into the earth, where you belong, and be ready to die into the earth. Don't be afraid to die, because all those who fear death are preventing themselves from life. Death is nothing but the door to life. The first acquaintance with life is death, so those who are afraid of death are barring themselves against life. Then they will remain secure in a gold box, but then they will not grow. Fearing death, they will not be able to resurrect themselves. In fact, their life in the gold box will be virtually nothing but death.

Death in the soil, in the earth, is just a beginning, not the end, but remaining in a gold box is the very end. There is no beginning in it.

You are a seed. There is no need to go anywhere. All that you need is ready to come to you, but the shell of the seed needs to be broken. The ego needs to dissolve into the earth; the ego needs to die into the earth. Immediately, the whole universe starts converging on you. Suddenly you see that which you are always meant to be. The very destiny starts growing in you.

In fact, this shore is the other shore. There is no need to go anywhere. All that you need is to go within. All that you need is to take a jump into your own being, to be in tune with yourself. Lao Tzu would not show a way how to go to the other shore.

We can manage the story in a different way. Let there be three persons: Patanjali, Buddha, Lao Tzu. Patanjali will try to walk on the surface of the water -- he can.

He is a great scientist of the inner world of consciousness. He knows how to defy gravity, Buddha will say what Yatri says in the story. Buddha will say, "This is no way to cross the stream. Come, I will show you a place where there is no need to do such a hard work. Easy is the way -- The stream is shallow: we just have to walk a few hundred yards and you can walk in the shallow stream. There is no need to learn this great art. This Can be done so easily." Buddha will say this.

And Lao Tzu? He will laugh, and he will say to Buddha and Patanjali, "What are you doing? If you leave this shore you will go astray because this is the other shore. Here, this very moment, everything is as it should be. There is nowhere to go. Seeker of truth, follow no path, because all paths lead where, the truth is here."

Lao Tzu says simply relax into yourself. It is not a journey; it is simply a let-go.

No preparation is needed because it is not a journey. As you are, just as you are, relax. Relax into your nature. Drop all nonsense about gold boxes -- prisons of morality, prisons of concepts, philosophies, religions. Drop all that rubbish.

Don't be afraid of the earth and don't ask for heaven. Drop into the earth. Don't be afraid that your hands will become soiled. Fall into nature because only there, in fact, you belong, to the sum total of things.

Zarathustra did well. He was not mocking the king. He was a simple man, and because the king had himself said that he cannot waste much time and he has great affairs waiting at the palace and he has to go soon, that's why Zarathustra gave a symbolic sign, the seed. But he missed the whole point. He could not understand what type of message this is. Zarathustra had given him the whole Zend-Avesta in that seed; nothing remains. That is the whole message of the true religion. All else is just commentary.

That day Zarathustra gave the seed, he did the same as Buddha did when he gave the flower to Mahakashyap. With that seed, Zarathustra had given something more than the flower. Try to understand these symbols.

Buddha gives the flower. Flower is the end. It can be given only to a Mahakashyap, who has come to the very end. Zarathustra gave the seed. Seed is the beginning. It can be given to one who is just beginning to seek, who is just inquiring, who is just trying to find the way, who is groping in the dark.

Buddha's flower cannot be given to everybody and anybody; a Mahakashyap is needed, In fact it can be given only to someone who does not need it.

Mahakashyap is one who does not need it. It can be given only to one who does not need it. Zarathustra's seed can be given to those who need it. And, what he said; he simply said, "Become a seed. You are a seed. Hidden is God within you.

But don't go anywhere else."

Zarathustra's religion is one of the most natural religions to accept life as it is, to live life as it is. Don't ask the impossible. Take it easy. Look all around. The truth is present; only you are absent. This shore is the other shore; there is no other shore. This life is the life; there is no other life.

But you can live this life in two ways: at the minimum, or at the optimum. If you live at the minimum, you live like a seed. If you live like a flower, you live at the optimum. Let your seed become the flower. It is the seed itself who will become the flower. It is you who will become the other shore. It is you who will become the truth.

Remember this. If you can remember this, just to be natural, you have understood all that is basic, all that is fundamental, all that is essential to be understood.

Question 2

Patanjali's dhyan is a step; in his eight steps, dhyan is a step. In za-zen, dhyan is the only step; there are no other steps. Patanjali believes in gradual growth. Zen, in sudden enlightenment. So what is only a step in Patanjali is all-in-all in Zen -- just dhyan is enough, meditation is enough. Nothing else is needed. All else can be discarded. All else may be helpful but is not essential -- in za-zen, only meditation.

Patanjali gives you a complete system of all that is needed, of all requirements, from the very preliminary to the end. He gives you the whole teaching. It is not a sudden phenomenon; one has to grow into it by and by, slowly. As you go on growing and absorbing your growth, you become capable of further steps. Zen is for rare exceptions, for those few courageous souls who can risk all for nothing, who can risk everything without any expectations.

This is not possible for all. You move cautiously -- and nothing is wrong in moving cautiously. If it comes natural to you to move cautiously, you have to move cautiously. Then don't be a fool and don't try to jump. Listen to your nature. If you feel to be cautious is your nature, then move cautiously. If you feel that to risk, to gamble, is your nature, then don't be bothered with cautiousness, then don't be bothered with gradual steps. You can either come down by the staircase or you can jump from the terrace. It depends on you. Listen to your nature.

There are a few persons who will not bother to come by the staircase, who are not ready to wait even for that. Once they hear the call, they jump. Once the call has been heard, they cannot wait for a single moment. But these are rare people.

When I am saying "rare." I don't mean in any evaluatory way. I am not evaluating. I am not saying "higher." When I say "rare," it is just a statement of fact these people are not many. I am not saying -- don't miss my point -- I am not saying that they are higher than ordinary people. Nobody is higher and nobody is lower -- but people are different. There are people who would like to jump.

They should choose Zen. There are people who would like to get to the goal with ease, with cautiousness, with gradual steps. Perfectly good. Go gracefully if that is your way.

Always remember, it is you, your type, your nature, which has to be the deciding factor. Don't follow Patanjali or Zen. Always listen to your being. Patanjalis and Zen exist for you you don't exist for them. The sabbath is for man -- not vice versa All religions exist for you, not vice versa. Ultimately, you are the goal.

Question 3

First thing: There is no need to survive in this world. This world is a madhouse.

There is no need to survive in it. There is no need to survive in the world of ambition, politics, ego. It is the disease. But there is another way to be, and the whole religious standpoint is: that you can be in this world and not be of it.

"When I listen to my feelings and inner voice they tell me to do nothing...." Then don't do anything. There is nobody higher than you, and God speaks to you directly. Start trusting your inner feelings. Then don't do anything. If you feel just to sleep, eat, and play on the beach, perfect. Let that be your religion. Don't be afraid then.

You will have to drop fear. And if it is a question of choosing between the inner feeling and the fear, choose the inner feeling. Don't choose the fear. So many people have chosen their religion out of fear, so they live in a limbo. They are neither religious nor worldly. They live in indecision.

Fear is not going to help. Fear always means the fear of the unknown. Fear always means the fear of death. Fear always means the fear of being lost, but if you really want to be alive, you have to accept the possibility of being lost. You have to accept the insecurity of the unknown, the uncomfort and the inconvenience of the unfamiliar, the strange. That is the price one has to pay for the blessing that follows it, and nothing can be achieved without paying for it.

You have to pay for it: otherwise you will remain fear-paralyzed. Your whole life will be lost.

Enjoy whatsoever your inner feeling is.

"I think that I will get too weak to survive in this world." There is no need. This is fear speaking in you, fear creating more fears. Out of fear more fear is born.

"Will existence protect me?" Again the fear is asking for guarantees, promises.

Who is there to give you a guarantee? Who can be a guarantee for your life? You are asking for some sort of an insurance. No, there is no possibility. In existence, nothing is insured -- nothing can be. And it is good. Otherwise, if existence is also insured, you will be already completely dead. Then the whole thrill of it, of being alive like a young leaf in the strong wind, will be lost.

Life is beautiful because it is insecure. Life is beautiful because there is death. Life is beautiful because it can be missed. If you cannot miss it, everything is forced upon you, then even life becomes an imprisonment. You will not be able to enjoy it. Even if you are ordered to be blissful, commanded to be free, then bliss and freedom both are gone.

"Will existence protect me when I allow myself to let go?" Try. Only one thing I can say to you.... I am not talking to your fear, remember. Only one thing I can say to you all -those who have tried have found that it protects. But I am not talking to your fear. I am simply encouraging your adventure, that's all. I am persuading, seducing you towards adventure. I am not talking to your fear. All those who have tried have found that infinite is the protection.

But I don't know whether you can understand the protection that the universe gives to you. Your protection that you are asking for cannot be given by the universe because you don't know what you are asking. You are asking for death.

Only a dead body is absolutely protected. Something alive is always in danger.

To be alive is a hazard. More alive -- more adventure, more hazard, more danger.

Nietzsche used to have a motto on his wall: Live dangerously. Somebody asked him, "Why have you written this?" He said, "Just to remind me, because my fear is tremendous."

Live dangerously because that's the only way to live. There is no other. Always listen to the call of the unknown and be on the move. Never try to become settled anywhere. To be settled is to die: it is a premature death.

I was attending a birthday party, a small girl's birthday, and many toys were there and many presents, and the girl was really happy, and all her friends were there and they were dancing. Suddenly, she asked her mother, "Mom, were there such beautiful days in the past, when you used to be alive?"

People die before their death. People settle in security, comfort, convenience.

People settle in a gravelike existence.

I am not talking to your fear.

"Will existence protect me when I allow myself to let go?" It has always protected, and I can't think it is just going to be different to you. I cannot believe that it is going to be an exception. It has always been so. It has protected those who have left themselves to it, who have abandoned themselves to it, who have surrendered themselves to it.

Follow nature. Follow your inner nature.

I was reading an anecdote; I liked it very much: It was spring on the Columbia University campus, and KEEP OFF signs sprang up on the freshly seeded lawns. The students ignored the warnings, which were followed by special requests, and continued tramping across the grass. The issue became rather heated, until finally the buildings and grounds officials took the problem to General Eisenhower, at that time, president of the university.

"Did you ever notice," asked Eisenhower, "how much quicker it is to head directly where you are going? Why not find out which route the students are going to take anyway and build the walks there?"

This is how life should be. The roads, the walks, the principles should not be fixed beforehand.

Allow yourself a let-go. Flow naturally and let that be your way. Walk, and by walking, make your way. Don't follow superhighways. They are dead, and you are not going to find anything on them. Everything has already been removed. If you follow a superway, you are moving away from nature. Nature knows no ways, no fixed patterns. It flows in a thousand and one patterns, but all spontaneous. Go and watch... sit on the beach and watch the sea. Millions of waves arising, but each wave unique and different. You cannot find two waves similar. They don't follow any pattern.

No man worth the name will follow any pattern.

People come to me and they say. "Show us the way." I tell them, "Don't ask that."

I can only tell you how to walk -- I cannot show you the way. Please try to see the distinction I can only tell you how to walk, and how to walk courageously. I cannot show you the way, because the way is for cowards. Those who don't know how to walk, paralyzed, for them the way exists. For those who know how to walk, they go into the wilderness, and just by walking they create their way.

And each one reaches to God in a different way. You cannot reach as a mass and you cannot reach as a crowd. You reach alone, absolutely alone.

God is wild. He's not yet civilized -- and I hope that he will never be civilized. He is still spontaneous, and he loves spontaneity. So if your inner nature says to go to the beach and to relax, do that. That is from where your God is calling you.

I teach you just to be yourself, nothing else. It is very difficult to understand me because out of your fear you would like me to give you a pattern of life, a discipline, a style, a way of life.

Persons like me have always been misunderstood. A Lao Tzu, a Zarathustra, an Epicurus, have always been misunderstood. The most religious people were thought to be irreligious because if someone is really religious, he will teach you freedom, he will teach you love. He will not teach you law; he will teach you love. He will not teach you a dead pattern of life. He will teach you a chaos, an anarchy, because stars are born only out of chaos. He will teach you how to be totally free.

I know there is fear, there is fear of freedom; otherwise why should there be so many prisons all around the world? Why should people carry prisons around their life continuously -- invisible prisons? There are only two types of prisoners I have come across a few who live in a visible prison, and the remaining who live in an invisible prison. They carry their prison around themselves -- in the name of conscience, in the name of morality, in the name of tradition, in the name of this and that.

Thousands are the names of bondage and slavery. Freedom has no name. There are not many types of freedom; freedom is one. Have you ever watched? Truth is one. Lies can be millions. You can lie in a million ways; you cannot say the truth in a million ways. Truth is simple: one way is enough. Love is one; laws are millions. Freedom is one; prisons are many.

And unless you are very alert, you will never be able to move freely. At the most, you can change prisons. From one prison you can go to the other prison, and you can enjoy the walk between the two. That's what is happening in the world. A Catholic becomes a Communist, a Hindu becomes a Christian, a Mohammedan becomes a Hindu, and they enjoy -- yes, there is a little freedom felt just when they are changing the prisons: from one prison to another -- the walk in between.

They feel good.

Again they are in the same trap in a different name.

All ideologies are prisons. I teach you to beware of them -- my ideology included.

Question 4

No. You are a meetingplace of two dimensions. One dimension belongs to the earth the dimension of gravity, which pulls you down -- that 150 pounds' truth of your body. Another dimension belongs to grace the dimension of God, the dimension of freedom, in which you can go on rising high and high and high and there is no weight in it.

Meditating, this will happen. Many times in deep meditation you will suddenly become aware as if the gravitation has disappeared that now nothing holds you down, that it is now up to you to decide whether to fly or not, that now it is up to you -- if you want, you can simply fly into the sky... and the whole sky is yours.

But when you will open the eyes, suddenly, the body is there, the earth is there, the gravitation is there. When you were with closed eyes meditating, you forgot your body. You moved in a different dimension, the dimension of grace.

These two things have to be understood gravitation is the law which pulls you down; grace is the law which pulls you up. Science has not yet discovered, maybe it is not going to discover it ever, the other law. It has discovered one law.

You have heard the story -- it happened or not, that is not the point -- that Newton was sitting in a garden, and one apple fell. Watching that apple fall, Newton started thinking, "Why does the apple fall towards the earth? Why directly towards the earth? Why not sideways? Why does it not start flying upwards?" The law of gravitation was discovered, that the earth has a pull and pulls everything towards it.

But Newton saw the fruit falling; he didn't see the tree rising up. That's where I have always.... Whenever I read the story. I always felt he saw the small fruit falling towards the earth; he didn't see the tree rising upwards. You throw a stone. It falls back, true, but a tree goes on rising higher and higher. Something pulling the tree up. A stone is dead; the tree is alive. Life goes higher and higher and higher.

Man, in his consciousness, has reached to the highest point on this earth. When you close your eyes to the world, when you are in a deep meditative mood, prayerful, blissful, ecstatic -- suddenly, the body is not there. You have become aware of the inner tree of life, and it is going higher and higher, and suddenly you feel that you can fly.

Nothing is crazy in it, but please don't try it. Don't jump out of the window and don't start flying. Then it will be crazy. A few people under LSD or marijuana have done that. Nobody has ever done it under meditation. That's the beauty of meditation, and that is the danger of drugs. A few people under the impression, under a deep hypnotic impression of some chemical drug, have become aware of this grace, that they can fly. The body is forgotten -- and they have tried. One girl in New York really did it. From the fortieth story of a building, she simply flew out of the window -- then Newton starts working. Then you are the tree no more: you become the fruit. Then you fall to the earth and you crash.

That is one of the dangers of drugs, because they can reveal to you certain truths -- but you are not aware. You can commit something, you can do something which can be dangerous. But never has it happened in meditation, because meditation gives you two things together it gives you a new dimension and it gives you more awareness, so you know it is there, but you are also aware that the body is there. You are still spread in two dimensions.

One day, a very fat, stout gentleman was discussing his tennis technique. "My brain tells me run forward speedily, start right away, slam the ball gracefully over the net."

I asked him, "And then what happens?"

He said. "And then?" The fellow became very sad and said, "My body says, 'Who, me?'"

Remember, you are both the body and the consciousness. You are spread in both the dimensions. You are the meetingpoint of the earth and the sky, of grace and gravity. Nothing is crazy in it. It is simply a truth.

And sometimes it is possible, because it has happened, and it is better I should make you aware of it sometimes it is possible that actually your body rises a little higher. There is a woman in Bavaria who rises four feet high while meditating.

She has been put under scientific observation and has been found not to be deceiving in any way. She remains for a few minutes, four, five minutes, hanging in the air four feet high. This is one of the oldest experiences of yogis. Rarely it happens, but sometimes it has happened in the past. Sometimes it happens now also. Sometimes it can happen to some of you.

If the pull of the grace becomes too much and the balance is lost, then it happens.

It is not a very good thing. Don't try, and don't ask for it. It is an imbalance, and it is dangerous for life. When the pull of the grace becomes too much and the pull of the gravity is less it happens the body can rise high. Even then, don't think yourself crazy, and don't start feeling that something like insanity is happening to you.

Newton is not all truth. There are greater truths than Newton. And gravitation is not the only dimension; there are many more dimensions.

Man is an infinity, and we have started believing only in part of it. So whenever anything from another dimension enters, we start feeling that something is going wrong. In fact, in the West, many people who are thought to be mad, neurotic, psychotic, and who are in the mad asylums, in mad hospitals, are not really mad.

Many of them have had some glimpses of the unknown, but the society does not accept that unknown, does not recognize it. Immediately, whenever a person has some glimpse of the unknown, he's thought to be crazy, because he becomes somebody strange. We cannot believe him.

There are books written on Jesus in which it is said that he was a neurotic because he used to hear God and his voice. There are books written about Mohammed that he was mad he must have heard the Koran in delirium -- because who is there to talk to you? -- and he heard God speaking and the God said, "Write!" and he started writing. Because it is not your experience, it is a natural tendency of the mind to say that he must have gone in some madness, must be in delirium, must have been in a high fever, because such things happen only when you ale not in your senses.

Yes, these things happen in madness also, and these things happen in supersanity also, in superconsciousness also. Because the mad person falls below the normal level of consciousness, he loses control of his mind. Losing the control of one's mind, one becomes available to the unknown forces. A yogi, a mystic, achieves to samyama, control of his consciousness. He rises high and goes beyond the normal -- again, the unknown becomes available to him. But the difference is that the madman is a victim of the unknown and the mystic is a master of the unknown. Both start talking in the same way, and you can misunderstand. You can get confused.

Don't think yourself crazy. It is perfectly okay. But don't try it. Enjoy it, allow it; because once you start thinking that it is crazy, you will stop it; and that stopping will disturb your meditation. Enjoy it, as in a dream you fly. Close your eyes; in meditation go wherever you want. Rise higher and higher into the sky, and many more things soon will become available to you -- and don't be afraid. It is the greatest adventure -- greater than going to the moon. Becoming an astronaut of the inner space is the greatest adventure.

Question 5

Whether you know or not, you cannot be other than yourself. To be yourself, knowledge is not needed. A rosebush is a rosebush. Not that the rosebush knows that it is a rosebush. A rock is a rock. Not that the rock knows that it is a rock.

Knowledge is not needed. In fact it is because of knowledge that you are missing to be yourself.

You ask "You told me to be myself. I don't understand. How can I be myself if I don t know myself?' Knowledge is creating the problem. Look at the rosebush.

She is not confused. Every day it goes on being a rosebush. Not even for a single day does it become confused. It does not start some morning growing marigolds; it goes on being a rosebush. It is not confused at all.

Knowledge is not needed for being. In fact you are missing your being because of knowledge. Unnecessarily, knowledge creates a problem.

I was reading about a certain man named Dudley To celebrate Uncle Dudley's seventy-fifth birthday, an aviation enthusiast offered to take him for a plane ride over the little West Virginia town where he had spent all his life. Uncle Dudley accepted the offer.

Back on the ground, after circling over the town twenty minutes, his friend asked. "Were you scared, Uncle Dudley?"

"No," was the hesitant answer, "but I never did put my full weight down."

In an airplane, whether you put your full weight down or not, the weight is carried by the airplane.

Whether you know yourself or not is not the point. Knowledge is disturbing you.

Just think if there was a rock also on that airplane with Uncle Dudley, the rock would have put the whole weight down. And do you think Uncle Dudley can do something, can help in some way? Is there any possibility that he will be able not to put his whole weight on the airplane? He is also putting the whole weight, but he is unnecessarily worried. He could have rested, he could have relaxed just like the rock, but the rock has no knowledge and Uncle Dudley has knowledge.

The whole problem of humanity is that humanity knows, and because of knowing, the being is unnecessarily forgotten.

Meditation is how to drop knowledge. Meditation means how to become ignorant again. Meditation means how to become a child again, a rosebush, a rock. Meditation means how just to be and not to think.

When I say to you to be yourself, I mean meditate. Don't try to be anybody else.

You cannot be! You can try, and you can deceive yourself and you can promise yourself and you can hope that someday you will become somebody else, but you cannot become. These are only illusions that you can go on having. These are dreams. They are not going to become realities ever. You will remain yourself whatsoever you do.

Why not relax? Uncle Dudley, put your full weight on the airplane. Relax.

In relaxation, suddenly you will start enjoying your being, and the effort to be somebody else will stop. That is your worry how to be somebody else, how to be like somebody else, how to become like a Buddha, how to become like Patanjali.

You can only be yourself. Accept it, rejoice in it, delight in it. Relax.

Zen Masters say to their disciples, "Beware of Buddha. If you meet him on the way, kill him immediately." What do they mean? They mean there is a human tendency to become imitators. In the English language, there is a book, IMITATION OF CHRIST. Never before and never after was such an ugly title given to any book. Imitation? But, in a way, that title is very symbolic. It shows the whole mind of humanity. People are trying to imitate, to become somebody else.

Nobody can become a Christ, and in fact there is no need -- God will be bored if you become Christ. He wants somebody new, something original. He wants you, and he wants you to be just yourself.

Question 6

Everybody is always on the edge because each moment, if you dare, the jump is possible. Each moment gives you the edge; and when you ask how to come to the edge, you are being clever. Don't try to be clever. Your question is a trick so you can console yourself that you are not a coward because the edge is not there, so "from where to take the jump?" So first the edge has to be found -- and it will never be found, because it is right in front of you. Wherever you are standing, you are always at the sharp edge from where you can take the jump. And you ask a very clever question: that first teach me how to find the edge.

Just look in front of you. Just look. Wherever you are that doesn't matter.

And you say, "I see you shaking us but I cannot feel it." The problem is not that you are asleep. If you are asleep, it is easy to shake you up out of your sleep. You are pretending that you are asleep; then it becomes impossible. You can see that I am shaking, but nothing is happening. How can you see if you are asleep?

Let me tell you one anecdote. It happened one summer afternoon. The father had promised the children to go for a walk, and he didn't want it. For months he was waiting for this day to rest, so he played, he pretended, that he is fast asleep: The rather played possum while his youngsters tried their best to rouse him from a Sunday-afternoon nap to take them for a promised walk, but in vain. They did all sorts of things to wake him. They shook him, they shouted at him, but to no avail. All efforts failed. They even became afraid, what has happened. And the father was pretending to be asleep. Finally, his four-year-old daughter pried open one of his eyelids, peered carefully, then reported, "He is still in there."

And I know you are also in there.

And you also know that you are pretending.

It is up to you. You can prolong the game as far as you like, because it is at your cost. I am not worried by it. If you want to pretend, okay. Perfectly okay. Do it.

But I can see... I can see all of you pretending to be asleep -- afraid of getting up, afraid of realizing your being, afraid to move.

Just see the truth of it. Don't ask about ways how you can find the edge. You are standing on it.

Don't try to be clever, because in the inner world to he clever is to be stupid. In the inner world to be stupid is to be clever. In the inner world, those who are ignorant achieve faster than those who are knowledgeable. In the inner world, those who are innocent -- and ignorance is innocence.... Ignorance is beautiful; ignorance is tremendously beautiful and innocent.

Just realize what I am saying! I know you are listening. I can peer into your eyes: I can open your eyelids. I have been doing so every day, and I can see you are still in there. You are not dead, you are not asleep. You are pretending that you are asleep.

And whenever -- it is up to you -- whenever you decide not to pretend. I am there to help you. I cannot push you against yourself. That is not allowed. God does not allow it, because it gives you total freedom; and total freedom includes everything -- to go astray, to fall asleep, to commit sin, to deny God, to commit suicide, to destroy yourself. Total freedom includes all. And God loves freedom, because God is freedom.

Question 7

This is half of the question. The other half I will read later on. First, I should answer the first half.

The late French president Renee Coty attending an abstract art exhibit in Paris was asked if he understood the pictures. With a sigh he said, "It has taken me all my life to understand that it is not necessary to understand everything."

The second half:

You will not be able to see it. The smile that you can see will not be my smile, and the smile that is mine, you will not be able to see it. The silence that you can understand will not be my silence, and the silence that is mine, you will not be able to understand it, because you can understand only that which you have tasted already.

I can smile -- in fact I am smiling all the time -- but if it is my smile you cannot see it. When I smile in your way, then you understand; but then there is no point.

I am silent all the way, all the time. Even while I am speaking I am silent because speaking does not disturb my silence. If by speaking, the silence is disturbed, it is not worth. My silence is big enough. It can contain words, it can contain speaking. My silence is big enough; it is not disturbed by anything. My silence is not afraid of words.

You have seen people who are silent, then they don't speak. Their silence seems to be against speech -- and a silence which is against speech is still part of speech.

It is absence; it is not presence.

Absence of speech is not my silence! My silence is a presence. It can speak to you, it can sing to you. My silence has tremendous energy. It is not a vacuum; it is a fulfillment.