The rock bottom of no and yes

Question 1

THAT'S why I said very much Zen-like. Not actually Zen, but very much Zen- like. Existentialism is almost on the verge where it can become Zen. It can go on sticking where it stands now and it will not be a Zen, but it can take the jump and become Zen. Sartre is standing where Buddha was also standing before he became enlightened, but Buddha was open towards the future. He was still searching: he was still on the journey. Sartre has become fixed in his negativity.

The negative is necessary but not enough. That's why I go on saying unless you are capable of saying no to God you will never become capable of saying yes. But just to say no is not enough. It is necessary, but one has to move on -- from no to yes, from negative to positive.

Sartre is still clinging to the negative, to the no. Good that he has come up to that, but not good enough. One step more, where negativity also disappears, where negativity is also negated. The negation of the negation becomes absolute positive. The negation of the negation is the total yes. Let me explain it to you.

You are sad. You can become settled in your sadness, you can accept it as if "this is the end" journey stops, no searching, no inquiry anymore -- you have settled, you have made your home in the no. Now you are not a process; you have become stagnant. The no has become your life-style. Never make anything your life-style. If you have attained to no, don't stop there. The search is endless. Go on, go on... one day when you have reached to the very rock bottom of no you start moving upwards towards the surface. Dive deep into the no. You will reach to the rock bottom. From there the turning point then you move in the opposite direction. Then comes the world of yes. Atheist: then you become a theist. Then you say yes to the whole existence. Then sadness turns into a bliss, no becomes yes. But this too is not the end. Go on and on. As no has been left, yes also will disappear.

That is the point of Zen, where yes and no both disappear, and you are left without any attitude. You are left without any idea -- naked, nude -- just with a clarity, nothing to hinder it -- not even a yes. No philosophy, no dogma, no theology, no doctrine -- nothing to hinder you, nothing to cloud you. This is what Patanjali calls nirbeej samadhi, seedless samadhi, because in the yes the seed can be carried still?

This is the point of transcendence. This is the point where you disappear completely and, at the same time, you become total. This is why Buddha will not say yes to God, will not say no to God. If you ask him, "Is there God?" he will smile at the most. That smile shows his transcendence. He will not say yes, he will not say no, because he knows both are stages on the path but not the goal -- and both are childish. In fact anything becomes childish when you cling to it.

Only a child clings. A grown-up man leaves all clinging: real maturity is unclinging -- not even to yes.

Buddha is so godlike and so godless. All people who have really attained go beyond yes and no.

Remember this. Sartre is hanging somewhere at the very border of no. That's why he goes on talking about sadness, depression, anxiety, anguish. All negatives. He has written a great book, his magnum opus, BEING AND NOTHINGNESS. In that book he tries to prove that being is nothingness -- the total negation. But he clings to it.

But he is an authentic man. His no is true. He has earned it. It is not just a denial of God he has lived that denial. He has suffered for it; he has sacrificed for it. It is an authentic no.

So there are two types of atheists -- as there are always two types in every direction the authentic and the inauthentic. You can become an atheist for wrong reasons. A communist is an atheist but he is not authentic. His reasons are false: his reasons are superficial. He has not lived his no.

To live the no is to sacrifice oneself at the altar of negativity, to suffer tremendously, to move in the world of desperation, to move in the darkness, to move in the hopeless state of mind where darkness prevails ultimately, endlessly, and there is no hope for any morning -- to move into the meaningless and to not in any way create any illusion; because the temptation is great. When you are in a dark night the temptation is great at least to dream about the morning, to think about the morning, to create an illusion around you, to hope for it. And whenever you start hoping you start trying to believe in it, because you cannot hope without belief. You can hope if you believe. Belief is inauthentic: disbelief is also inauthentic.

Sartre's no is really true. He has lived it; he has suffered for it. He won't cling to any belief. Whatsoever the temptation, he will not dream. Whatsoever the allurement and the fascination of hope and future, of God and heaven no -- he will not be tempted. He will stick, He will remain fixed with the fact The fact is that there is no meaning. The fact is that there seems to be no God, the sky seems to be empty. The fact is there seems to be no justice. The fact is the whole existence seems to be accidental -- not a cosmos but a chaos.

It is difficult to live with this chaos. It is almost impossible -- inhuman or superhuman -- to live with this chaos and not to start dreaming about it, because one feels as if he is going mad. That's where Nietzsche became mad -- the same situation as Sartre is in. He became mad. He was the first of this new mind, the first pioneer man who tried an authentic no. He went mad. Too many people will go mad if they try no -- because then there is no love, then there is no hope, then there is no meaning. Your existence is arbitrary, accidental. Inside emptiness, outside emptiness... no goal anywhere. Nothing to cling to, nowhere to go -- no reason to be.

Seems difficult, almost impossible.

Sartre has earned it; he has lived it. He is a true man a true Adam. He has disobeyed. He has said no. He has been thrown out of the garden -- the garden of hopes, the garden of dreams, the garden of your wish fulfillments. Naked, nude, into the cold world he has lived.

He is a beautiful man, but one step more is needed. A little more courage. He has not yet touched the rock bottom of nothingness.

Why has he not been able to touch the rock bottom of nothingness? Because he has made a philosophy out of nothingness. Now that philosophy itself gives him a meaning. He talks about sadness. Have you watched anybody talking about his sadness? His very talk helps the sadness to disappear. That's why people talk about sadness, people talk about their miserable lives. They talk because just the talk, and they forget about it.

He has been talking, arguing, that nothing is meaningful, that the whole life is meaningless. Now this has become his meaning -- to argue for it, to fight for it.

That is where he has missed the point. A little deeper and the rock bottom is close by. He will be thrown back towards a deep yes.

Out of no, yes is born. If out of no, yes is not born, then something has gone wrong. It has to be so. Out of the night the morning is born. If the morning is not born then something has gone wrong. Maybe the morning is there but the man has made it a point not to open his eyes. He has become addicted to darkness, or the man has gone blind, or the man has lived in darkness so long that light dazzles him and blinds him.

One step more in this life or in another and Sartre will become a real man of Zen.

He will be able to say yes. Out of no, but remember, out of an authentic no.

Have you watched sometimes the phenomenon of false pregnancy? A woman believes that she is pregnant, and just by the belief, just by the idea, she becomes autohypnotized that she is pregnant. She starts feeling her belly is growing -- and the belly really starts growing. Maybe there is nothing but air. And every month the belly goes on getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Just her mind helping the belly to accumulate air, just the very idea. And there is nothing -- no pregnancy, no child inside. This is false pregnancy; there is not going to be any birth.

When somebody says no without earning it, without having lived for it.... For example, now in Russia no has become the official philosophy. Everybody is a communist and everybody is an atheist. Now the no is bogus -- as bogus as the yes of Indians. It is a false pregnancy now. Now it is the official religion; now it is government propagated. In every school and college and university, now the no is being worshipped. Atheism has become the religion; now everybody is taught about it. The pregnancy is going to be false, conditioned by others; just as in a religious home -- Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan -- you are born and then you are taught something and by and by you start believing.

A small child seeing his father praying starts praying because children are imitative. The father going to the church... the child goes to the church. Seeing that everybody believes, he also starts pretending. Now a false pregnancy is born. The belly will go on growing and no child will come out of it, no life will be born out of it. Only, the person will become ugly because of the belly.

The yes can be false, the no can be false; then nothing comes out of it. A tree is known by the fruit, and a cause is known by the effect. Whether you are authentic or not will be known by your rebirth. This is one thing.

The second thing to remember is: you may be really pregnant, but if the mother resists the very idea to give birth to a child, she may kill the child. The child was real, but the mother has to cooperate. When the child wants to come out of the womb after nine months of growth, the mother needs to cooperate.

Because mothers don't cooperate, that's why there is so much pain. Childbirth is such a natural thing, there need not be any pain. In fact, those who know, they say that childbirth will become one of the most ecstatic moments of a woman s life if she cooperates, nothing like it. No sexual orgasm can go so deep as when the woman participates with the process of the childbirth. Her whole existence vibrates with a new life; a new being is born. She becomes a vehicle of the divine.

She becomes a creator. Every fibre of her being vibrates with a new tune; a new song is heard in the deepest depth of her being. She will be ecstatic.

No sexual orgasm can be so deep as the orgasm that can be attained by a woman when she becomes a mother, but just the opposite is happening. Rather than being ecstatic a woman passes through tremendous suffering -- because she fights. The child is going outward, the child is leaving the womb, he is ready -- he is ready to go out into the big world, the wide world -- and the mother clings.

She is closed, she is not helping, she is not open. If she is really closed she can kill the child.

That is what is happening to Sartre: The child is ready, and he has carried a real pregnancy, but now he is afraid. Now the no itself has become his aim of life, as if pregnancy itself has become the aim, not the child. As if a woman feels so good just carrying a weight in the womb that now she is afraid if the child is born she will lose something. Pregnancy should not become a style of life. It is a process; it begins and it ends. One should not cling to it. Sartre is clinging; that's where he is missing.

There are many atheists in the world with false pregnancies, very few atheists with real pregnancies. But you can miss even when you have a real pregnancy.

Never make any point of view your philosophy, because once it becomes your philosophy your ego is involved, and then you go on and on protecting it, arguing for it, searching for proofs to help it.

Amitabh has given a small story. That will be good to understand: One Jewish sage in Brooklyn asks another Jewish sage.

"What is green, hangs on a wall, and whistles?"

A riddle what is green, hangs on a wall, and whistles?

The second Jewish sage, contemplating, said, "I do not know.

First sage: "A red herring."

Second sage "But you said it was green."

First sage "You can paint one green."

Red herring, but you can paint it.

Second sage "But you said it hangs on the wall."

First sage, "Of course, you can hang it on the wall."

Second sage "But you said it whistles!" First sage "So, it does not whistle."

But one goes on and on. Now nothing is left of the original proposition, but one goes on clinging to it. It becomes an ego trip.

Sartre is an authentic man, but the whole thing has become an ego trip. He needs a little more courage.

Yes. I say to you to say no needs courage: to say yes needs more courage.

Because to say no, ego can be helpful. In every no, ego can be helpful. It feels good to say no; ego feels nourished, strengthened. But to say yes is a surrender; it needs more courage.

Sartre needs a conversion, where the no becomes yes, then he will be not Zen- like, he will be Zen.

And beyond Zen is Buddha. Beyond Zen is Buddha the ultimate enlightenment, the nirbeej samadhi of Patanjali -- seedless samadhi -- where yes is also dropped, because yes is carried against a no. When the no is really dropped there is no need to carry yes.

Why do you say God is? Because you are still afraid he may not be. Nobody says this is day. Nobody says this is the sun rising, because everybody knows it is so.

Whenever you insist, that this is so, somewhere deep in your unconscious there is fear. You are afraid it may not be so. Because of that fear you go on insisting, saying yes, People become fanatics, dogmatists. They are ready to be killed or to kill for their ideas.

Why is there so much dogmatism in the world? Because people have not attained really. They are afraid. They are afraid -- anybody who says no creates a temptation for them. They also carry their no within, still. If somebody says no their no starts being alive, and they are afraid of themselves. They live a closed life so that nobody disturbs their ideology.

But a man who has really attained to yes, what is the need to say yes? Buddha does not say anything about God. He simply smiles at the whole stupidity of yes and no. Life is there without any interpretation, It is complete -- utterly complete and perfect. No ideology is needed to say anything about it. You have to be silent and still to listen to it. You have to be in it to feel it and live it. Always remember people who are obsessed too much with yes must be suppressing some no within their being.

It is from Amitabh:

Question 2

Herman Hesse's SIDDHARTHA is one of the very rare books, something from his innermost depth. Never again could Hesse bring another jewel more beautiful and more precious than SIDDHARTHA; as if he was spent in it. He could not reach higher. SIDDHARTHA His Hesse's height.

Siddhartha is saying to Buddha "Whatsoever you say is true. How can it be otherwise? You have explained everything that was never explained before; you have made everything clear. You are the greatest teacher there is. But you attained to this enlightenment on your own. You were not a disciple. You were not following anybody; you searched alone. You came to this enlightenment alone, walking a path, not following anybody." "I must leave you." says Siddhartha to Gautam Buddha, "not to find a greater teacher than you, because there is none, but to seek the truth on my own. Only with this teaching I agree" -- because this is Buddha's teaching "Be a light unto yourself." Follow nobody; seek and search, but follow nobody. "With this I agree," says Siddhartha, "so I will have to go."

He is sad. It must have been very difficult for him to leave Buddha, but he has to go -- to seek, to search, or to die. He has to find the path.

What is my comment on it? There are two types of people in the world. Ninety- nine percent who cannot go alone.... Alone, if they try, they will remain fast asleep for ever and ever. Alone, left to themselves, the possibility is nil. They will need somebody to wake them; they will need somebody to shake them out of their sleep, to shock them. They will need somebody to help them. But there is another type also, that is only one percent, which can find its way on its own.

Buddha belongs to the first type, the rare type, the one percent. Siddhartha also belongs to the same type. He understands Buddha, he loves Buddha, he reveres him. He feels the sadness and the pain and the heartache when leaving him, but he knows he has to leave. He has to find his own way. He has to seek the truth on his own. He cannot become a shadow; that is not possible for him, that is not his type. But that does not mean that everybody has to seek on his own.

In this century there have been two very important persons Gurdjieff and Krishnamurti. They are the types. Krishnamurti goes on insisting everybody has to be on his own. Alone one has to seek and alone one has to reach. And Gurdjieff insisted that schoolwork is needed -- alone you will never be able to escape out of the prison. All the prisoners have to come together to fight with the forces which are guarding, which have made the prison. And all the prisoners have to get together to find ways and means and methods -- and they need somebody's support who is outside the prison. Otherwise they will not find the way; they will not find how to get out. Somebody who was in the prison and has somehow reached out, his help is needed that is the Master.

Who is right? Krishnamurti's followers won't listen to Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff's followers won't listen to Krishnamurti, and the followers go on thinking that the other is wrong. But I tell you, both are right because humanity has two types.

And none is better. Don't try to evaluate. Somebody is a woman and somebody is a man -- nobody is higher and nobody is lower; different types of biology.

Somebody is who can find alone and somebody is who needs help. -nobody is higher and nobody is lower; different types of spirituality.

The person who cannot find alone is the person for whom surrender will be the path, love will be the path, devotion will be the path, trust will be the path. Don't think that trust is easy. It is as difficult as to follow on your own, sometimes even more difficult. And there are people who will follow alone.

Just a few days before, a young man came and he asked me, "Can I not search on my own? Need I be a sannyasin? Need I be a disciple to you? Can I not follow on my own, can I not search on my own?" I said, "Why have you come to ask me?

You are not the type who follows on his own. Even this you cannot decide. What more will you be able to decide on your own? This too you have come to ask me.

This I have to decide -- already you are a disciple!" But he argued; he said, "But you never were a disciple to any Master." I said. "That's right, but I never went to ask any. Even for this, I never went to ask any."

And this is my understanding that people who have followed on their own rarely achieve, very rarely -- because many times your ego will say that you are the rare type, that you can go on your own, alone, no need to follow anybody: and your ego will deceive you. You may not follow anybody; you are following your own ego, your own image, and it is going to lead you into a thousand and one ditches. You are following yourself, in fact. You are not moving on your own; you are following yourself. And you are a confused chaos. Where will you go? How will you go?

Be very clear about it. Listen to your innermost depths. Is it the ego which says don't be a follower? If it is the ego then you are not going to be going anywhere.

You are trapped, already trapped. Then it is good to follow somebody. Find a school, find a Master. Drop this ego because this ego will lead you into more and more nonsense and rubbish.

Look at Siddhartha's words. He says, "This is why I am going on my way -- not to seek another and better teacher, for there are none better...." He loves Buddha tremendously; he respects him tremendously. He says, "Whatsoever you say is absolutely clear. Nobody has taught in such a clear way ever before. Whatsoever you say about the small and the big, it is absolutely comprehensible, appeals, converts, creates a sympathy for it. I KNOW," he says, "you have attained. I am not going away from you because I Suspect you, no. I respect you. I have seen the glimpse through you; I have looked through you into reality. I am grateful, but I have to go."

His type is not of that who can become a follower. He goes into the world, he moves into the world. He lives with a prostitute. He tries to know what indulgence is. He learns the ways of the world and the ways of sin, and by and by, out of many sufferings, many disappointments, frustrations, the consciousness arises in him. Long is his path, but he goes on unflinching, unwavering. Whatsoever the cost, he is ready either to die or to attain. He has understood his type.

To understand one s type is the most basic thing in spiritual search. If you are confused about what type you are -- because people come to me; they say. "You say to understand the type is the most important thing, but we don't know what type we are". -- then remain certain: you are not that type who can go on his own. Because you cannot be certain even about your type, that too has to be decided by somebody else, then you will not be able to go alone. Then drop that ego. That is simply ego.

It has happened.... Pitfalls are many. If you go and watch Krishnamurti's disciples you will see almost all the wrong type gather together. Not people like Siddhartha -- because why should they go to Krishnamurti? Wrong people -- who need a teacher -- and still are not ready to drop their egos; you will find them around Krishnamurti. It is a beautiful arrangement. Krishnamurti says. "I am not a teacher"; so their egos are intact. He does not say, "Surrender"; so there is no trouble. In fact he enhances their egos: that "you are to find your path alone." They feel beautiful, and they go on listening to Krishnamurti for years and years and years.

There are people who have been listening to him for forty years. Sometimes they come to me and I ask them. "If really you have understood him, then why don't you stop going to him? -- because he says there is no teacher and he is not your teacher and there is nothing to be taught and nothing to be learned; one has to search through life through the hard way; one has to reach oneself. Why have you wasted forty years?" And I can see an their faces the problem is they need a Master but they don't want to surrender. So this is a good compromise: Krishnamurti says no need to surrender, and he goes on teaching, and they go on listening and learning.

With Gurdjieff you will find a better group than with Krishnamurti -- people who can surrender, who are ready to surrender. There are loopholes also because there are people who don't want to do anything, and when they don't want to do anything they think this is surrender. There are people who are suckers, who don't want to do anything. They say. "We surrender. Now this is your responsibility. Now if something goes wrong you are responsible." But Gurdjieff won't allow such people. He was very hard. He will create so many difficulties for them that they will escape within hours. Only very rare people will be there who have really surrendered.

For example, one man came, a musician, a very accomplished musician who was already known, famous for his art: and Gurdjieff says, "Stop music and start digging holes in the garden." And twelve hours per day. That man has never done such hard work. He has always played on the organ. His hands are delicate; they are not those of a laborer: they are not of a manual worker.

Delicate, feminine hands, they know only one work -- they can touch the keys of the organ. That's all he has done his whole life, and now this man says.... But he started digging the next morning.

By the evening comes Gurdjieff and he says, "Good, very good. Now throw the earth back into the holes. Fill the holes. And unless you have filled them don't go to sleep." So again four, five hours he has to fill all the holes -- as they were -- because in the morning he will come to see. In the morning he is there and he says, "Good. Now dig other holes." And this goes on for three months.

Absurd activity, but if you have surrendered, you have surrendered. You don't need to bother about what he is doing. You have to surrender reasoning.

After three months that man has grown into a totally different being. Then Gurdjieff said, "Now you can play music." A new music has arisen; it was never there before. He has touched something of the unknown. He followed, he trusted, he went with Gurdjieff the whole way.

People who are trying to deceive will not stay there: they will immediately escape. With Krishnamurti they can stay, because nothing to work, nothing to meditate.... And Krishnamurti is right! But he is right only for one percent, and this is the problem that one percent will never go to listen to him. That one percent moves on his own. If he somehow comes across Krishnamurti, he will thank him. This is what Siddhartha did.

Siddhartha had come across Buddha. He listened to him, he felt the beauty, he felt the tremendous significance of whatsoever he was saying, he felt this man, he felt his attainment, he felt his enlightenment, his meditative energy touched his heart also, near him he felt the call of the unknown: but he understands his type.

With deep respect, with deep love, in sadness he departs. He says, "I would have liked being with you, but I know I have to go." He goes not because of the ego.

He goes not to seek another greater teacher. He goes because he knows that he cannot be a follower. There is no resistance in him; he listened without resistance; he understood Buddha. He understood so totally, that's why he had to go.

If Krishnamurti is understood really then you have to go. Then he is not the man to be around; then you have to go. You can be with Gurdjieff. You cannot be with Krishnamurti, because his whole teaching is to go alone, follow no path -- truth is pathless, the gate is gateless -- the method is only one and that is to be aware.

Nothing else is to be done. Once you have understood, you will feel thankful, you will pay your respects, and you will move on your way. But this is only for one percent of the people.

And remember, if you are not of that type, don't pretend to Be, because you cannot change your type. That is impossible. You have to use your type, and through using your type you have to go beyond.

Question 3

Yes, I answer your thoughts every morning whether you ask me or not, whether you write questions or not. I answer your thoughts because there is no personal God. What do I mean?

If there is a personal god then he will be much too occupied; it will be impossible to answer your question. He will be much too occupied -- the problems of the whole universe. This earth is not alone. Just think. If a person, a personal god, has to think about the problems and the anxieties and the worries and the questions only about this earth, then too he will go mad -- and this earth is nothing. This earth is just a speck of dust. Scientists say that it is almost certain that there must be fifty thousand earths with as much evolved life as this earth in the universe, and that is an understatement -- fifty thousand earths as much evolved as this earth, even more evolved. The more we can penetrate into the universe, the more boundaries go away -- and far away. The boundaries have disappeared; it is an unbounded universe. If there is a personal god, either he would have gone mad long before or he would have committed suicide.

Because there is not a personal god, things are simple. The whole existence is divine. There is no anxiety; nothing is overcrowded. Divineness is spread all over existence, not confined in a personal god.

When I answer your questions, if I am a person then it will be difficult. Then you are many and I am one. If all your minds jump on my mind I will go mad. But because there is nobody inside, madness is not possible. I am just an empty valley echoing. Not that there is somebody who echoes, just the empty valley echoing. Or I am just a mirror. You come in front of me you are mirrored. You are gone the reflection is gone.

I am not here in any personal way, just an emptiness; so it is not an effort on my part to answer your questions or your thoughts. Simply, because you are there I reflect you. And this is not an effort.

Somebody asked Michelangelo, "In your work there seems to be great inspiration." He said, "Yes, there is -- but only one percent. One percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." And he is right. With me there is no perspiration. It is a hundred percent inspiration. I am not thinking about your problems. I am not thinking about you at all. I am not worried about you. I am not trying to help you. You are there. I am here: just between the two, something transpires -- between my nothingness and your beingness something transpires which has nothing to do with me and which has nothing to do with you. Just an empty valley, and you sing a song, and the valley repeats, and the valley resounds it.

So it will make no difference whether you are here or in the West. If you feel any difference that will be because of you, not because of me. When you are close to me you feel more open. Just your idea, that because you are here, you feel more open. Then you go to the West, just your idea that now you are too far away, how can you be open -- you become closed. Just drop that idea, and wherever you are I am available; because this availability is not personal, so it is not a question of time and space. Go to the West, go to the farthest end of the earth, but remain in the same attitude.

Just try. Many of you will be going. Every morning, eight o'clock Indian time, just come as you come here, sit as you sit here, wait as you wait here, and immediately you will start feeling your thoughts are being answered. And it will be an even more beautiful experience than being close to me because then there will be nothing physical. It will be totally transcendental; it will be the purest possible. And then if you can do that, space disappears. Between a Master and a disciple there is no space.

And then another miracle is possible then one day you can drop time also.

Because someday I will leave this body; I will not be here. If you have not transcended time before I leave my body then I will become unavailable to you.

Not that I will be unavailable. I will remain available, but just your idea that now I am dead so how can you relate to me... you will become closed.

It is your idea. Drop that idea of time and space. So first try eight o'clock in the morning. Indian standard time, wherever you are, and then drop that Indian standard time also. Then try any time. First drop space, then drop time. And you will be so ecstatic to find that I am available wherever you are, Then there is no question.

Buddha died. Many started crying and weeping, but there were a few who just sat there. Manjushree was there, one of his great disciples. He was sitting under the tree; he remained the same. He heard, as if nothing has happened. It was one of the greatest events in the history of the world. Rarely a Buddha is born, so there is no question of Buddha dying; rarely it happens. Somebody came to Manjushree and he said. "What are you doing? Are you shocked so much that you cannot move? Buddha is dead!" Manjushree laughed and he said, "Before he died I dropped time and space. He will remain available to me wherever he is, so don't bring such absurd news to me." He never followed, he never went to see the dead body. He is quite at ease, relaxed. He knows that that availability was not confined to time or to space.

Buddha has remained available to those who are available to him. I will remain available to you if you are available to me, so learn how to be available to me.

Question 4

To ask about love in terms of more or less is stupid, because love can neither be more nor less. Either it is or it is not. It is not a quantity; it is a quality. It cannot be measured; it is immeasurable. You cannot say more, you cannot say less. The question is irrelevant, but lovers go on asking because they don't know what love is. Whatsoever they know must be something else. It cannot be love because love is not quantitative. How can you love more? How can you love less?

Either you love or you don't love.

Love surrounds you, fills you totally, or disappears completely and is not there...

not even a trace is left behind. Love is a totality. You cannot divide it; division is not possible. Love is indivisible. If you have not come across such love which is indivisible then be alert. Then whatsoever you have been thinking is love is a counterfeit coin. Drop it -- sooner the better -- and search for the real coin.

And what is the difference? The difference is when you love as a counterfeit coin, you are simply imagining that you love. It is a trick of the mind. You imagine that you love -- just as in the night, you have been hungry the whole day, fasting, and you go to sleep, and you dream that you are eating. Because man lives in such a loveless life, the mind goes on dreaming about love and creating false, absolutely false, dreams around you. They help you to live somehow, and that's why again and again dreams are broken, love is shattered, and again you start creating another dream -- but never becoming aware that these dreams are not going to help.

Somebody asked Gurdjieff how to love. He said, "First be. Otherwise all love will be false." If you are authentically there, really there, in full awareness, in concrete beingness, only then is love possible.

Love is like a shadow to a real being. Only a Buddha, a Christ, a Patanjali can love. You cannot love. Love is a function of being. You are still not a being; you are not aware enough to be in love.

Love needs the greatest awareness. Unconscious, asleep, snoring, you cannot love. Your love is more like hate than like love that's why your love can go sour in a single minute. Your love becomes jealousy any moment. Your love can become hatred any moment. Your love is not love enough. Your love is more like a hiding place, not an open sky. It is more a need, not like an independent flow.

More like dependence -- and all dependencies are ugly. Real love makes you free, gives you total freedom. It is unconditional. It asks for nothing. It simply gives and shares, and it is happy because the sharing was possible. It is thankful because you accepted.

It asks nothing. Much comes to it, that is another thing, but it asks nothing.

How is it possible to you right now? You are not there to flow. So you go on deceiving. Not only that you deceive others you deceive basically yourself. And that's why it is always happening. This anecdote is almost an everyday thing in every marriage. The husband is always worried whether the wife loves him or not. The wife is worried whether the husband loves her or not -- more or less; how much he loves.

Never ask this question. Always ask do you love, because it is not a question of the other. How much he loves. How much she loves, is a wrong question.

Always ask do you love. And if you don't love then seek to become more authentic, become more a being, true.

And sacrifice everything for it! It is worth it. All that you have is useless unless you have love. Sacrifice everything for it. Nothing is more valuable. All your Kohinoors are worthless unless you have attained to that quality which is called love. Then God is not needed: love is enough.

Sometimes I see that if people really love, the word "god" will disappear from the world: there will be no need. Love will be such a fulfillment it will replace God.

Now people go on talking about God because they are so unfulfilled in their lives. Love has not been there and they are trying with God, but God is a dead thing -- a marble statue, cold, not alive at all.

Love is the real God. Love is the only God. And you cannot have Cod more or less -- either you have or you have not. But search, a deep search is needed: a constant alertness is needed.

And remember one thing, if you can love you will be fulfilled. If you can love you will be able to celebrate, you will be able to feel grateful, you will be able to thank with your full heart. If you are capable of love, just being alive is a tremendous delight. Nothing more is needed: it is benediction.