Take the risk

The question is from Paritosh:

Question 1

The ego is the greatest dilemma, and it has to be understood. Otherwise you can go on and on ad infinitum creating a new ego fighting with the old.

What exactly is the ego? It is topdogging yourself. It is creating a division in yourself -- the division of the topdog and the underdog, the division of the superior and the inferior, the division of the saint and the sinner, the division of good and bad the division, basically, of God and devil. And you go on getting identified with the beautiful, with the hither, with the superior: and you go on condemning the lower.

If this division exists, then whatsoever you do there is an ego: you can drop it, and by dropping it you can create a superego. Then by and by the superego will start creating trouble for you, because all division is misery. Nondivision is bliss: division is misery. It will create new problems, new anxieties. Then again you can drop the superego and you can create a supersuperego -- ad infinitum you can go on. And this is not going to solve the problem. You are simply shifting it.

You are simply forcing it back. You are trying to avoid the problem.

I have heard about one Catholic who was a fanatic believer in the Virgin Mary and God and the Catholic theology. Then he got fed up, and then he dropped it and he became an atheist; and then he started saying, "There is no God, and Mary is his mother." Now the same old thing, and it has become even more absurd.

I have heard about a Jew, a very simple man, a tailor in a small town. One day he was not found in the temple. It was a religious day, and he had always been there, but lately rumors were spreading in the town that he has become an atheist. So the whole town was agog. It was a great event the tailor has turned atheist. It has never happened in that town; nobody has ever turned atheist. So the whole town went to the tailor's shop. They asked him, but he didn't say anything. He remained silent.

Another day they again approached him, because it became almost impossible to do anything in the town. The whole town was concerned about the tailor -- Why has he become an atheist? So they made a deputation, and the shoemaker of the town, who was a little aggressive, became the leader. They came to the tailor's shop, and the shoemaker went to him and asked. "Have you become an atheist?"

The tailor simply said. "Yes, I have become an atheist."

They could not believe their ears. They were not hoping that he would give such an outright answer, so they said, "Then why did you remain quiet yesterday?"

He said, "What! What do you mean! Should I accept that I have become an atheist on the day of the sabbath?"

Even if you become an atheist your old pattern continues.

I have heard about one atheist who was dying. The priest had come, and the priest said to the atheist, "Now this is time. Make peace with your God."

The atheist opened his eyes, said, "Thank God that I am an atheist."

It continues. You remain almost the same; only labels change.

Please, try to understand the ego. Don't create a superego. Just try to understand what this ego is.

Ego is a separation from the whole: thinking of yourself that you are separate from the whole. It is just a thought, not a reality. Just a fiction, not a truth. It is just a dream that you have created around yourself. You are not separate from the whole. You cannot be, because once you are separate you cannot exist. Then the life energy goes on flowing in you whether you think you are separate or not.

The whole doesn't bother about it. It goes on feeding and nursing you. It goes on "fueling" you.

But your idea that you are separate creates many anxieties in its wake. Once you think you are separate from the whole, immediately, you create a division inside also. All that is natural in you becomes inferior -- because it seems to belong to the whole. Sex becomes inferior because it seems to belong to the organic unity of the whole.

That's why all religions go on condemning sex. And I say to you unless sex is totally accepted nobody can become really religious, because religion is the transformation of the same energy. It is not a denial; it is a deep acceptance. Yes, it is a transformation. But transformation comes through deep acceptance.

Nature accepted becomes totally different. Nature denied, and everything goes sour and bitter in you; and then you create a hell.

The ego is always happy to condemn something because only by condemnation can you feel superior.

I was reading; it happened: Once in a church, the vicar in the pulpit said, "Stand up all who sinned last week." Half the congregation stood up. Then he said, "Stand up those who would have sinned if they had had the chance." The remainder of the congregation stood up.

A woman whispered to her husband, "It looks as if the vicar is the only good person here."

The bloke said, "Don't you believe it. He stood up before any of us."

The superego, which goes on condemning: the superego, which goes on telling you this is sin, this is evil, this is wrong, this is bad: is itself the only evil in the world, the only sin. So what to do? You can start condemning ego itself: then you will create a superego. Drop condemnation -- all condemnation -- and ego disappears without creating any superego in the wake. Drop all condemnation.

Who are you to judge? Who are you to say what is right and what is wrong?

Who are you to divide existence in two? Existence is one -- one organic unity. It is all one: day and night -- one: good and bad -- one. These divisions are of the ego, of man they are man-made. Just don't condemn.

If you condemn you will go on creating something or other. Stop condemning and see you will find there is no ego left. So ego is not the real problem. The real problem is condemnation, judgment, division. Forget about the ego, because whatsoever you will do with the ego will create another ego.

There are as many egos as there are persons. Somebody has a very worldly ego, and then somebody has a very religious ego. Somebody goes on saying how much he possesses, and then somebody says how much he has renounced.

A so-called saint was dying, and the disciples had gathered. Those were the last moments, and they were talking near the bed, talking about their Master.

Somebody said, "Never again will there be a man who was so moral." Then somebody else said, "I have learned much. I have never come across a man who knows so much. We will miss him for ever and ever." Then somebody else said something else: somebody said that' he has renounced the whole world: and this way they were talking, talking about their Master who was going to die. They talked about his knowledge, they talked about his renunciation, they talked about his ascetic ways, they talked about his disciplined character: and then the dying Master opened his eyes and he said, "Nobody is saying anything about my humbleness?"

Then humbleness becomes the ego. Then humility becomes the garb of the ego.

Then ego becomes pious. And when any poison becomes pious it becomes more poisonous.

So if you understand me rightly, please don't start condemning the ego.

Otherwise you will create a superego, and then you will feel a disquiet because divided, continuously topdogging yourself, how can you be at ease? Drop condemnation. Stop topdogging yourself. Accept as you are. Not only accept, welcome. Not only welcome, rejoice in it. And suddenly you will see there is no ego, there is no superego. They have never been there. You were creating them: you were the creators of them.

Man has created only one thing, and that is ego. Everything else is created by God.

Question 2

This is from Anand Bodhisattva. Any experience, any experience whatsoever, is not going to be enough. The experience of work, the experience of love, even the experience of meditation, or call it the experience of God; no experience is going to be enough because all experiences are outside you. You remain hidden behind the experience. You are the witness. Experience is happening to you, but you are not it. So whatsoever the experience, no experience will ever be total because the experiencer, the one who is experiencing, is always greater than the experience.

And the difference between the experience and the experiencer always remains -- the gap -- and that gap goes on saying, "Yes, something is happening but not enough, More is needed."

That is the misery of the human mind. That's why the mind goes on asking for more, more, more. You earn money and the mind says, "More." You make a house: the mind says, "Make bigger." You create a kingdom and the mind says, "A bigger kingdom is needed." Then you start meditating and the mind says, "Not enough. There are many more peaks to be attained." And this will remain so because it is something in the very nature of the experience that the experience can never be total.

Then what can be total? Then what can be fulfilling? Remain a witness; don't be lost in the experience. Don't be lost. Just remain alert. Know that this is a passing mood: it will pass. Good or bad, beautiful or ugly, happy or unhappy -- a cloud passing by: you remain silent watching it. Don't get identified with it. Otherwise love will not fulfill, neither meditation, because in fact what is meditation?

Meditation is not an experience: it is to become aware of the witness. Just look.

Just watch, and remain centered in the watcher, and then anything is total.

Otherwise nothing is total. Then everything and anything is fulfilling: otherwise nothing is fulfilling.

If you remain a witness, just taking a bath, a shower, is so fulfilling that you cannot expect more. Just taking your breakfast is so fulfilling. Just sipping tea is such a tremendous delight, you cannot think, you cannot imagine, that more is possible. Then each moment becomes a diamond unto itself, and each experience becomes a flowering -- but you remain alert. You are not lost in the experience: you don't get identified with it.

I can understand, Bodhisattva. You are trying hard. You are working, meditating. You are doing whatsoever a man can do. More you cannot do. Even if you can do more, that is not going to help. Now the point has come to understand: Be the witness. Let experiences pass. Let them come and go. Don't be distracted by them. Don't be pulled in by them. Remain alert, unconcerned -- just watching the traffic, watching the clouds in the sky. Be a watcher and suddenly you will see small things have become deep fulfillments -- just a small bird singing, or just a small flower opening.

There is a haiku of Baso. In Japan there flowers a very small flower, nazuna. It is so small and so common and so ordinary and so poor that nobody talks about it.

Poets talk about roses. Who talks about a nazuna? It is a gross flower. In many languages there is no name for it because who bothers to name it? People pass by; nobody looks at it. The day Baso attained his first satori he came out of his cottage and he saw a nazuna flowering. And he says in his haiku, "For the first time I saw the beauty of a nazuna. It is tremendous. All paradises put together are nothing."

How did a nazuna become so beautiful? And Baso says, "It was always there, and I had passed it millions of times, but I had not seen it before" -- because Baso was not there. The mind sees only that which can be fulfilling to the ego. Who bothers about a nazuna? It is in no way fulfilling. A lotus is okay, a rose will do, but a nazuna, an ordinary gross flower, so poor, so beggarly, needs nobody's attention, attracts nobody, calls nobody.... But that day, that morning, the sun rising, and Baso saw a nazuna; he says, "For the first time I encountered the reality of a nazuna" -- but that happened only because he had encountered his own reality.

The moment you have become a witness -- that's what satori is, samadhi is -- the moment you have become a witness everything takes a different color. Then ordinary green is no longer ordinary green; it becomes extraordinarily green.

Then nothing is ordinary. When you are a witness everything becomes extraordinary, superb.

Jesus says to his disciples, "Look at the lily in the field." An ordinary lily flower -- it is not ordinary for Jesus, because Jesus is in a totally different space. The disciples must have wondered why he is talking about the lily, what is there to talk about. But Jesus said, "Even Solomon in al his glory was nothing, in al his splendor was nothing before this flower lily." Even Solomon. Solomon is the richest, the greatest emperor of Jewish myth -- even he was nothing. Before this ordinary lily? Jesus must have seen something which we are missing.

What has he seen? If you become a witness, the world opens all its mysteries to you. Then I say everything is fulfilling.

Somebody asked a great Zen Master, "After you attained your satori, what have you been doing?" He said, "Chopping wood, carrying water. When hungry eating, when tired sleeping." Everything is beautiful. Chopping wood, carrying water from the well....

Just think. Just contemplate a little.

Nikos Kazantzakis in his novel on St. Francis has St. Francis talk to an almond tree. St. Francis comes, the almond tree is there, and St. Francis says, "Sister, sing me something about God." And the almond tree blossomed. That's the way the almond tree sings about God. It blossoms in your garden also, but you are not there to say to it, "Sister, sing of God. Say something about God." A St. Francis is needed. The almond tree goes on blossoming in our garden also. A thousand and one flowers blossom in your life, but you are not there.

Come back home, become a witness, and then everything work, love, meditation -- everything is a fulfillment. Everything is so total, so infinitely total, that the idea of more simply disappears; and when your mind is not concerned about the more, then you start living, never before it.

I understand your anxiety -- "I want you to destroy me, Osho, once and for all." If I can do it, I would have done it already. If it is only up to me, then I will not wait for you. I will not even ask your permission. But it is not up to me. You have to cooperate. In fact, I am just an excuse -- you have to do it.

And don't be in a hurry: don't be impatient. Great patience is needed. But in the West impatience has become part of the mind. People have forgotten the beauty of patience.

I was reading an anecdote: The doctor was explaining the new recovery technique to his patient.

"You should begin walking as soon as possible after the operation. On the first day you must walk around for five minutes, the second day for ten minutes, and on the third day you must walk for a full hour. Do you understand?" "Yes, doctor," said the apprehensive patient, "but is it all right if I lie down during the operation?"

Become a little more patient. You are on the operation table. Please rest and cooperate with me because this is not an operation which can be done in your unconsciousness. This is not an operation where anesthesia can be given to you.

The whole operation has to be done when you are conscious. In fact the more conscious you are, the more easily it can be done -- because the whole surgery is of consciousness. I cannot do it against you: I cannot do it without your cooperation. I cannot do it unless you are totally with me.

In fact you yourself do it by being totally with me: I am just an excuse. The day it will happen, you will understand that I have not done it, you have done it yourself. I have only given you a little confidence to do it. I have only given you a promise that it is possible. I have only given you an assurance that you are not going astray, that you are on the right path, that's all.

In this operation, the patient is the surgeon also. The surgeon stands by the side.

Just his presence is helpful -- you don't feel afraid, you don't feel alone.

And it is good that nobody else can do it to you because if somebody else can make you free, your freedom will not be real freedom. If somebody else can make you free, then somebody else can make you a slave again. Nobody can make you free. Freedom is your choice. That's why it is ultimate, then nobody can take it away from you. If it can be given then it can be taken away. Because it cannot be given, it cannot be taken away.

I cannot really help you. If you want you can take all the help that is possible through me. Let me explain it to you.

I cannot help because I cannot be positively aggressive towards you.-l cannot kill you, but through me you can commit suicide. You get it? Through me you can commit suicide: I cannot kill you. I am available. You can help yourself through me. And the day it will happen you will understand, only then, that you could have done it even alone, but right now it is almost impossible to do it alone. Even with me it is so difficult to do it.

Don't be impatient, wait, and get more and more in tune with your witnessing self.

It is very easy when there is pain, suffering, not to get identified, but the real problem arises when you are deep in love, happy, blissful, deep in meditation, ecstatic. Then it is very difficult not to get identified, but there hangs the whole thing. That is the very core. Remember it, when you feel blissful: then too remain alert that this too is a mood; it comes and goes. The cloud has come: it will pass.

It is a beautiful cloud. Thank it, thank God, but let it remain separate. Don't rush and don't become one with it. In that identification the idea of more arises.

If you can remain aloof, a watcher on the hill, unconcerned, the idea of more does not arise. Why? Because when the watcher becomes identified with the experience it becomes mind, and mind is a desire for more. When the watcher remains just a watcher and the experience there, just outside passing like a cloud, there is no mind. Between the two there is a space; no bridge. In that unbridged state there is no desire for more -- there is no desire at all. One remains fulfilled.

One remains absolutely content.

It is on the way, Bodhisattva. Don't be in a hurry and don't be impatient.

Question 3

This seems still to be a belief, not an understanding. Belief is not going to help.

Belief means borrowed; belief means you have not understood it yet. You may have become fascinated with it, you may have seen people who have risked and grown through it, but you have still not realized that risk is the only way to live; there is no other way. Not to risk is the only wrong there is; to risk is never wrong.

You cannot risk wrongly because if you are always afraid not to risk, something may go wrong, then you are not risking at all. If everything is guaranteed and then you risk, and everything is settled that everything is right, then you risk -- then where is the risk? No, in the risk, the possibility to go wrong that's why it is risk. And it is beautiful to move in that openness where something can be right, something can be wrong.

One grows through it because even if you commit a wrong, you will never be the same again. Through committing it you will understand much. Even if you go astray you can come back the moment you realize it. And when you come back you have learned something -- and learned the hard way. Not just memorized, it has become part of your blood, bones, and marrow. So never be afraid of going astray. People who are afraid of going astray, they become paralyzed. They never move.

And life is risk because life is alive; it is not dead. Only in a grave is there no risk.

When you are dead there is no risk.

One disciple asked Lao Tzu, "Is it not possible to be at ease, comfortable in life?"

Lao Tzu said. "Wait. Soon you will die, and in the grave you can be at ease and comfortable forever and forever -- for eternity.

Don't waste life for that, because that is coming. These few moments live. And there is no other way to live: to live means to risk. It is always there. It has to be so because you are a flow. You can go astray.

I have heard about a man who was always afraid of deciding, but one has to decide. So he had to decide, and whatsoever he would decide would always go wrong, and it had become almost a part of his life. And he knew it, that whatsoever he decided will go wrong. The business will bring no profit; the train that he decides to go on, he will miss; the woman that he decides to marry will fall in love with somebody else. He was always missing.

One day it happened, he had to go to another town for some business work and there was only one airline and only one plane -- there was no question of decision. So he was very happy because there is no question of decision; there is no alternative. He had to take that plane. But just in the middle, the engines failed.

He was very much worried; he said, "My God! This time I have not decided.

There was no alternative. Now this is too much. If something is wrong with me and my decision it's okay, but this time I have not decided at all. You have decided." He was a follower of St. Francis, so he called, "St. Francis, save me! At least this time. I have never asked your help because I was always deciding so I knew it was because something is wrong with me that everything goes wrong.

This time I am not at fault.

A hand from the sky came and took him out of the plane. He was very happy.

Then a voice was heard in the sky, "Which Francis? Francis Xavier, or Francis of Assisi? Tell me whom you have called!" Now again.... You cannot escape. Life is always risk. One has to choose. Through choice you grow; through choice you become mature. Through choice you fall and you get up again.

Don't be afraid of falling: otherwise your legs will lose the capacity to move.

Nothing is wrong in falling. Falling is part of walking: falling is part of life. Fall, get up again, and every fall will make you stronger: and every time you go astray you will come back better, more experienced, more aware. Next time the same path will not be able to distract you. Commit as many errors as you can -- only don't commit the same error again and again.

Nothing is wrong in committing errors. Commit as many as you can -- the more you can the better, because the more experience, the more awareness will come to you. Don't remain sitting, don't remain hanging in an indecisive state of mind.

Decide! Not to decide is the, only wrong decision because then you are missing everything.

It is said about Thomas Edison that he was working on some project and he failed one thousand times. For almost three years he worked continuously, and he would fail. He tried everything, nothing seemed to work. His disciples became desperate, hopeless. One day one disciple said. "You have done one thousand experiments. Every experiment has failed. We seem not to be moving anywhere." Edison looked surprised; he said, "What are you saying? What do you mean? Not moving anywhere? One thousand wrong doors are closed: now the right door cannot be very far away. We have committed one thousand errors that much we have learned. What do you mean by saying that we are wasting our time? These one thousand errors cannot attract us anymore. We are coming, we are zeroing upon the truth. How long can it escape?"

Never be afraid of errors, mistakes, of going wrong.

This question is from Prem Nisha. She is always afraid. She is so much afraid she sits somewhere hiding; I can never see her. Maybe just my look and there may be risk. She goes on hiding herself. I know she is there, every day she is there, but she sits in such a way, somewhere behind the pillar, that I cannot see her. Or even sometimes she is in front of me: she sits with her head so bent down that I cannot recognize where she is.

Life is moving. You can remain sitting: then your life will be like a death. Get up and be moving. Take the risk.

Her situation is like a little boy:

Wise Winifred returned from summer camp with awards for woodcraft, hiking, and sailing; and also with a small star. Asked what the star was for, he replied, "For having my trunk packed neatly when we came home." His mother was very pleased until Winifred added, "I had not unpacked it."

Nisha, unpack! Don't be afraid that you may not be able to pack it again so neatly. A little mess is good; nothing is wrong about it. But remaining with the unopened life, closed, is the only wrong you can do to life. That is refusal. That is refusing God. The whole has created you to live here, to live as profoundly as possible -- to live as dangerously as possible. The whole wanted you to be so alive, alive at the peak -- wildly alive that's why you are sent. And you arc afraid something may go wrong.

God is not afraid in sending you. He is not afraid. He goes on sending all sorts of people -- good people, wrong people, saints and sinners. He goes on. He is not afraid. If he was afraid the world would have disappeared long before, or it would never have Some into existence. If he was afraid, "If I create people and they do something wrong, if man goes astray...." In fact the first man Adam went astray. Man has to go that way. He created the first man, and he rebelled and disobeyed and he took the risk of getting out of the comfort of the garden of Eden, of the convenience. He took the, dangerous path. Just think of Adam -- what risk. And God has not stopped since then. Otherwise he would have stopped. There is no need. He created the first man, and the first man went astray -- now no need. He goes on creating.

In fact it seems that God created the whole situation. He said to Adam, "Don't eat the fruit of this tree." This was temptation. Christians are absolutely wrong when they say that the devil tempted Adam absolutely wrong. God tempted when he said, "Don't eat the fruit of this tree of knowledge." What more temptation can you imagine? Just try with any child. Tell him not to go into that room, and the next thing that he is going to do is to go into that room.

Just a small sannyasin, Dheeresh, was going back to London. I gave him a box and told him not to open it. He said. "Yes, I will not open it." And then I talked to his mother, and again I told him, "Remember not to open it." He said, "I will never open it." The mother said. "He has already opened it!" It is God who tempted. When he said to Adam, "Don't eat the fruit of this tree."

there is no need for any devil. God is the greatest tempter because he wants you to go, to experience, to move all over existence. Even if you go astray you cannot go out of him. Where can you go? Even if you do wrong, what wrong can you do, because he is and only he is? You cannot do anything against him. There is no possibility. It is just a game of hide-and-seek. God sends you, gives you a temptation -- because that is the only way to grow.

Yes, you will come back someday. Adam goes out of the garden, Jesus comes back. Jesus is Adam coming back. It is the return, the return journey. Jesus is Adam who has realized, who has become aware of the error, of the mistake: but Jesus is not possible if there is no Adam in the beginning.

A priest was talking to small children and he was telling them how to pray to God, how your mistakes can be forgiven. Then he asked questions; he asked. "To be forgiven what is the basic requirement?" A small child stood and said, "To sin."

To commit a mistake: to be forgiven that's a must. Adam is needed for Jesus to be. Adam is the beginning of going astray: Jesus is coming back.

But Jesus is totally different from Adam. Adam was innocent. Jesus is wise -- innocent plus something more. That plus has come to him because he went astray. Now he knows more, understands the ways of life and growth more.

Everybody has to enact this drama again and again. You have to be Adam to become a Jesus. Don't be worried. Take courage. Don't be a coward. Move.

And I tell you even going astray is all right. Just don't do the same mistake again and again, that's enough -- because if you do the same mistake again, again, then you are stupid. If you never do the mistake then you are worse than stupid. If you do new mistakes every day, you will become wise. Wisdom comes through experience, and you cannot have it in any other way. There is no shortcut to it.

"I have a belief that in order to grow I have to take risks...." Drop this belief. It is not a question of belief. Watch life; watch yourself. Let this become an insight, not a belief. Not that I say so that you believe, but try to understand that you will remain crippled if you are afraid and you don't move. If a child is afraid and does not try to walk.... And everybody knows he will fall many times -- he may have wounds, he may hurt himself -- this is going to happen; but that's the only way to learn. By and by he learns how to balance. Watch a child trying to walk.

First he moves on four, then he tries the greatest adventure of standing on two feet.

I call it the greatest because the whole of humanity has come out of that adventure. Animals go on moving on four: only man has tried two. Animals move with more safety. Man has been a little fascinated, more fascinated, with danger -- he tried to move on two.

Just think of the first man who must have stood on two feet. He must have been one of the most unorthodox, nonconformist of men -- the greatest revolutionary, the rebel -- and everybody would have laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Just think when everybody was walking on four and suddenly one man stood on two feet: the whole Society must have laughed. They must have said, "What?... what are you doing? Have you gone mad? Nobody has ever walked on two. You will fall; you will break your bones. Come down, come back to the old way." And it is good that man never listened to them. They must have laughed. They must have tried in every way to put him back in the old fold, but he moved.

Those conservatives are still in the trees. The monkeys, the baboons -- they are the conservatives, the Tories. The revolutionary has become man. They are still clinging to the trees and moving on four. They may be still thinking, "And why have these people gone wrong? What misfortune has befallen them?"

But if you try something new, you become available to something new at the same moment, instantly. Don't be afraid. Move, in the beginning, small steps, small decisions, remaining always aware that something is always possible, you may go wrong. But what is wrong in being wrong? Come back. You will come more wise.

Don't let it be just a belief. Let it become an understanding. Only then does it become effective.

"... and in order to take risks I have to make decisions." Of course, one has to make decisions. That is one of the most beautiful things in life. That shows that you are free. You would have liked that somebody else decide for you: then you will be slaves. In that way animals are in a better position -- everything is decided. They have a fixed food to eat; they have a fixed pattern of life to live.

They don't decide themselves; they are never confused.

Man is the only animal who is always confused, but that is his glory because he has to decide. He is always hesitating, always hanging between two alternatives - - St. Francis of Assisi, St. Francis Xavier -- and always risky. Just think of that man. If that hand is from St. Francis of Assisi and he says St. Francis Xavier -- gone. But one has to decide. Through decision your soul is born; you become integrated.

Decide, whatsoever your decision. Don't go on remaining indecisive. If you are indecisive you will always be doing something contradictory. You will be moving in both the ways together, simultaneously -- because indecisive, also, you have to live. Fifty percent you will be going towards the north, fifty percent towards the south. Then there is misery, anguish, suffering.

A man rushed into the income tax office and grasped the manager by the lapels.

"Look. I am in a bit of a state. My wife has disappeared," he said.

"Has she?" said the inland revenue officer. "That's unfortunate, I guess, but this is the taxation department. You ought really to inform the police."

The man shook his head earnestly and replied, "l know. I am not being caught like that again. The last time she went I told the police, and they found her."

Then why go at all to report to the income tax officer? But part says something has to be done the wife has disappeared, the husband has to do something.

Another part feels happy and says, "Good that she has disappeared. Don't go to the police station; they may find her again."

This is how life goes on -- half/half -- and then you become fragmentary. The husband, the respectable husband, has to do something; and the man, who needs freedom, has to do something else. He is happy that the wife is gone. The husband looks sad -- or pretends to be sad -- shows his misery, is afraid that because of the inner man people may become aware that he is feeling happy.

That will not be good: that will be shattering to the respectable ego. So he has to do something. He cannot go to the police station: then he goes somewhere else.

Watch your life. Don't waste your life that way.

Decision is needed. You have to decide each moment. Each moment lost without decision creates fragmentariness in you. Each moment decided, by and by you become collected, one piece, you become together. A moment comes, you become integrated. Decision is not really the thing: decisiveness. Through decisions you become decisive.

It happened once:

A terrified young woman patient went to the dentist and sat in the waiting room.

She had her sister with her to look after the three-month-old baby. Soon it was her turn to go into the torture chamber.

As she sat in the operating chair, she said nervously to the dentist,"l don't know which is the worst -- to have a tooth taken or to have a baby."

The dentist said, curtly, "Well, make your mind up quickly please. I have got a lot of other people waiting."

And I would like to say that to Nisha also. She has been hanging around here.

Make up your mind. Decide. Just hanging around is not good. Either be here or be somewhere else, but be. If you want to be here then be here, but then be totally here. Then this place becomes your whole world and this moment becomes your whole eternity. Or don't be here, but don't go on hanging. Be somewhere else, that too is good. Then be there. It is not a question of where you are. The question is, "Are you there?" Don't remain divided. Don't go on moving in all directions: otherwise you will go mad.

Surrender is a decision, the greatest decision there is. To trust somebody is a decision. The risk is there. Who knows? The man may be just deceiving. You fall in love with a woman: you trust. You fall in love with a man; you trust. Who knows? In the night the man may murder you. Who knows? The wife may escape with all your bank balance. But one risks: otherwise love is not possible.

Hitler never allowed any woman to sleep in his room. Even his girlfriends were never allowed. He would see them in the day, but in the night not in the room.

He was so afraid. Who knows? The girl may poison him, strangle him in the night. Just think, the misery of such a man. He cannot even trust a woman. What a life he must have led, a life of hell. Not only did he live in hell, all those who were around him lived in hell.

It is reported that he was talking to a British diplomat on the seventh story of his building, and he was trying to impress upon the British diplomat that there was no use in resisting him, simply surrender: and he said, "We are going to win the world. Nobody can prevent us." One soldier was standing there. Just to give an example he said, "Jump out of the window." The soldier simply jumped -- out of a window seven stories high. The British diplomats could not believe it. The soldier didn't even hesitate. And then to make the point even more clear he said to another soldier, "Jump!" and the other jumped. Now this was too much. And to make the point go exactly to the heart of the diplomat he said to the third soldier. Jump!" But by that time the diplomat had become afraid and shocked: he took hold of the man, the soldier who was going to jump. He said, "Wait! Why are you so ready to commit suicide? Why are you so unhesitant to leave your life?"

The man said, "Leave me alone! You call this life?" And he jumped.

Hitler lived in a hell and he created a hell for others also -- "You call this life?"

If love is not there life is not possible. Life deeply means love: love deeply means life. Love is a trust, a risk.

To be near me is to be tremendously in love because that is the only way to be near me. I am not here just trying to propagate some teachings. I am not a teacher. I am giving you a different vision of life. It is risky: I am trying to convince you that the way you have lived up to now is basically wrong, there is another way -- but of course that other way is unknown, is in the future. You have never tasted it. You will have to trust me; you will have to move with me in the dark. The fear will be there: the danger will be there. It is going to be painful - - all growth is -- but through pain one reaches to the ecstasy. Only through pain is ecstasy reached.

Question 4

I am never replying, ever, only verbally. Whenever I am replying to you, the reply is two-dimensional. It is on two planes together. One is the verbal: that is for those who cannot understand any other dimension -- that is for the deaf and the blind and the dead. Then simultaneously on another plane there is a nonverbal communication: that is for those who can hear, who can see, who are alive.

And never ask for my blessings, because they are always there whether you ask for them or not. Whether you cooperate with me or not, whether you are for me or against, that does not make any difference to my blessings. My blessing is not an act. It is just like breathing: it is always there. If you can feel, you will find it always there. I am my blessings.

And you have stumbled upon a right method: "During meditation I invoke your emptiness and I find that gradually your emptiness pervades over me. Can 1, by this method, imbibe your total being?" Yes, absolutely yes. Go on, don't be afraid, because emptiness will sooner or later give you a deep fear -- because emptiness means death. Emptiness means you are disappearing, and before your reality opens, you will have to be gone from there completely. You will have to be absent before you can feel the presence of your reality. Before you can feel the fullness of being, you will have to become absolutely empty. There is a gap -- you become absolutely empty, almost. There is a small gap and that gap is deathlike. You are gone and God has not entered yet, just a small interval, but that small interval looks like infinity.

In a court there was a case, a murder case, but the jurors and the judge were going to decide that the man is innocent Because there were reliable witnesses who said that only for three minutes had he gone out and then he was again back amidst them. Only for three minutes was he not there with them, and it seems too much to commit a murder in three minutes. Then the lawyer from the opposite party said, "Let me try one experiment." He took his pocket watch out and he said, "Now, everybody should close his eyes and remain silent. After three minutes I will give you a hint that three minutes are over." Everybody remained silent.

If you remain silent for three minutes, three minutes is long, very long; they last very long. They appear very long, nonending. Have you ever stood -- somebody dies, a political leader or somebody, and you have to stand for one minute in silence. That one minute looks so long that you start thinking that this political leader should not have died.

Three minutes... and after three minutes were over, the lawyer said, "I have nothing else to say." And the jurors decided that this man had committed the murder. They changed their verdict. Three minutes are so long.

Whenever you are silent, one moment of silence will be very, very long. And it is impossible to imagine what happens when you are absent a single moment may be the gap, but it looks almost like eternity. One gets very much afraid. One wants to go back, to hold to the past.

Soon that fear will arise. Remember that time, don't be afraid. Don't go back; don't fall back. Move on. Accept death, because only out of death the life abundant. Only when you die, you attain to the deathless.

It is always there waiting for you. It is not something outside you; it is your very core of being, the deathless. But you are identified with the mortal, with the body, with the mind. These are momentary, changing. Somewhere within you there is pure consciousness, untouched, uncorrupted. That pure consciousness is your real nature.

The whole yoga is an effort to reach to that purity of being, to that virginity and out of that virgin, Jesus is born. Once you have touched that virginity in you, you are reborn; it is a resurrection.

Let me be your death so that you can be reborn again. A Master is a death and a life, a cross and a resurrection. You have stumbled upon an exactly right method.

Now go ahead. Imbibe that emptiness more and more, become empty. Soon, everything changes -- emptiness disappears. First everything else disappears and emptiness gathers inside you, then when the emptiness is total it also disappears.

Buddha used to say to his disciples, about this phenomenon, "It is as if you burn a candle in the evening." The whole night the candle goes on burning; the flame burns the candle, the stuff of the candle. The flame goes on burning it. The candle goes on disappearing, disappearing, disappearing.... By the morning the candle has disappeared. The last moment, when the candle has completely disappeared, the flame jumps and is gone. First it destroys the candle, then it itself is gone.

The same happens first if you try to imbibe emptiness, nothingness, egolessness, it will destroy everything else. It will remain like a Flame destroying everything.

When everything is destroyed and you are completely empty a jump of the flame, and emptiness is also gone. Suddenly you are back home, fulfilled, overflowing. That's where a man becomes a god.