Your balloon is missing

Question 1

THE first thing to be understood is: what is ego. The ego is not very substantial. In fact it is not. It is just an idea, a substitute without which it will be difficult for you to live. Because you don't know who you are, you have to create a certain idea about yourself; otherwise you will simply go mad. You have to fix some indicators so that you can know, "Yes, this is me."

I have heard, once a fool came to a big city. He stayed in a dharmasala. There were many people there; he had never slept before with so many people. He was a little worried and scared. The fear was that when he will fall asleep, in the morning when he will be awake again, how will he recognize that he is really himself. So many people. He had always slept in his room, alone, so there was no problem because there was no possibility. Of course, he was always himself, but here with so many people sleeping around, a crowd, he may get lost. It's okay while you are awake, you can continue remembering yourself, but while asleep you may miss; you may forget. By the morning you may get confused; you may be lost in the crowd.

Seeing him so worried and sitting in his bed, somebody asked, "What is the matter with you? Why don't you go to sleep?" He explained his problem. The man laughed; he told him, "This is very simple. Look in that comer; some child has left his balloon. Bring it and tie it to your feet so by the morning you will perfectly know that it is you if the balloon is there."

The fool said, "That's right." And he had to sleep, he was so tired, so he fastened the balloon with a string to his feet and went to sleep.

The man played a joke. In the night, when the fool was snoring, he took the balloon off his feet and fastened it to his own feet. By the morning, when the fool looked around, he started crying and weeping. A crowd gathered, and they asked, "What is the matter?" He said, "Now I perfectly know that he is me, but who am I?" Now this is the problem.

The ego is because you don't know who you are. So a name, an address, a certain face that you have seen reflected in the mirror, in the photographs, the album - these all help. They are balloons fastened to you.

If suddenly one day in the mirror you see that this is not the face you have always been accustomed to seeing, you will go mad - the balloon is missing. The face is constantly chang. ing, but the change is so slow that you never recognize it. Just go back home and see the album of your childhood. You know that it is you, that's why you don't see much difference, but just ponder over it. How much you have changed. The face is not you; because deep down something has remained permanent in you. And your name can be changed; I do it every day. I go on changing your names just to give you a feeling that the name is just a balloon fastened to you, it can be changed, so that you get disidentified with the name.

The ego is nothing but a false substitute for the self. So when you know who you are, there is no possibility of ego arising again.

You ask me, "Can the thought of enlightenment create an ego?" The thought can create if it is only a thought. Then in fact it is not good to say that it can create: the ego is already there. The thought is already thought by the ego. If the ego has disappeared and you have really become enlightened....

And that is the meaning of enlightenment: the shift from the ego to the self, the shift from the unreal to the real, the shift from the mind to no mind, the shift from the body to the embodied. Once you know who you are, I cannot see that somebody can persuade you to tie a balloon to your feet to remember yourself. It is impossible.

An enlightened person cannot be egoistic. Whatsoever he says.... Their assertions may look very egoistic to you. Krishna says in the Geeta to Arjuna, to his disciple, "Leave everything and come to my feet. I am the very God who has created this world." Very egoistic. Can you find a more egoistic person? Listen to what Jesus says: "My father in heaven and I both are one." He is saying, "I am God." Very egoistic. Mansoor declared, "I am truth, the very truth, the ultimate truth" - "ANA'LHAQ."

Mohammedans were very much annoyed; they killed him. Jews killed Jesus. Very egoistic assertions? The Upanishads say, "Aham brahmasmi" - "I am the whole, the total." But they are not egoistic; you misunderstand them. Whatsoever they are saying is true.

I have heard about one man who was worried very much about his inferiority complex, so he went to an Adlerian psychoanalyst. And he said to the psychoanalyst, "I am suffer ing very much from an inferiority complex. Can you help me?" The psychologist looked at him and said, "But you are inferior. It is not a question of inferiority complex. You are inferior, so what can I do?"

When Krishna says, "I am God," he is. He is not being egoistic. What can he do? If he says, "I am not," that will be untrue. If he behaves politely, as the so called mahatmas do - that I am just dust underneath your feet - he will be untrue; he will be false. He will be hiding the fact. When Mansoor says, "I am the truth," he is.

But the problem is not with Mansoor, Krishna, or Jesus; the problem is with you. You cannot understand the language of nonego. You go on interpreting it in your own ways.

Let me tell you one anecdote: A grocer had a beautiful parrot who kept him company, amused his customers, and in his absence took care of the shop.

One day when he stepped out for ablutions and the parrot was watching the shop from a top shelf, the grocer's cat jumped on a mouse without any warning. The parrot was so frightened that he flew across the shop and knocked down a jar of almond oil.

When the grocer returned, he saw the scene and was seized with anger. He took a stick and hit the parrot on the head repeatedly until the poor bird's skull was stripped of all its feathers.

The parrot, bald and dejected, sat on a corner shelf. For days he didn't open his mouth. The grocer, who was now very remorseful of his act, tried every trick on his abused companion. He even sought his customers' help.

But it was all in vain; the parrot didn't talk.

One day, as the bird was sitting in his usual silence, a bald dervish came to the shop. Immediately the parrot landed down on the counter and said, "So you too knocked down a jar of almond oil!"

He understands that he has become bald because he knocked down an almond jar. Now there comes a dervish who is also bald; immediately the interpretation. We understand the language that we have lived up to now.

An enlightened person has no ego - has no humbleness either. Humbleness is a very polished ego.

When ego disappears, humbleness also disappears.

An enlightened person knows who he is, so there is no need to carry the false identity. It was needed before; otherwise you would have got lost in the crowd. It would have been impossible to live without it. The ego is a need while you are ignorant, but when you become enlightened, it simply drops on its own accord. It is as if a blind man gropes with his stick when he walks; he can ask, "When one's eyes are cured does he carry a stick to grope, or not?" What will we say? We will say, "When the eyes are cured, the stick is dropped. Who carries the stick? Why? And Why should one grope when the eyes are there?" The stick and the groping are a substitute - a very poor substitute at that - but it is needed when one is blind.

Now the question has to be understood: "Is it possible to be conscious of enlightenment, and be enlightened? Can the thought of being enlightened create ego in one?" If the ego is there, there is no need to create it - it is already there and the thought of enlightenment is created by it. If the ego has dropped and really the awareness, the consciousness, the self, has arisen out of darkness - the sunrise has happened - then nothing can create the idea of the ego - nothing whatsoever. You can declare you are God; even that will not create the egoistic old pattern - nothing can create it.

"Is it possible to be conscious of enlightenment...?" Enlightenment is consciousness. Again you use your language. I can understand it, but it is wrong. You cannot be conscious of consciousness; otherwise you will become a victim of infinite regression. Then you will be conscious of your consciousness of consciousness, and so on, so forth ad infinitum. Then there will be no end: one consciousness, you will be conscious of it; second consciousness, you will be conscious of it; third consciousness.... And you can go on. No, that is not needed; one consciousness is enough.

So when one is enlightened one is conscious, but one is not conscious of consciousness. One is perfectly conscious, but there is no object in it. One is simply conscious, as if a light goes on enlightening the emptiness around it. There is no object, there is nothing the light can fall upon. It is pure consciousness. The object has disappeared; your subject has flowered into totality. Now there is no object - and hence, there can be no subject. The object and subject both have disappeared.

You are simply conscious. Not conscious of anything, just conscious. You are consciousness.

Let me explain it to you from some other dimension which may be more easy to understand. When you love, if you have ever loved, you are not a lover: you become love. Not that you do something.

You are not a doer, so how can you call yourself a lover? The right expression will he that "you are love."

When people come to me and I see great promise in their eyes, I don't say, "You are promising." I say, "You are promise." And see the difference. When somebody says to somebody, "You are promising," it is not much. But, "You are promise"it has tremendous value in it. When you say to somebody, "You are promising," you mean that this man appears to have something that you would like or may be used for some ambition of yours. When a father says to the son, "You are promising," he means, "I wanted to become very rich; I could not do that. You will be able to do it - you are promising." It is the father's ambition which he is seeing can he fulfilled through the son.

When I say to you, "You are promise," I have no ambition to fulfill through you. I simply make a statement about you; it has nothing to do with my ambition. I am fulfilled. I am not desiring any fulfillment through anybody. When I say, "You are promisee," I make a statement of fact about you.

It simply shows your potentiality, your possibility.

And look. If you are a musician, and your son is not going to be a musician, has no tendency, no desire, no talent; you will not call him promising. The same son may be promising to a father who is a mathematician, but he is not promising to you. If you are after money, and the son wants to renounce the world, he will not be promising to you; he will be just the opposite. When you call somebody promising, you relate him to your own desires.

When I say, "You are promise," I mean you have a tremendous potentiality to grow, to flower - whatsoever the direction, whatsoever direction you choose to move.

Whenever you are in love, you will not feel that you are a lover. You will feel you are love. That's why Jesus says, "God is love." He should have said, "God is very loving"; his language is not right. What do you mean by "God is love"? He is saying "God" and "love" are synonymous. In fact he is saying to say "God is love" is a tautology. It can be said that he is saying, "Love is love," or "God is God." Love is not an attribute of God; love is his very being. He is not loving; he is simply love.

The same happens when one becomes enlightened. He is not conscious about enlightenment; he is simply conscious. He lives in consciousness, he sleeps in consciousness, he moves in consciousness. He lives, he dies in consciousness. Consciousness becomes an eternal source in him, a nonflickering flame, a nonwavering state of being. It is not an attribute, it is not accidental; it cannot be taken away. His whole being is conscious.

Question 2

Mind usually is in two minds; that's how the mind functions. You will have to understand the whole mechanism of mind, how it functions.

The functioning of the mind is to divide. If you don't divide, the mind disappears. The mind needs division. The mind creates opposites. The mind says, "I like you; I don't like you. I love you; I hate you." The mind says, "This is beautiful; that is ugly." The mind says, "This has to be done; that has to be dropped." The mind is choice. Hence, Krishnamurti's insistence that if you become choiceless you will become no-mind. To become choiceless means to drop dividing the World.

Just think. If man disappears from the earth, will there be anything beautiful? Will there be anything ugly? Will there be anything good, anything bad? All divisions will simply evaporate with humanity.

The world will remain the same. The flowers will flower, the stars will move, the sun will rise - everything will continue the same. But division will disappear with man; man brings division into the world. "Man" means "mind."

That's the whole meaning of the Biblical story. God told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. It would have been better if we could translate the "tree of knowledge" as "tree of mind." The whole story will become Zen. And exactly that is the meaning. The tree of knowledge is the tree of mind; otherwise why should God want his children to be ignorant? No, he wanted them to live without mind. He wanted them to live without division, to live in unity, in unison. That's the meaning of the Biblical story. If a Zen Master is to comment on it, or if I am to comment on it, I will say, "Better to say the 'tree of mind.' " Then the whole thing becomes very clear.

God wanted Adam to live without mind. To live, but without dividing life; then life has a tremendous intensity. Division divides you also. Have you ever watched? Whenever you divide, something shrinks in you, something breaks in you. The moment you say, "I like somebody," a hand is extended towards that somebody. The moment you say, "I don't like," the hand shrinks back. You are not open to life in its totality. God wanted Adam to remain total.

And the Biblical story says unless man drops his knowledge again, he will not be received back into the garden of God. Jesus dropped knowledge. That's why Jesus looks absurd, paradoxical.

What Adam did against God, Jesus washed out, cleaned it away from human consciousness. Adam came out of the garden; Jesus entered again. How did Jesus enter again? Dropping the mind, the division.

Mind always functions through division. Just try not to divide. You see a flower: don't say it is beautiful. There is no need. It is beautiful without your saying so. You don't add any more beauty to it by saying so. So what is the point?

There is a small story about Lao Tzu. He used to go for a morning walk. A neighbor used to follow him, knowing well that Lao Tzu doesn't want to talk much; he always kept himself silent. But once a friend was staying with the neighbor, and he also wanted to come, and he came. Lao Tzu and Lao Tzu's neighbor remained quite silent. The friend was a little embarrassed, but he also kept himself silent because the neighbor had told him not to say anything. Then the sun was rising, and it was so beautiful. He forgot and he said, "So beautiful a morning." Only this much. Nobody commented on it - neither his friend nor Lao Tzu.

Back home Lao Tzu told the neighbor, "Don't bring this man again. He is too talkative." Too talkative?

Even the neighbor said, "He has not said anything; he simply said, 'How beautiful a morning.' " Lao Tzu said, "I was also there, so what is the point of saying it? And it was beautiful without saying it. Why bring the mind in? No, this man is too talkative; don't bring him." He destroyed the whole morning? He divided the world. He said the sunrise is beautiful. Whenever you say something is beautiful, something has been already condemned, because the beauty cannot exist without the ugly. The moment you say something is beautiful, you have said that something else is ugly. The moment you say, "I love you," you have said that you hate somebody else.

If you live without dividing.... Just watch the flower. Let it be there, whatsoever it is. Let it be in its reality; don't utter anything. Just see it. Not only that you don't utter, don't say inside also. Don't formulate any idea about it. Let it be there, and you will come to have a great realization.

When sadness comes to you, don't call it sadness. I have given this meditation to many people, and they become surprised. I tell them, "Next time you feel sad, don't call it 'sad.' Just watch it." Your calling it sadness makes it sad. Just watch it, whatsoever it is. Don't bring the mind in, don't analyze, don't label it. The mind is such a great divider, and goes on continuously labeling things, categorizing. Don't categorize. Let the fact assert itself, let the fact be there, and you simply be a witness. Then by and by you will say, "See, sadness is not sadness," and happiness is not so much happiness as you used to think.

By and by the boundaries merge, meet, and disappear. And then you will say it is one energy - happiness, unhappiness: both are one. Your interpretation makes the difference; the energy is one.

Ecstasy and agony are one. Your interpretation makes them two. The world and God are one. Your interpretation makes them two.

Drop the interpretation and see the real. The uninterpreted is the real; the interpreted is the illusory.

The question is: "I am usually in two minds...." Mind is always in two minds; that's the way the mind functions, thrives, and lives.

Sun and moon: that has also to be understood. Because every man is also a woman and every woman is also a man.

How this is possible: you can remain divided inside - the man separate from the woman, the inner woman separate from the inner man. Then there will always be a conflict, a certain tug-of-war. This is the ordinary state of humility. It your inner man and woman can n eet, in a deep embrace, merge into each other; for the first time, you will become one - neither man nor woman. Then you will be transcendental.

Let me tell you one story, one of the very daring and courageous stories. Such a courageous story is possible only in India. Not today's India, because today's India has become very cowardly.

You must have seen a lingam, Shiva's symbolic representation as phallus. There are millions of temples devoted to Shiva's lingam. In fact you will never find a statue of him. His statues have completely disappeared; only the symbol has remained. The symbol is not only lingam; it is yoni also. It is both, man and woman. It is man into woman, it is sun into moon. It is the male meeting the female. It is yin and yang in deep sexual embrace. This is the indication of how the inner man meets with the inner woman, because the inner has no face. That's why Shiva's statues have disappeared.

The inner is just energy, so the lingam has no form; it is just energy.

But the story is told.... Don't be shocked by it, because the Western mind has become much too afraid of reality.

The story is that Shiva was making love to Devi, his consort. And of course when a Shiva makes love to his consort, it is no ordinary love. And he does not make love with closed doors; the doors were open. There was some emergency in the world of the gods, and Brahma and Vishnu and the whole crowd of gods had come to ask Shiva's solution about some urgent problem. So they came in the room - the privacy of Shiva became a marketplace - -but he was so deeply in love that he was not aware that a crowd was watching. All the gods became voyeurs. They could not leave, because something tremendous was happening. The energy was so high; they felt it. They could not leave.

They could not disturb, because it was so sacred.

And Shiva went on making love, and on and on and on. The gods became worried, whether he is ever going to end it. And they were in such a problem that an urgent solution waS needed. But Shiva was completely lost. He was not there, Devi was not there - the man and woman have completely merged into each other. Some unity has happened, a great synthesis, a great orchestra of energies.

They wanted to stay, but then they become afraid of the other gods. That's how the puritan mind works. They were very interested in seeing and watching, but they were afraid because if others saw them watching and seeing and enjoying it, their prestige was at stake. So they all cursed Shiva: "From today your form will disappear from the world and you will always be remembered as a phallic symbol": lingam in yoni, sun in moon, the jewel in the lotus. "Now you will be remembered always as sexual orgasm." This was a curse.

This always happens. I have one friend who is very against pornography, and his whole library is full of pornography. So once I visited him; I said, "What is this?" He said, "I have to read all the pornographic books just to criticize them. I have to be aware of what is happening in pornography because I am so much against it." He is eating his cake and having it also.

The other devas cursed Shiva, but to me that curse seems to have proved to be a blessing, because the symbol is really beautiful. It is the only phallic symbol in the world worshipped as God, without any condemnation. Hindus have completely forgotten that it is phallic; they don't think that it is phallic. They have accepted it deeply. And the symbol is beautiful because that is not only Shiva there, there is yoni also. Yin is also there. The lingam is placed in yoni; both are meeting. It is a symbol of meeting, of orgasm, of energy becoming one.

The same happens inside, but it will happen only when you drop the mind. Love is possible only when you drop the mind. But if you drop the mind, then not only love but God also is possible; because love is God.

If an inner conflict exists in you between sun and moon, then you will always be interested in the outer woman. If you are a man, you will be interested in the outer woman; you will be fascinated by the outer woman. If you are a woman, you will be fascinated by the outer man. Once the inner conflict is resolved and your sun energy is moving into the moon energy and there iB no longer any rift, they are bridged; then you will not be fascinated by the outer woman or outer man. For the first time you will be sexually content.

I am not saying that you will leave the outer woman. There is no need. Or you will leave the outer man - there is no need. But now the whole relationship will be totally different - very harmonious. It will not be a relationship of need; rather, it will be a relationship of sharing. Right now when a man approaches a woman it is a question of need. He wants to use the woman as a means. The woman wants to use the man as a means. That's why all women and all men are continuously in a fight: basically they are fighting within themselves. The same fight is reflected outwards.

And when you are using a woman, how can you think the woman can be totally at ease with you, in harmony? She feels she is being reduced to a means. And no man or woman is a means. She feels she is being used like a thing, reduced to thing. hood. Her soul seems to be lost; that's why she is angry. And she tries to reduce the man to a thing. She turns the husband into a henpecked husband; she forces him. And this goes on.

This is more a conflict than love - a struggle. More like war than like love - more like hatred than like love.

Once you are in tune with your inner woman and man, suddenly you are in tune with others also.

Your inner conflict disappears; your outer conflict disappears. The outer is just a shadow to the inner. Then you can be related; or you may not be related. You are totally independent. Then it is whatsoever you choose it to be. If you want to be related, you can be related; but there will be no conflict. If you don't want to be related, if you want to be alone, you can be alone; and there will be no loneliness. This is the beauty when one comes to an organic unity inside.

That's what Patanjali's whole effort is: how to transform the solar energy into lunar energy. And then, how to be a witness to both, meeting, merging, becoming one. How tO be transcendental to them.

The mind will never allow you; unless you drop the mind. The mind always is divided because that is its very blood; it depends on division. So you are a man, you are a woman-this is division, this is mind. Who is a Buddha - a man or a woman? We have a symbolic representation of Shiva as Ardhanarishwar - half-man/ half-woman. That's perfect. And that has to be so because you are born of a father and a mother - half of you comes from your father, half of you comes from your mother. So at the most the difference between a woman and man is a difference of emphasis; it is not a difference of quality. The woman is consciously woman, unconsciously man; the man is consciously man, unconsciously woman. That's all the difference is.

Very difficult, because your minds have been conditioned to be a man or to be a woman, and the society emphasizes the roles too much. It does not allow a fluid being; it makes solids of you. When the boy and the girl can understand, the parents start emphasizing, "You are a boy. Don't play with dolls; that's not good for a boy. You are going to be a man. This is for girls." Men don't count girls at all. "Sissy, girlish. Don't do it; be a man." And the small boy, not knowing where he is being led, starts focusing on being a man more and more. He goes far away from his original unity, the pure unity of his being. He becomes man, that is half his being. And a girl becomes a woman, that is half her being. She is told not to climb on the trees; that is only for boys. What nonsense. Trees are for all. "Don't go swimming in the river; that is for the boys." Rivers are for all.

That's how humanity is impoverished. Hmm?... the girl is given a certain role and the boy is given a certain role. Their totality is completely lost. They become fixed in their windows; they cannot see the whole sky; the frame of the window becomes too much.

Man is a frame, woman is a frame - it is not your being. Don't be too identified with the frame. Get out of it.

Once you start loosening, relaxing, and once you start re. absorbing the rejected, the denied part; you will become so enriched you cannot even imagine, dream. Then your being will be whole.

And that's what I mean when I want you to be holy. I don't mean become a Catholic monk or become a Buddhist monk or a Jain monk. All stupid. I want you to become holy, holy in the sense of being whole. Become total. Reclaim whatsoever has been denied by society; don't be afraid in reclaiming it. Don't be afraid - if you are a man, don't be afraid in being a woman sometimes.

Somebody has died; you cannot weep because you are a man and tears are only meant for women.

What a beautiful thing - tears - denied to man. Then man becomes more and more hard, violent, anxious. And then there is no wonder if Adolf Hitlers are born. A man whose tears have disappeared is bound to become Adolf Hitler some day or other. He is bound to become a Genghis Khan, whose tears have disappeared. Then he will become incapable of feeling sympathy; then he will become so hard that he will not be able to feel what he is doing to people. Hitler killed millions with not even a small prick in his conscience. He is really the man; the woman has completely disappeared - the compassion, the love, a1l disappeared. The tears have disappeared.

I would like men also to cry like women. Tears flowing, they will soften your heart. They will make you more liquid and flowing. They will melt your window frame, and they will allow you to have a bigger sky.

Women are not allowed to laugh uproariously, like Gurudayal - no woman is allowed to laugh. That is against feminine grace. What nonsense. If you cannot laugh deeply, you will miss much. The laughter must come from the belly. The laughter must be so hilarious that the whole body shakes with it. It should not be heady. But women smile; they don't laugh. An uproarious laugh is so unladylike. Then ladies live a very feverish life. By and by they become more and more filmy, more and more dreamlike, not real, not authentic.

Don't become ladies and gentlemen. Become holy. And the whole integrates all and everything.

And the whole integrates God and Devil both. Then there is no division; then the mind drops. A holy man has no mind.

If the holy man is still Catholic, he is not holy. because he has a Catholic mind. If the holy man is still Hindu, he is not holy; he has a Hindu mind.

Just the other day I was reading a book of Pagal Baba. His name means "Crazy Daddy" - and he must be crazy. And not crazy in the sense of the Sufis, because they call enlightened people "mad," but crazy in the sense of the psychoanalysts. He is neurotic. He s;lys in his hook - I was simply surprised to come across it, and he is thought to be a holy man-he says in the book, "Many Westerners tell me they would like to be converted to Hinduism, and I have to tell them that this is not possible. A Hindu is born; nobody can be converted into a Hindu." A Hindu is born - you have to earn it for many lives. If you do good karmas for many lives, then you are born a Hindu. You cannot he converted - it is not so cheap as becoming a Christian.

And this holy man Pagal Baba says, "I have to refuse them because for many lives they will have to earn it - it is the pinnacle to be a Hindu." And he says that even if you are born a Hindu and if you don't follow good karmas and continue becoming more and more religious and virtuous, you will fall hack to a lower class of humanity - for example, you may become an American. This man says so. And the beauty of it is that he has found an American publisher, Simon & Schuster, who has published his book.

These are not holy men. These are Hindu chauvinists, stupid people - neurotic.

If you have a mind, you cannot be holy. Howsoever virtuous, the mind remains unholy because the mind cannot be whole. Remember it.

One evening Mulla Nasruddin said to his wife, "Bring us some cheese to eat, for cheese enhances the appetite and makes the eyes bright."

"We are out of cheese," the wife said.

"That's good," Mulla replied, "for cheese is injurious the the teeth and gums."

"Which of your statements is then true?" she asked.

Mulla answered,

"If there is cheese in the house, the first one; if not, the second."

This is the way the mind functions.

You love a woman if she becomes available to you; if not, you hate. If the cheese is in the house, the first; if the cheese is not in the house, the second.

Drop divisions; drop dividing. Live life as a whole. It will be difficult, I know, because for centuries the mind has been conditioned to divide. Unloosening it, unhinging it, is going to be difficult, but it is worth it - because you are missing so much.

Psychologists say that ninety-eight percent of life is being missed. Ninety eight percent. Only two percent is being lived because the window frame does not allow more than that.

Break the window, break the frame - bum it! Your Hinduism, your Christianity, your Jainism - burn them! and come out of them. If you can come out of all your ideologies, attitudes, prejudices, you will become whole.

Question 3

This is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya. It seems he cannot even understand humor. And I know why he cannot understand it: he has been in wrong company too much of Indian yogis and sadhus - and he has forgotten the very quality of humor. And humor is a basic quality of being holy; a holy man is a humorous man. But he is much too fixed.

When I said Chuang Tzu dreamt, Chuang Tzu himself had related that dream. Not that he dreamt.

He is creating a beautiful joke about himself - he is laughing about himself. It is very easy to laugh about others; difficult to laugh at oneself. But the day you become capable of laughing at yourself, you be. come egoless. Because the ego enjoys to laugh at others' cost. When you start laughing at yourself, the ego cannot exist.

Yes, no enlightened person ever dreams, but enlightened persons have humor. They can laugh, and they can help others to laugh.

It happened, three men were travelling; they were in search of truth. One was a Jew, another a Christian, and the third was a Muslim. They all were great friends.

One day they found a coin with which they bought a piece of halvah. The Muslim and the Christian had just eaten, so they were a little worried because the Jew will eat the whole halvah; and they were so full, they had stuffed themselves so much. So they suggested - they conspired against the Jew - they suggested, "Let us go to bed now. In the morning we will tell our dreams. Whoever has had the best dream eats the halvah." And because two were in favor of it, the Jew had to agree - just to be democratic. There was nothing else to do.

The Jew, who was very hungry, could not sleep much. And it is very difficult to sleep when the halvah is there and you are hungry and these two people have conspired against you.

In the middle of the night he got up and ate the halvah and went back to bed.

In the morning the Christian was the first to relate his dream. He said, "Christ came, and when he was ascending to the heavens, he took me with him. It was the rarest dream I have ever seen." The Muslim said, "I dreamt of Mohammed, who took me on a tour of paradise... and beautiful women dancing, and streams of wine flowing, and trees of gold and flowers of diamonds. It was tremendously beautiful."

Now it was the Jew's turn. He said, "Moses came to me and said, "You old idiot, what are you waiting for? Christ took one of your friends to heaven, Mohammed is entertaining the other in paradise - at least get up and eat the halvah!' "

Humor is part of holiness; and wherever you find a holy man serious, escape from there, because he can be dangerous. He must be ill inside. Seriousness is a sort of disease, one of the most fatal diseases - and it is Very chronic in religion.

Just try to understand. Don't become too clever, because that simply proves to be foolishness and nothing else. Always allow a little foolishness also in you, then you will be wiser. A fool is against wisdom, but a wise man absorbs foolishness also. He is not against it; he uses that too.

Chuang Tzu is one of the most absurd men who has ever been here on the earth. That's why I have named this auditorium "Chuang Tzu Auditorium." I love the man; he is so absurd. How can you avoid not loving this man?

Buddha will not say, "I dreamt." He was a little serious. Patanjali will not say - -because he will be afraid of Chinmaya.

Some swami is hound to raise the question: "You and dreamt? Enlightened people never dream.

What are you saying?" Chuang Tzu is not afraid of anybody; he says, "I dreamt." He is a very loving man. He is holy. He can laugh and help others to laugh; his holiness is full of laughter.

Question 4

This whole question must be from someone who has not understood me at all. It seems to be from somebody absolutely new. But, still, many people are new, and it will be helpful to understand it.

"What is your technique of becoming a self contained individual?" I am not interested in making you a self-contained individual at all, because that is impossible. You are so interconnected with the whole, ho" can you become self-contained? That is the ego's effort, to become self contained. To become absolutely independent of all: that is the ego trip, the ultimate ego trip.

No, you cannot become self contained. You can become the whole contained, but not self-contained.

You can contain the whole and you can be contained by the whole, but you cannot become self- contained. How can you divide yourself from the universe, separate? You cannot exist even for a single moment.

If you don't breathe, you will not be able to ke alive. And you cannot hold your breath in; it has to go out. It has to come in again. It is a constant movement between you and the whole. Those who know, they say it is not that you breathe; on the contrary, the whole breathes you.

Just watch your breath silently sometimes. There may come one day one moment when suddenly your attention will shift tO a new mysterious experience. First when you watch your breath - your kurma-nadhi, what Buddha calls anapanasati yoga - when you watch your breath, you think you are breathing. By and by you will see, you will have to see because that's truth: you are not breathing.

You are not needed to breathe; that's why even in sleep you go on breathing. Even if you become unconscious, even if you are in a coma, you go on breathing. You are not breathing; otherwise sometimes you will forget and you will drop dead. You never forget, because it is not needed.

The breathing goes on by itself, on its own accord. One day you will see, "I am breathing" is nonsense; on the contrary, "breathing is breathing me."

And then one day you will have another revolutionary, a radical, turn of your consciousness. You see that you exhale out, you inhale in: one day you will see your exhalation is God's inhalation, your inhalation is God's exhalation. The whole exhales: that is the moment when you feel you are in.

haling. The whole inhales: that is the moment when you feel you are exhaling.

Who are you? And what nonsense you are asking - how tO become self-contained. Without the sun you will not be. If the sun disappears, you will disappear; the whole of life will disappear. We are interconnected. The whole existence is one, and everything is interconnected. Independence is not possible. I am not for dependence, because when independence is not possible, how can dependence be possible? My word is "interdependence"; that's what is true and real.

So the first thing, don't think in terms of self containment. "Self" is your disease. Drop it! so the whole becomes available to you. And only then can you live from moment to moment, otherwise you cannot. If you are protecting, guarding, defending yourself, how can you live moment to moment?

You will have to prepare for the future. You will have to prepare for tomorrow. Who will take care of you? You are a self-contained individual - who will take care of you tomorrow? You will have to look to the bank balance. You will have to prepare. You cannot live moment to moment.

Only a person who has come to realize, "I am not, the whole is," can live moment to moment - because then there is no other way to live. The future is not yet there, and if this moment the whole has been protecting me, mothering me, helping me, then the whole will take care tomorrow also, as it has taken care up to now. It will take care. And if the whole decides that I am not needed, and I dissolve, perfectly okay - because who am I to object?

This is what a religious man is: a deep surrender, a total surrender to the whole. Then he lives moment to moment.

"In this connection kindly explain how such a spiritual man literally lives from moment to moment." He does not live; he allows God to live through him. Then one is spiritual.

A worldly man lives his life; a spiritual man does not live his life - he allows God to live through him.

He becomes a vehicle. He says, "Come. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Come, pass through me, live through me, be through me. I am empty and ready. I am just like a hollow bamboo. Come, make a flute out of me; sing a song out of me. Sing your silence or your song, but celebrate through me. I am ready and waiting for you, and available."

A spiritual man is a great availability. He says to God, "Whenever you are willing, I am ready. I will wait, and I will keep patience. There is no hurry, also. If you are engaged somewhere else; and much work is there, do it. I can wait for eternity."

A spiritual man is not one who is living his life. But in India, or in other countries also, that is the idea: that a spiritual man is one who lives a very disciplined life. This is not the definition of a spiritual man; and don't become a victim of it, because if you start living your life you will be constantly in a fight with the whole. Don't swim in the river, don't try to push it. Float with it, go with it - go with it to the ocean. It is already going; there is no need to worry. Drop all worries, don't try to swim upstream; otherwise you will be exhausted. But that's what is thought about a religious man, a spiritual man - one who is giving a great fight to God.

Gurdjieff used to say, "All your so-cal]ed religions are against God." And he was right. These are subtle strategies of the ego. Beware of them.

I am here not to make you enemies of God. I am here to teach you how to float with him, how to be friendly with him, how not to resist him. I am here to break down all your strategies - your morality, your ethics, your disciplines. These are all strategies, how you protect yourself, how you are trying to be independent and self contained. I am here to destroy and annihilate you completely.

And when your strategies are taken a-*vay, you will disappear. In your disappearance appears the spiritual man. It is nothing that you can do by your efforts. It is your absolute, utter failure! when the religious man enters in you, when you become religious and spiritual. You cannot succeed to be a spiritual man.

"How to cultivate this habit...?" Religion is not a habit. Spirituality is not a habit, it is awareness; and a habit is just the opposite of awareness. A habit is unconscious. But many people do that. For example, you smoke cigarettes; it becomes a habit. When do you say it has become a habit? When it has become so automatic you cannot drop it; then you say it has become a habit. Now if you don't smoke, you feel great disturbance. You feel an urge so tremendous that you cannot withhold it, you have to go with it; now it has become a habit. The same way, you try to make prayer also your habit. You pray every day; then by and by it becomes just like smoking. If you don't pray, you feel something is being missed. You call it religious. Then why not call smoking religious? What is wrong with smoking?

Smoking is a mantra. What do you do in a mantra? You repeat a certain sound; you say, "Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram...."That's what smoking is. You take the smoke in, you take it out, you take it in, you take it out, you take it in, you take it out: it becomes a mantra. It is already a "Transcendental Meditation," TM.

No, religion has nothing to do with habits. You must be thinking that religion has something to do with good habits not had habits - smoking is a bad habit, prayer is a good habit. But all habits are unconscious, and religion is becoming conscious.

It is possible that you may become so habituated to doing good that it may become impossible for you to do bad, but that doesn't make you a spiritual man. It makes you a very convenient man. It makes you a very good citizen of the world, it makes you a very good member of the society, but not a religious man. Society played tricks with you. You can go on doing good, go on doing good, because you cannot do bad. It has become habitual. But habit is not virtue. Awareness.

And sometimes it happens that the situation is not the same, but you are habituated to doing something - you go on doing it without looking at the situation. Sometimes something is bad and the same thing can be good at other times. In one situation one response is virtuous; in another situation the same response can be a sin. But if you have become habituated, you behave like a robot, automaton.

I will tell you one story, one of the very beautiful ones I have ever come across.

Mr. Ginsberg died and went to heaven and was greeted by the recording angel with great jubilation.

"We have all been waiting for you, Ginsberg, for you have been a good man. Look at your record here" - and the recording angel opened a gigantic ledger and ran his finger down one page after another. "Look at that: good deed - good deed - good deed - good deed. Ginsberg, you are loaded with good deeds."

But as he turned the pages the recording angel grew solemn and his face took on a look of anxiety.

Finally, he closed the ledger and said, "Ginsberg, we are in trouble."

"Why?" asked Ginsberg in alarm.

"I had not realized it, but you have nothing but good deeds. You have no sins at all."

"But isn't that the whole idea?" asked Ginsberg.

"In a manner of speaking, it is," said the recording angel. "But in actual practice, we always get a few sins. That fellow there - a good man - -committed only one, but it was a real whopper. Now if you come in with no sins at all, it will create envy and hard feelings, there will be murmurings and backbitings. In short, you will bring dissension and evil into heaven."

"So what to do? What am I to do?" said poor Ginsberg.

"I tell you what," said the recording angel, "this is irregular, but maybe I can get away with it. I will erase the last page of your record and you will have six more hours of life. You will have another chance. Please, Ginsberg, commit a sin - and a real one - and then come back."

No sooner said than done, Ginsberg suddenly found himself back in his hometown. He had a few hours in which to commit a sin and get away from his perpetual good deeds, and he was desperately eager to do so for he wanted to go to heaven. But what kind of sin could he commit? He had been so virtuous, he scarcely knew what sin was.

After much thinking, he recalled that if one had sexual relations with a woman not one's wife, that was sin. It also seemed to him that a certain unmarried woman past her first youth had often cast meaningful glances at him, which, being virtuous, he had, of course, ignored.

He would ignore them no longer. And time was running fast. With determined step, he walked to the house of the young lady, a Miss Levine, and knocked. She opened the door, saw him standing there, and said in surprise, "Why, Mr. Ginsberg, I had heard you were sick, and feared you were dying, but you look completely yourself."

"I am perfectly well," said Ginsberg. "May I come in?"

"Of course," said Miss Levine eagerly, and locked the door behind him.

What happened afterwards was inevitable. In almost no time, they were clearly sinning and Mr.

Ginsberg, with the vision of a waiting heaven, made up in enthusiasm for what he lacked in experience.

Anxious to make the sin a real good one, and something that would thoroughly satisfy the recording angel, Ginsberg took pains not to hasten. He kept matters going till an inner feeling told him his time was nearly up.

Anticipating heaven with Lyrical joy, Ginsberg rose and excused himself. "Miss Levine," he said, "I must leave now. I have an important engagement."

And Miss Levine, smiling up at him from bed, murmured softly, "Oh, Mr. Ginsberg, darling, what a good deed you have done for me this day."

What a good deed! So poor Ginsberg.

Don't get so habituated to good. Don't get so habituated; don't become so mechanical. Don't ask, "How to cultivate this habit of living from moment to moment?" It is not a habit at all; it is an awareness.

There is nothing else. The past is gone; the future has not come yet. Can you live in the past, that which is gone? How can you live in it? Can you live in the future, that which is not yet? How can you live in it? It is a simple understanding, a tacit understanding, that the only possible life is in the present. There is no need to make a habit of it. It has nothing to do with religion; it has something to do with simple, mere intelligence. The past is gone, how can you live in it? The future has not come yet, how can you live in it? Just a little intelligence is needed.

Only the present is there. All that is there is the present; there is no other way. So live it if you want to live it. If you think of the past and the future, you waste it. And when it will become past, you will start thinking about it. And when it was future, you were planning for it. And when it comes, you are not there. You either move in memories or you move in imaginations.

Drop memory and imagination. Be here now. And it is not a question of habit. How can you be here-now just by habit? Habit comes from the past - habit drags you to the past. Or you can make it a discipline - but then you are making it for the future. You are waiting: "Today I will cultivate the habit, and tomorrow I will enjoy." But again you are in the future.

Habit is not the question, not at all relevant. Just become alert. If you are eating, eat - just eat. Let your whole being be absorbed in it. If you are making love, become a Shiva and let your consort be Devi. Love, and let all the gods watch and come and go - don't be worried. Whatsoever you are doing.... Walking on the street, then just walk. Enjoy the breeze, the sun, the trees - the present.

And remember, I am not telling you to practice. It can be done immediately, without any practice.

It can be done immediately; just a little intelligence is needed. Habits, cultivations, are for stupid people. Because they cannot live intelligently, they have to take the help of habits, disciplines, this and that. If you are intelligent - and I can see you are intelligent, I see you are promise - there is no need. Just start! Don't ask how. Right now start. You are listening to me? Just listen. Many of you will be thinking, not listening, comparing notes with your own prejudices.

The person who has asked the question is not listening. I can say it with absolute certainty - not knowing who has asked. From where does my certainty come? Because I can understand the mind from the question. He must be getting angry and annoyed.

People ask questions to be solaced, consoled, but I am not here to console you. I am here to disturb you so totally that you drop - out of sheer disgust with your strategies you drop. And I am absolutely certain, as much certain as it happened once:

Sheikh Farid, a mystic, a Sufi mystic, was invited by the king. He went there, and the king said, "I have been hearing many miracles about you, and if you really claim that you are a great saint and mystic, then show me some miracle, because spiritual men always are miraculous."

Farid looked into the eyes of the king and said, "I can read your thoughts, and just for an instance I can say that this is the thought right now in your mind: that you can't believe it. I can read your thoughts, and right now I can read that you cannot believe it. You are saying inside, 'I can't believe it.' Am I right or not?"

The king said, "You caught me."

The man who has asked the question must be feeling very much annoyed. Then you miss, because through annoyance you cannot listen to me; you cannot be here-now.

Question 5

This is from Anurag.

If he has understood that I was joking, then he must be enlightened.