God only knows

Question 1

The first thing, and one of the most basic, to be remembered always is that only out of chaos is one reborn.There is no other way. If you want to be reborn, you will have to move in complete disorder because your old personality will have to be destructured. You will fall apart. All that you have believed yourself to be will start disappearing by and by.

All that you have always identified yourself with will become dim, cloudy. The structure that the society has given to you, the character that the society has forced upon you, will fall into pieces. Again you will be standing without a character, as you were when you were born, on the first day.

Everything will be a chaos, and out of that chaos, out of that nothingness, you will be reborn.

That's why I say again and again that religion is a great daring. It is a death, a great death, almost a suicide. Voluntarily you die, and not knowing what is going to happen, because how can you know what is going to happen? You will be dead. Hence trust is needed.

So if by the side, continuously, side by side with the chaos, a trust is growing in me, then there is no need to be afraid. That trust will take care. If the trust is not growing by the side, side by side, then there can be danger, then one can become mad. So people who don't have trust, in fact, should not move into meditation. If they move into meditation, they will start dying, and they will not find any ground to stand upon, any supportive environment.

Many people come and ask me, "If we don't take sannyas, are you not going to help us?"

I will be ready to help you, but you will not be ready to take it. Because it is not only a question of my giving. It is a question of your taking also. I will be pouring, but if there is no trust, you will not receive it. And then there is no point in pouring in you if there is no trust. You will receive in the same amount as you are receptive. Sannyas is simply symbolic of your deep trust, symbolic that now you are going to be with me - even when all reason says don't go, even when your mind resists and says, "This is dangerous. You are moving into a world of insecurity." When your mind tries to protect you and your character and your structure, even then, if you are ready to go with me, you have trust.

Trust is not just an emotion; it is not sentimental. People think it is only for sentimental people. You are wrong. In a deep sentiment you can say, "I trust," but this is not going to be of much help because when everything will be disappearing, the first thing to disappear will be your sentiment. It is a very weak thing, impotent. Trust has to be so deep and solid that it is not like a sentiment, it is not a mood; it is something permanent in you, that whatsoever happens, at least you will not lose trust.

That's why I tell you to do small things. They don't look meaningful. I insist for ochre robes. Sometimes you think, "Why? What is the point? Can't I meditate without ochre robes?" You can meditate; that is not the point at all. I am putting a few things to you which are not rational. There is no reason for ochre robes, there is no scientific reason for it. One can meditate and become enlightened in any color. I am giving you something irrational just as a test whether you are ready to go with me. I put a mala around your neck just to make a fool of you, so you go into the world like a fool. People will laugh at you. They will think you have gone crazy. That's what I want, because if you can go with me even while I am making you almost mad, then I know when the real crisis will come you will have trust.

These are crises artificially created around you. They are tremendously significant - with no reason. Their significance is deeper than reason. All the Masters have done that.

When Ibrahim, a Sufi Master, came to his Master to be initiated, Ibrahim was a king; and the Master looked at him and he said, "Drop your clothes. Take my shoe, go into the marketplace, naked, and beat your head with my shoe." People who were sitting around, his old disciples, they said, "This is too hard. Why? You never asked this from us. You never told us to be nude and go into the marketplace and beat your head with your shoe.'

Why are you so hard with King Ibrahim?"

The Master said, "Because his ego is bigger than yours. He is a king, and I have to drop it; otherwise further work will not be possible."

But Ibrahim didn't ask a question; he simply dropped his clothes. It must have been very, very difficult for him - in the same capital where he has always been a king, almost always been thought of as a superhuman being, moving on the street, where he has never moved, naked, and with a shoe beating his head. But he moved, went into the town. He was laughed at, children started throwing stones at him - a crowd, a big crowd, laughing and ridiculing him, that he has gone mad. But he went around the town, came back.

The Master said, "You are accepted. Now everything is possible; you are open."

Now what is the reason of it? If you understand, you will understand that this was a way to break down his ego. When ego is gone, trust arises.

Sannyas is just a method, a means, to see whether you can Come with me. I have made it almost difficult for you - rumors about me all around. I go on helping them. And I will tell you also to create as many rumors as you can. Don't be bothered about truth; create rumors. People who will be able to make contact with me in spite of the rumors will be the right people, daring, courageous. Much is possible for them.

So the first thing, chaos is created here very knowingly. So don't think that it is some sort of a problem. No, it is a device.

And don't go and ask anybody about the chaos; otherwise he will think that you are going mad. Don't go to a psychiatrist and ask him, because the whole of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, has been trying to help people in a very, very wrong way. They try to make you an adjusted being. Here my whole effort is to break all your adjustment. What I call "creative chaos" they will call "maladjustment," And they want everybody to become normal, without ever thinking who is normal.

The society, the majority, the mob is normal? Where is the criterion? Who should be thought of as the norm? There is no criterion. In India something will be thought normal.

The same thing will not be thought normal in China. Something which is thought normal in Sweden will not be thought normal in India. Each society believes that the majority of the people is normal. It is not so. And to force a person to adjust with the crowd is not creative; it is very deadening.

Adjustment may be good for those who are dominating the society, but it is not good for you. Every society has been using priests, teachers, psychoanalysts to put rebellious people back, force them back into the so-called normality and adjustment. They all serve the establishment, the status quo. They all serve the class which is dominant.

Now they are doing the same in Soviet Russia. If somebody is not a communist, he is maladjusted. They put him into the mental hospital; they hospitalize him. They treat him.

Now not to be a communist in Soviet Russia is a sort of illness. What nonsense. But they have power. They will give you electric shocks, they will brainwash you, they will give you tranquilizers so you become dull. And when you have lost your radiance, your radicalness, when you have lost your individuality and you have become faceless, they say of you, "Now; you are normal."

Remember, I am not here to make you normal or adjusted. I am here to make you individuals. And you are not to fulfill any criterion other than your own destiny. J am looking at you directly. I am not saying that you have to be like "this," because that's how you have been destroyed, that's how your so-called character has been created. The character is disease, it is illness, it is how you are suffering, imprisoned. I have to destructure it, destroy it, so that you can become free, so that again you can start soaring high, again you start thinking in terms of your own being, again you can become an individual.

The society has polluted it too much, corrupted you too much, so whenever the chaos starts you become afraid - "What is going on? Am I going crazy?"

I have heard a very famous story of when Queen Marie visited America and asked to meet a most famous psychiatrist.

The nurse ushered in Queen Marie and said to the psychiatrist, "I would like you to meet the Queen of Rumania."

The psychiatrist looked at the queen and asked, "How long does she think she has been a queen?"

Because a psychiatrist is always treating people of whom somebody thinks he is an Alexander, somebody thinks he is a Genghis Khan, somebody thinks he is Hitler, somebody thinks she is a Cleopatra. So of course he couldn't think that Queen Marie, Queen of Rumania, herself has come. He thought, "Must be some other woman gone crazy. How long does she think she has been a queen?"

Another story I have heard:

A patient was brought to a psychiatrist by friends, who told the doctor that the man was suffering from delusions that an enormous fortune was awaiting him. He was expecting two letters which would give him full details involving a rubber plantation in Sumatra and titles to some mines in South Africa.

"It was a difficult case and I worked hard on it," the psychiatrist told some of his colleagues, "and just when I had the man cured, the two letters arrived."

Be alert. Those two letters may be really coming.

And don't be afraid. The fear arises because whenever you start walking alone the fear arises. One feels insecure. The doubt arises, "Am I right?" because the whole crowd is going in one direction; you start walking alone. With the crowd the doubt never arises because you think, "Millions of people are going in this direction; there must be something in it, has to be." The crowd mind prevails over you, the collective mind prevails over you. So many people cannot be wrong, must be right.

I have heard about one psychoanalyst who went on a picnic They were trying to find a right spot; then one member of the group told them to come. "This is a beautiful place," he said, "the right spot. Big trees, shade, the river flowing by, and absolutely silent."

The psychiatrist said, "Yes, ten million ants can't be wrong."

Ten million ants can't be wrong. Ants gather together wherever there is a picnic spot - flies and ants. That is our inner mathematics, that so many people, then they cannot be wrong. Alone-one feels dizzy. With the crowd, people all around - this side, that side, in front, in back - a whole ocean of people, one feels perfectly right. So many people are going: they must be going in the right direction. And everybody is thinking the same.

Nobody knows where they are going. They are just going because the whole crowd is going. And if you ask everybody individually, "Are you going in the right direction?" he will say, "I don't know. Because the whole world is going, so I am going.

My whole effort here is to bring you out of the collective mind, to help make you an individual. In the beginning you will have to face chaos. And great trust will be needed, tremendous trust will be needed. Otherwise you can get out of the collective mind and you may not get into the individual mind; then you will be mad. That's the risk. Without trust, moving into meditation is risky. I will not tell you to move into it; I will tell you it is better to remain normal, whatsoever normality means. Remain adjusted with the society. But if you are really ready to go on a great adventure, the greatest, then trust.

And then wait for chaos.

The more aware you become, the less, of course, you are conscious of it. Because there is no need. Awareness is enough. Consciousness of awareness will be a strain. In the beginning it is so. You start learning to drive a car. Of course you are much troubled; you have to manage so many things - the wheel, the gear, the clutch, the accelerator, the brake, the road, and if you have a wife sitting at the back.... One has to be very, very conscious because so many things have to be managed together. It seems almost impossible in the beginning. By and by everything drops; you simply go on driving. You can talk to a friend, you can listen to the radio, you can sing a song, or you can meditate, and then there is no problem. Now driving has become a spontaneous thing. You know it, so there is no need to be self-conscious about it.

The same happens when you meditate. In the beginning you have to be conscious about consciousness. It brings a strain, a tiredness. By and by, as consciousness grows, there is no need to be conscious about it. It goes on flowing on its own, like breathing. You need not be conscious about it; it goes on its own. In fact, at the later stages of meditation, if you are concerned too much about your awareness, that will be a disturbance; just as, if you become conscious of your breathing, you will immediately disturb its natural rhythm.

It flows naturally; there is no need for you to come in.

And awareness has to become so natural.... Only then is it possible: even while you are asleep, the light of awareness continues burning, the flame remains - even while you are fast asleep.

And the last thing about the question: "Immense trust in you is there in the face of this loss of rational understanding." Rational understanding is not understanding at all. It is a misnomer. Through reason one never understands anything. One simply comes to feel that one understands. Reason is a lie. It gives you a false feeling, "Yes, you have understood."

Only through experiences does one understand; only through existential experience is understanding possible.

For example, if I talk about love, you can understand it rationally, because you know the language, you know the semantics, you know the meaning of the words, you know the construction of the sentences, and you have been trained, so you can understand what I am saying; but your understanding will be "about" love. It will not be exactly the understanding of love. It will be "about" love; it will not be direct. And howsoever you go on collecting facts and information about love, you will never be able to know what love is only through this accumulation. You will have to move into love, you will have to taste it, to dissolve into it, to dare; only then.

Rational understanding is just a very superficial understanding. Become more existential.

If you want to know about love, it is better to go into love rather than going into the library and consulting what others have said about love. If you want to meditate, rather than going into the books and learning what meditation is all about, go directly into meditation. Feel it, enjoy it, enter into it, allow it to happen around you, allow it to happen within you; then you will know.

How can you know what dancing is without dancing? It is impossible to know from the books, and it is even difficult to know seeing a dancer dance. Then too it is not knowing, because you see the outer form of it, just the movements of the body. You don't know what is happening inside the dancer, what harmony is arising in him, what consciousness, what awareness is arising in him, what crystallization, what centering. You cannot see it, you cannot infer it. From the outside it is not available, and you cannot enter into the inner world of the dancer. The only way to enter there is to become a dancer.

All that is beautiful, deep, and great has to be lived.

Trust is one of the greatest things in life. Greater than love, because love knows of hate.

Trust does not know anything about it. Love is still a duality. The hate part remains hidden; it has not been dropped. You can lute your lover within a second. Anything can cause it, and the hate part comes up and the love part goes down. In love it is only half what you call love; just beneath the surface the hate is always waiting to jump over and possess you. And it possesses you. Lovers go on fighting, continuous conflict. Somebody has written a book about love. The title is beautiful: THE INTIMATE ENEMY. Lovers are enemies also.

But trust is higher than love; it is nondual. It knows no hate. It knows no polarity, no opposite. It simply is one. It is the purest love - love purified of hate, love which has dropped the hate part completely, love which cannot turn into a sour experience, bitter experience, love which has become almost unearthly, other-worldly.

So only those who love can trust. If you want to avoid love, and trust, your trust will be of a very lower status because it will continue to have the hate part. You have to move your energy first through love so you can become aware of the hate-and-love duality.

Then is the frustration that comes out of the hate part, then an understanding through experience, and then you drop the hate part. Then pure love, the very essence, survives.

Even the flower is not there, only the fragrance; then you rise into trust.

Of course it has nothing to do with rational understanding. In fact the more rational understanding disappears, the more trust will arise. Trust is in a way blind; in a way trust is the only clarity of vision there is. If you think from reason, trust will look blind.

Rationalists will always call trust blind. If you look through the experience of trust, you will laugh; you will say, "I have got my eyes for the first time." Then trust is the only clarity there is. The vision is so clear, without any cloud of anger and hate, so transparent.

Question 2

But why "why?" Laugh. Why make it a question and a problem?

This is from Krishna Radha. First she used to ask, "Why am I crying?" Now, somehow, by some miracle, she is not crying but laughing; but the problem continues.

Why do we cling to problems? Even if you feel happy, suddenly the mind says, "Why?"

As if happiness is also a disease. Explanation is needed, rational explanation is needed; otherwise even happiness will not be worth it.

This goes on and on. I see people come to me, they are miserable; they ask, "Why?" I can understand, when you are feeling miserable, I can understand that one asks, "Why?" But I know their "why" is deeper than their misery. Soon they start feeling happy also, and again they are there - very miserable because they are happy. Now the misery is "Why?"

Let me tell you one anecdote.

A man walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, "Doc, I am going out of my mind. I keep thinking I am a zebra. Every time I look at myself in the mirror my entire body is covered with black stripes."

The psychiatrist tries to calm him down. "Steady, steady," he says. "Now just calm down, go home and take these pills, get a good night's sleep, and I am sure the black stripes will completely disappear."

So the poor man goes home and returns two days after. He says, "Doc, I feel great. Got anything for the white stripes?"

But the problem continues.

Once it happened, somebody brought a mad young man to me. The young man had a crazy idea that flies had entered into his body, through his nose or mouth, in his sleep, and that they go on whirling inside. So of course he was in much trouble. He would turn this way and that; he could not even sit rightly because of those whirling dervishes inside; he could not sleep. A continuous agony. What to do with this man? So I told him, "You lie down on the bed, have a good ten minutes' rest, and we will do whatsoever can be done."

I covered him with a sheet so he could not see what was happening, and I ran over the whole house to catch a few flies. It was difficult because I had never done that before, but my experience of catching people helped. Somehow I could get three flies. I put them in a bottle, brought them to the man, made some hocus-pocus passes over him, then told him to open his eyes; and I showed him the bottle.

He looked at the bottle. He said, "Yes, you have got some, but only the smaller ones. The big ones are still there - and they are so big." Now it is difficult. From where to get such big flies? He said, "I am very, very grateful to you. At least you got rid of the smaller ones; but the big ones are really very big."

People go on. If you help them from one side, they will bring the same problem from another side - as if there is a certain deep necessity. Try to understand it. To live without a problem is very difficult, almost humanly impossible. Why? Because a problem gives you a distraction. A problem gives you an occupation. A problem gives you a busyness without any business. A problem engages you. If there is no problem, you will not be able to cling to the periphery of your being. You will be sucked by the center.

And the center of your being is empty. It is just like the hub of a wheel. The whole wheel moves on the empty hub. Your innermost core is empty, nothing, nothingness, shunyam, void, abysslike. You are afraid of that emptiness, so you go on clinging to the rim of the wheel or, at the most, if you are a little daring, then you go on clinging to the spokes; but you never move towards the hub. One starts feeling afraid, shaky.

Problems help you. Some problem to solve; how can you go within? People come to me and they say, "We want to go within, but there are problems." They think because of the problems they are not going within. The real case is just the opposite: because they don't want to go within, they are creating problems.

Let this understanding become as deep in you as possible: your problems are all bogus.

I go on answering yom problems just to be polite. They are all bogus, basically meaningless, but they help you to avoid yourself. They distract you. It seems, how can one go in? There are so many problems first to be solved. But one problem solved, immediately another bubbles up. And if you look, watch, you will see the other problem has the same quality as the first. Try to solve it; a third one comes up, immediately substituted.

Let me tell you one anecdote.

Psychiatrist: "You teenage kids are a menace. You have no sense of responsibility. Forget about the material things and think of other things like science, mathematics and the like.

How are you on maths?"

Patient: "Not very good."

"I will give you a test for your factual information. Now give me a number."

"Royal 3447. That is the store where my girl works."

"I don't want a phone number, just an ordinary number."

"All right. Thirty-seven."

"That's better. Now another number, please."

"Twenty-two."

"And again."

"Thirty-seven."

"Fine, fine. See, you can get your mind working in other directions if you want to."

"Correct. 37-22-37! Boy, what a figure."

Again back to the girlfriend. If not through the phone number, then through the figure.

This goes on and on, ad infinitum.

Look at the essential thing. Why do you want to create problems in the first place? Are there really problems? Have you asked the most essential question to yourself: Are there really problems, or are you creating them and you have become habituated to creating them and you keep their company and it feels lonely if there are no problems? You would even like to be miserable, but you would not like to be empty. People even cling to their miseries but are not ready to become empty.

I see it every day. A couple comes. Both are fighting for years; they say fifteen years they have been fighting. Married for fifteen years, and continuously fighting and creating hell for each other. Then why don't you separate? Why are you clinging to misery? Either change or separate. What is the point of wasting your whole life? But I can see what is happening. They are not ready to be alone. At least misery gives them company. And they don't know now, if they separate, how they are going, to manage their lives. They have become adjusted to a particular pattern of continuous conflict, anger, nagging, fight, violence. They have learned the trick of it. Now they don't know how to be in another situation with somebody else with a different personality. How to be with somebody else? They don't know anything else. They have learned a particular language of misery.

Now they feel skill, efficiency in it. To move with a new person again will be starting things from ABC. After fifteen years of remaining in a certain business1 one starts feeling afraid to move in another.

I have heard about a great film star who went to a psychiatrist and said, "I have no talent for music, no talent for acting. I am not a beautiful, handsome person. My face is ugly, my personality is very poor. What should I do?" And he is a famous actor.

So the psychiatrist said, "But why don't you get out of acting? If you feel you don't have any talent, no genius, and this is not the work you are meant to do, why don't you get out of the work?"

He said, "What? After twenty years working in it, and I have almost become a famous star?"

You invest in your miseries also. Watch. When one problem drops just see, the real problem will shift immediately to something else. It is as if the snake goes on slipping out of the old skin but the snake remains. The "Why?" is the snake. It was concerned when you were crying. Now crying has stopped; you are laughing. The snake has slipped out of the old skin. Now the problem is "Why?"

Can't you think of a life without any "Why?" Why do you make life a problem?

A man was talking to a Jew, and the man was feeling very annoyed by the Jewish habit of answering questions with other questions. Annoyed, the man finally said, "Why do you Jews go on answering questions with questions?"

Said the Jew, "Why not?"

People go on moving in a circle. "Why not?" Again a question.

Just look into it. If you are laughing, beautiful. In fact, if you ask me, even crying was beautiful; nothing was wrong in it. If you really ask me, then I will say accept whatsoever is. Accept the real, and then crying is also beautiful and there is no need to go into the inquiry of "Why?" Because that inquiry distracts you from the factual. Then crying is not important - why you are crying. Asking for the cause, then the real disappears and you go on chasing the cause, where it is. Where can you find the cause? How can you find the cause? You will have to go to the very beginning of the world, and there has never been any beginning.

Just see. To answer "Why?" ultimately you will have to go to the very beginning of the world. And there has never been any beginning. The world has been always and always and always.

No question is needed to live. And don't wait for answers; start dropping questions. Live, live with the fact. Crying, cry. Enjoy it. It is a beautiful phenomenon, relaxing, cleansing, purifying. Laughter is beautiful. Laugh. Let laughter take possession of you. Laugh, so your whole body throbs and pulsates with it. It will be purifying, it will be vitalizing, it will rejuvenate you.

But remain with the fact. Don't move into causes. Remain with the existential. Don't be bothered why it is so, because it cannot be answered. Buddha has said many times to his disciples, "Don't ask questions, and at least not metaphysical ones, because they are foolish." Just remain with the facticity.

Life is so tremendously beautiful, why not live it right now? Crying, it is a gesture of life.

Laughing is also a gesture of life. Sometimes you are sad. It is a gesture of life, a mood.

Beautiful. Sometimes you are happy and bubbling with joy and dancing. That too is good and beautiful. Whatsoever happens, accept it, welcome it, and remain with it; and you will see by and by you have dropped the habit of asking questions and creating problems out of life.

And when you don't create problems, life opens all its mysteries. It never opens before a person who goes on asking questions. Life is ready to reveal itself to you if you don't make a problem. If you make a problem, your very creating of the problem closes your eyes. You become aggressive to life.

That's the difference between scientific effort and religious effort. The scientist is like an aggressive man, trying to snatch away truths from life, forcing life to deliver truths - almost with a gun, violent. A religious man is not with a gun standing before life and asking questions. A religious man simply relaxes with life, floats with it; and life reveals many things to the religious man that it is not ever going to reveal to the scientist. The scientist will always be gathering crumbs fallen from the table. The scientist is never going to be invited as a guest. Those who live life, welcome, accept it joyfully, with no question but with trust, they become the guests.

Question 3

Miserliness has almost become an inbuilt-thing in you. The whole pattern of society creates it. It wants you to snatch things from people and not to give. It makes you ambitious, and an ambitious man becomes miserly. Whatsoever the ambition - worldly, nonworldly - but an ambitious man becomes miserly. Because he is always preparing for the future, he cannot afford to live and share. He is never here-now. If he has money, he has money for the future, not for now. And how can you share in the future? Sharing is possible only in the present. He has money for his old age. Or there are people who have their character, virtue, for the future life, for paradise. How can they share right now?

They are accumulating, preparing for something great to happen somewhere in the future.

Right now they are poor.

All ambitious people are poor, and because of their poverty, they become miserly. They go on holding everything. Useless things they go on holding.

I used to live with a man. I was surprised to sec that his whole house was just like a junkyard. It was even difficult to live in that house; there was no space left. And he was continuously accumulating whatsoever. One day I had gone for a walk and I saw that man by the side of the road picking up a handle of a bicycle, just the handle. He looked all around and he saw that nobody was seeing; he took that handle to his home. When I came back, I went into his house and said, "Where is that handle?"

He was a little embarrassed; he said, "Have you seen it?"

"I was there."

But he said, "This is a good thing. And who knows? By and by I can collect the whole bicycle. And what is wrong in it? And I have not stolen it; somebody had thrown it."

This way he went on accumulating things - useless things - but he is always thinking of the future. Someday these things will become useful; someday the need may arise. Who knows?

You may not be doing so in your house, but you all do so in your heart. If you go into your heart, into your mind, you will find it like a junkyard. You have accumulated many useless things there. You have never cleaned it. You go on putting in rubbish, and then you become heavy, and then you feel burdened, and then you feel disturbed. And then an inner ugliness arises.

But try to understand the base of miserliness. It is in the idea of living somewhere in the future. If you are to live herenow, you are never miserly, because you can share. For what to collect anything? For what to accumulate? There is no necessity that the tomorrow is going to be; it may not be. Why not share? Why not enjoy? This very moment life is flowering in you. Enjoy it, share it. Because by sharing, it becomes intense. By sharing, it becomes more vital. By sharing, it increases and grows.

So the whole point is to understand that the future is not. The future is created by the ambitious mind. The future is not part of time. It is part of ambition. Because ambition needs space to move. You cannot fulfill ambition now. You can fulfill life now, but not ambition. Ambition is against life, antilife.

Just see yourself and others. People are preparing: someday they are going to live. That day never comes. They go on preparing, and they die. It will never come because, if you get into preparations too much, that will become an obsession. You will simply prepare and prepare and prepare. It is as if somebody goes on accumulating foodstuff for some future use and goes on remaining hungry, starving, and dying. That's what is happening to millions of people. They die, surrounded by much stuff which could have been used.

They could have lived beautifully.

Nobody is hindering your path except your ambition.

So miserliness is part of ambition.

This question is from Bodhidharma. He is very ambitious. Not in a worldly sense - he does not want a big house, he does not want a big car, he does not want a big bank account - no, he is simple that way, very simple, almost a mahatma. He has nothing much and he does not bother about it. But he wants to be enlightened. That's his problem.

And he is in such a hurry to become enlightened.

Drop all nonsense. Live right now. There is no need for any enlightenment in the future.

If you live right now, you are enlightened. The day you will be able to find out that life has to be lived right now, here-now, you are enlightened. Then one never thinks of the past and never thinks of the future. This moment is enough, enough unto itself. All misery disappears.

Misery is because you are not capable of living. So you create some goals - enlightenment is a goal to give you a feeling that you are important, that you are doing something, your life is meaningful, you are not living a meaningless life, you are a great spiritual seeker. All ego trips.

Enlightenment is not a goal. It is a consequence. You cannot seek it. You cannot make a goal out of it. It cannot become an object of desire. When you start living desirelessly, here-now, suddenly it is there. It is a consequence. It is a consequence of a vital life, of an alive being - so alive and so intense, so aflame, that this moment he moves so deeply into time that he touches eternity.

There are two moments in time. One is from one moment to another, horizontal - from A to B, from B to C, from C to D. That's how you live; that's how desire moves - horizontal. A really alive man, sensitive, aware, does not move from A to B. He moves deeper into A and deeper into A and deeper and deeper and deeper; his movement is vertical.

This is the meaning of Jesus' cross. The cross is both vertical and horizontal. Jesus' hands are on the horizontal part of the cross. His whole body is on the vertical. Hands are symbolic of action; action moves horizontally. Being moves vertically.

So don't be absorbed in action too much; become more and more absorbed in being. And that's what meditation is all about. It is to learn how to be without doing anything. Wu wei - how to be, without doing anything. Just to be. And you start falling into this moment, deeper and deeper and deeper. And this vertical movement of time is eternity.

Both meet in you - time and eternity. Now it is for you to decide. If you move in ambition, you will move in time; and death exists in time. If you move in desire, you will move in time; and death exists in time. If you hanker for the ego, you will move in time.

Death, ego, desire, ambition, they all are part of the horizontal line.

If you start digging in the moment and move vertically, you become a nonego, you become desireless, you become nonambitious. But suddenly you are aflame with life, you are an intense energy of life. God has taken possession of you.

Move vertically, and all miserliness disappears.

"Nagging, worrying perfectionism." That has also been forced upon you. You have been taught to be perfect. The real thing is to be whole, not perfect. Nobody can be perfect, because perfection is a static thing. Life is dynamic. Nothing can be perfect in life because more perfection and more perfection is possible. It goes on growing, endlessly. It is a continuous growth, a continuum. It is always evolution, it is always revolution. It is never at a point where you can say, "Now, this is perfect."

Perfection is a false ideal, but the ego wants it The ego wants to be perfect, so it goes on nagging you: "Become perfect." Then it creates tensions, madness, insanities, and the ego goes on creating ego trips. Just the other day I was reading a definition. The definition says, "The neurotic person is one who makes castles in the air, and the psychotic person is one who lives in those castles, and the psychiatrist one who collects the rent." If you want to become neurotic, psychotic, then try to become perfect.

And all the religions on the earth up to now - organized religions, the church - have been teaching people to become perfect. Jesus has not taught that. Christianity has.

Buddha has not taught that. But Buddhism has. All the organized religions have been teaching people to become perfect. Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu, they told something totally different; they say, "Become whole." What is the difference between "whole" and becoming "perfect?" Becoming perfect is the horizontal line; perfection is somewhere in the future. Becoming whole can be done this moment, this moment, here-now; it needs no time. Becoming whole is becoming authentic, becoming yourself - whosoever you are, whatsoever you are.

Ordinarily you live a very, very limited life. You don't allow your energy a full play. A fragmented life. You want to love somebody, but you don't love totally. Now I don't say make your love perfect love. It is not possible, because a perfect love will mean now there is no more growth possible. It will be a death. I say make your love total, whole.

Love wholly. Whatsoever is in you, don't hold it. Give it totally, give in totally. Flow into the other totally; don't hold. This is the only thing that will make you whole.

If you are swimming, swim totally. If you are walking, walk totally. In the walking, just become the walking, nothing else. If you are eating, eat totally.

Somebody asked Chao-chou, a great Zen Master, "What did you used to do before you became enlightened?"

He said, "I used to chop wood and fetch water from the well."

The man asked, "Now that you have become enlightened, what do you do?"

He said, "The same. I chop wood and I fetch the water from the well."

The man was a little puzzled; he said, "But what is the difference then?"

Chao-Chou said, "The difference is much. Before, I used to do many more things side by side. Chopping wood, I would think of many things. Carrying water from the well, I would think of many things. But now I simply carry the water, I simply chop the wood.

Even the chopper has disappeared. Just chopping. Just chopping, nobody's there."

This will give you a feeling of wholeness. Make wholeness a constant concern.

Remember it. Drop the idea of perfection. It has been given to you by your parents, mother, father, teachers, colleges, universities, churches... but they have all made you neurotic. The whole world is suffering from neurosis.

A mother took her little boy to a psychiatrist and asked, "Doctor, can a boy of ten marry a film star like Elizabeth Taylor?"

The doctor said, "Of course not, madam, it is quite impossible."

The mother looked at her little boy and said, "See, what did I tell you? Now go out and get a divorce."

Not only is the boy neurotic, the mother also - and the mother is more so. Neurotic parents give birth to neurotic children.

Many times people ask me - Anurag has asked many times - I have never answered - "Why don't you allow your sannyasins to have babies? Why do you give so much trouble to Dr. Phadnis?" First I would like you to become nonneurotic; otherwise you will give birth to neurotic babies. The world is full of neurosis. At least don't increase it. I am not concerned about population; that is the politicians' concern. My concern is neurosis. You are neurotic; out of your neurosis you give birth to children.

They are also a distraction to you. Because you are fed up with yourself, you would like some distraction. Children are beautiful distractions. They create more troubles. Your troubles have become almost old; you are fed up with them. You would like some new troubles also The husband is fed up with the wife, the wife is fed up with the husband.

They would like somebody to stand between them: a child. Many marriages are held together by children. Otherwise they would have fallen apart. Once the children are there, the mother starts thinking of the responsibility to the children, the father starts thinking of the duty to the children. Now there exists a bridge.

And the mother and the father both are loaded with their own madness, problems, anxieties. What are they going to give to these children? What have they to give? They talk about love, but they are violent. Their love is already poisoned, they don't know what love is, and then in the name of love they torture. In the name of love they try to kill the life in the children They make their life structured. In the name of love they dominate, they possess. And of course the children are very helpless, so do whatsoever you want to do. Beat them, mold them this way or that, force them to carry your unfulfilled desires and ambitions so that when you are dead they will be carrying your ambitions and they will be trying the same nonsense that you were trying to do.

I would like you to have children, but to become a father, to become a mother, is not so easy.

Once you are whole, then become a mother, become a father Then you will give birth to a child who will be a freedom, who will be a health and wholeness, who will be graceful - and that will be a gift to the world. And he will make the world a little better than it is.

Otherwise not; otherwise you are enough!

"Why did you put me in the same room with that fellow?" asked the indignant patient in the asylum.

"The hospital is crowded," explained the doctor. "Is he being troublesome then?"

"Troublesome? He is nuts! He keeps looking around the room saying, 'No lions, no tigers, no elephants,' and all the time the room is full of them!"

Mad people think others are mad. Mad people never think they are mad. Once a madman recognizes that he is mad, he is already on the path of sanity.

Try to see your madness, recognize it. That will help you to become sane.

"Nagging, worrying perfectionism." Try to be whole. Otherwise that perfectionism will nag you. Become whole. Do whatsoever you want to do, but do it totally. Dissolve into it, melt into it, and by and by you will have a flowering of your being. Then, then there is no idea of perfection in you.

But you are incomplete, divided, fragmentary. That's why continuously the idea arises "How to be perfect?" Be whole, and the idea will drop on its own accord.

"Pride" and "actor personality." Of course people who are trying to be perfect will become actor personalities. They will have personas; they will hide themselves behind masks. They will not allow their reality to be seen by others. They will always try to pretend; they will be hypocrites. They will always try to perform, to prove. They know who they are, and they will try to prove that they are somebody else.

And the difficulty is that they may not be able to convince others, but they can always convince themselves. That's how neurosis arises.

Just be yourself, at whatsoever cost. Whatsoever the cost, be yourself. Be sincere. In the beginning there will be much fear because you think that you are a great man and suddenly you reveal yourself to be an ordinary man. There will be fear, the ego will feel hurt; but let it feel hurt. In fact let it starve and die. Help it to death. Be ordinary, be simple, and you will become more whole and the tension will dissolve and there will be no need continuously to perform. It is such a great tension - continuously on performance, continuously in the show window, just watching what people are thinking and what you have to do to prove that you are something special. But just think about others also: they are all doing the same thing!

The whole world is worried too much because everybody is trying to prove something which he is not, and others are doing the same. And nobody wants to see that you are great. They know that you are not, because how can they believe in your greatness? They themselves are great You also know that nobody is great other than you. You may not say so, but everybody deep down goes on believing it.

I have heard that in Arabian countries they have a joke that whenever God makes a new man he plays a trick. He whispers in his ear, "You are the best I have yet made - the greatest." But he has been doing that to everybody, so everybody is convinced of his own greatness.

Try to walk on earth. Be realistic. And if you are ordinary, you will suddenly see many doors opening which were dosed because of your tense state. Relax.

And of course pride comes again and again in different ways, so watch. And always remember, it will come in subtle ways, so make your watching more accurate, exact, alert.

Yes, meditation will do. Nothing else is needed. Just meditate more, so you can see things clearly.

Question 4

Now let me explain to you this code word "G.O.K." This is my answer.

A doctor was shown around the London hospital by several physicians. He looked at the filing system and noticed the bright idea they had of abbreviations - D for diphtheria, M for measles, TB for tuberculosis, and so on. All the diseases seemed to be pretty well under control except one indicated by the symbol G.O.K.

"I see that you have a sweeping epidemic of G.O.K. on your hands," he said. "But just what is G.O.K.?"

"Oh," said one of them, "when we can't diagnose we put G.O.K. - God Only Knows."

I don't know who is this guy sitting here on this chair and talking to you. G.O.K.