The Door to the Wild

Question 1:

Maybe you have not yet killed anybody. That's a must. If you want to become mature, you have to become a very very skillful murderer. Unless you kill a few persons you will never become mature.

You have to kill your parents, you have to kill your teachers, you have to kill your leaders. They are all clamouring inside you, and they don't allow you to become a grown-up person - they go on keeping you childish. they make you a dependant, they don't allow you independence.

It happened, a monk was taking leave from Buddha - he was going far away to spread Buddha's message. And when he came to touch his feet, Buddha blessed him and said to his other disciples, 'Do you see this blessed monk? He has killed his mother, he has killed his father, he has killed his relatives, he has killed his king.' The people were very much surprised, they could not believe their ears - 'What is Buddha saying?'

One disciple gathered courage and asked, 'Sir, what do you mean? Do you mean a murderer has some virtue? You are calling him blessed?' Buddha laughed and he said, 'Not only that, he has even murdered himself - he has committed suicide.' Then Buddha sings a song, says a GATHA, in which he explains what he means by it.

Everybody is brought up as a child. That is your first way into the world; that's how you have been trained for years, to remain a child. Everything was ordered, and you were expected to obey. You have become very dependant - you always go on looking for father-figures, you always go on looking for authorities to say to you what should be done, what should not be done.

Maturity means the understanding to decide for oneself, the understanding to be decisive on your own. To stand on your own feet - that's what maturity is. But it rarely happens, because parents spoil almost every child, more or less. And then there is the school and the college and the university - they are all ready to spoil you. It is very rare that somebody becomes mature.

The society is not happy with mature people. Mature people are dangerous people, because a mature person lives according to his own being. He goes on doing his own thing - he does not bother what people say, what their opinion is. He does not hanker for respectability, for prestige; he does not bother for honour. He lives his own life - he lives it at any cost. He is ready to sacrifice everything, but he is never ready to sacrifice his freedom.

Society is afraid of these people; society wants everybody to remain childish. Everybody should be kept at an age somewhere between seven and fourteen - that's where people are.

In the First World War, for the first time, psychologists became aware of this strange phenomenon.

For the first time on a large scale, in the army, people's mental ages were searched for. And it was a strange discovery: the army people had the average mental age of twelve. Your body may be fifty, your mind remains somewhere below fourteen.

Before fourteen you are repressed - because after fourteen repression becomes difficult. By the time a child is fourteen, if he has not been repressed then there is no possibility to repress him ever - because once he becomes a sexual being, he becomes powerful. Before fourteen he is weak, soft, feminine. Before fourteen you can put anything into his mind - he is suggestible, you can hypnotize him. You can tell him everything that you want, and he will listen to it, he will believe in it.

After fourteen, logic arises, doubt arises. After fourteen, sexuality arises; with sexuality he becomes independent. Now he himself is able to become a father, now she herself is able to become a mother. So nature, biology, makes a person independent from parents at the age fourteen.

This has been found long before psychologists entered into the world. Priests have found it long before - for thousands of years they have watched, and they have come to know: if you want to repress a child, if you want to make a child a dependent, do it as early as possible - the earlier, the better. If it can be done before seven, success is far more certain. If it cannot be done before fourteen, then there is no possibility to do it.

That's why all kinds of people are interested in children and their education. All religions are interested, they say children should receive religious education. Why? Before they become independent, their minds should be conditioned.

So the greatest work for a man who really wants to become free, who really wants to become conscious, who really wants to become de-hypnotized - who wants to have no limitations of any kind, who wants to flow in a total existence - is that he needs to drop many things from the inside.

And when I say, when Buddha says, you have to kill your mother and father, that doesn't mean that you have to go and actually kill your father and mother - but the father and mother that you are carrying within you, the idea.

Watch, observe, and you will find it. You are going to do something, and suddenly you will hear your mother's voice: 'Don't do it!' You can watch, and you will hear the voice, actual voice - it is a tape inside you. You are going to eat too much ice-cream: watch. Suddenly a moment comes when the mother speaks from within: 'Don't eat too much - enough is enough. Stop!' And at that time you start feeling guilty.

If you are going to make love to a woman or to a man, suddenly all the teachers are standing there in a queue and saying: 'You are going to commit a crime, you are going to commit sin. Beware! This is the trap. Escape before it is too late.' Even while you are making love to your wife, your mother, your father, your teachers, are there in-between, destroying it.

It is very rare to find a man or a woman who really goes totally into love - you cannot go. Because for many years you have been taught love is something wrong - how can you drop it suddenly?

Unless you are very capable of murdering all these voices... great courage is needed. And that's what I mean by sannyas. My own definition of sannyas is: a person who is ready to drop all parental voices, who is ready to drop all authorities, who is ready to go into the unknown without any map, on his own. Who is ready to risk.

It happened, Alexander Eliot was studying under a Zen master. For months he was doing meditations, zazen, and he was entering into deeper waters of his own being. One night he had a dream, a very strange dream. But Zen people know about this dream. For Eliot it was strange - he was a Westerner, he was shocked. He relates his dream...

'I recently had a dream in which Bodhidharma appeared. He was a floating huddle of a man - round, ghostly, with bulging eyes and bulbous brow.'

Just like me... Bodhidharma is a dangerous man. And Zen people have painted his face, very lovingly, in a very dangerous way. He was not like that - not actually, not physically. Physically he was one of the most beautiful men ever - but if you come across a picture of a Bodhidharma you will start getting scared. If you look into the eyes of Bodhidharma he looks like a murderer, he is going to kill you. But that's all that a master does.

Even in the dream, Alexander Eliot became very much scared and started trembling.

'Was he grinning, or grimacing? His coarse bristling whiskers made this impossible to tell. "You seem to be a grown-up man," he whispered through the beard, "yet you have never killed anyone.

How come?" '

In a dream, Bodhidharma asks, 'You have not killed anyone, and you seem to be a grown-up man.

How come?' He was so much shocked that he awoke, and he found himself perspiring and trembling.

'What does this strange man mean? - "How come you have not yet killed anybody?"'

That's what I mean when I say if you are feeling you are not yet a grown-up man, that simply shows you have not killed anybody yet. Fifty years is already too late - now don't waste time any more. Kill immediately all the impressions inside you. Wash your inside of all old tapes, unwind your mind. And start living your life, from this moment, as if you don't know, as if nobody has taught you anything - fresh, clean, from abe.

And you will see maturity coming very soon - and without maturity life is not worth anything. Because all that is beautiful happens only in a mature mind, all that is great happens only in a mature mind.

To be a grown-up is a blessing. But people simply grow up - they never become grown-ups. In age they go on growing, but in consciousness they go on shrinking. Their consciousness remains in the foetus; it has not come out of the egg, it is not yet born. Only your body is born - you are yet unborn.

Take your life into your own hands: it is YOUR life. You are not here to fulfill anybody else's expectations. Don't live your mother's life and don't live your father's life, live your life. And when you start living your life, you are living God's life.

Question 2 WHY SHOULD PEOPLE SUPPRESS THE SUBLIME? WHAT IS SO THREATENING ABOUT PARADISE?

There is. There is much that is threatening about paradise.

People are very much afraid of happiness. You will be surprised, because ordinarily you always say, 'I am hankering for happiness. I want all that is possible in life.' But my own observation is... and it is not mine alone, it is the observation of all the observers, of all the ages. I have been working with thousands of people, but this observation becomes stronger every day - that people cling to misery, they don't want to be happy.

In fact nobody is hindering them from being happy - they can be happy right now, nothing is missing.

But they cling to the misery. They talk about happiness - because they are miserable, so naturally they talk about happiness. The more miserable they are, the more they talk about happiness, the more they seek and search and the more they create much noise - 'I want happiness. I want happiness.' But they don't drop the misery that they are carrying - and unless they drop it, they cannot become happy.

You cannot become happy with a miserable mind. Happiness is not somewhere waiting for you.

Happiness is just absence of misery, that's all - once you stop creating misery, you are happy.

Happiness is man's nature. You need not worry about happiness at all, it is already there. It is in your heart - you just have to stop being unhappy, you have to stop the mechanism functioning which creates unhappiness.

But nobody seems to be ready for that. People say, 'I want happiness.' It is as if you go on saying, 'I want health' - and you go on clinging to your disease, and you don't allow the disease to go. If the doctor prescribes the medicine, you throw away the medicine; you never follow any prescription.

You never go for a morning walk, you never go swimming, you never go running on the beach, you never do any exercise. You go on eating obsessively, you go on destroying your health - and again and again you go on asking where to find health. But you don't change the mechanism that creates unhealth.

Health is not something to be attained somewhere, it is not an object. Health is a totally different way of living. The way you are living creates disease, the way you are living creates misery.

For example, people come to me and they say they would like to be happy, but they cannot drop their jealousy. If you can't drop your jealousy, love will never grow - the weeds of jealousy will destroy the rose of love. And when love does not grow, you will not be happy. Because who can be happy without love growing? Unless that rose blooms in you, unless that fragrance is released, you cannot be happy.

Now people want happiness - but just by wanting, you can-not get it. Wanting is not enough. You will have to see into the phenomenon of your misery, how you create it - how in the first place you became miserable, how you go on becoming miserable every day - what is your technique?

Because happiness is a natural phenomenon - if somebody is happy there is no skill in it, if somebody is happy it needs no expertise to be happy.

Animals are happy, trees are happy, birds are happy. The whole existence is happy, except man.

Only man is so clever as to create unhappiness - nobody else seems to be so skillful. So when you are happy it is simple, it is innocent, it is nothing to brag about. But when you are unhappy you are doing great things to yourself; you are doing something REALLY hard.

Listen to my statement: To be miserable needs great expertise, to be miserable needs great cleverness and cunningness. To be miserable needs hard arduous work - TAPASCHARYA. To be miserable is very difficult - how people manage is almost a miracle.

To be happy is very simple. Look into the eyes of a cow. Look, the dog goes on resting. Look at a cat, the way she purrs. Everything seems to be happy and there is no problem about it! Except man.

So the first thing to be understood: people are afraid of happiness. Why? There is a subtle thing to be remembered: in misery you ARE - that's why you cling to misery. In happiness you disappear - that's why you are afraid of happiness. In happiness the ego cannot exist. The ego is unnatural, the ego is artificial, the ego is not really there, it is only a belief. When you are miserable, all the misery and all the artificiality of the misery becomes a prop to the ego. The ego can exist with the misery - things go perfectly okay, they are in tune. If misery disappears all props disappear, and the palace of ego starts falling down.

In happiness, nobody has an ego. Have you not watched it? Because I think, sometimes... those moments are rare, but they are still there - sometimes when you are happy have you not watched?

how utterly you are not there when you are happy. Listening to music sometimes, a window opens and you are happy. In that moment you are not - music is, you are not. Dancing, a moment comes like a breeze, and you are soaked with something unknown... a benediction showers on you. Dance is, the dancer is no more.

Sometimes in the mountains, or sometimes on the beach just taking a sunbath, you disappear.

Those moments of your absence are the moments of happiness, bliss, of ecstasy. It is not that you are there, and you are happy, no. Nobody can be both happy and be. Happiness is, then you are not - you never meet happiness. You can be very very well with unhappiness, misery. Misery and you can exist together - in fact you cannot exist separately. Hence people go on clinging with misery.

People really hanker for hell.

George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, 'If I am going to be second in the queue into heaven then I don't want to go to heaven. If I can be the first man in hell then I will choose hell - but I would like to be the first man.' Hell is okay, acceptable; but to be second to anybody is not acceptable. And it is not only George Bernard Shaw that is saying it - this is the desire of all human beings.

You are ready to go into hell, hell is okay - if you can exist as an ego. In heaven you cannot exist as an ego.

WHY SHOULD PEOPLE SUPPRESS THE SUBLIME? Because with the sublime you disappear.

And one thing more: people not only repress the sublime, they repress the natural too. Now, this has to be understood in a certain way....

Man has three layers of consciousness. The ordinary consciousness is called the conscious mind.

Below it is the unconscious mind, above it is the superconscious mind. Between the two, the superconscious and the unconscious, is sandwiched the small conscious. It is a very small fragment.

The unconscious is vast, oceanic; so is the superconscious vast, oceanic. Between these two the conscious is just a small thing, like an island - the ego island.

If you go into the unconscious it disappears - the island disappears, as if the island was not really an island but just a big ice-rock. If you move into the unconscious it disappears. Hence, people are afraid of the natural too. They are afraid of God as much as they are afraid of sex, they are afraid of prayer as much as they are afraid of love. They are afraid, but the reason is the same - they are afraid if they fall below the conscious, if they allow the unconscious to function, then they are no more there. Then their ego island melts and disappears.

While making love, you are not - unless you are a moralist and a puritan. While making love you disappear, you melt. There is great vibration but you are not, there is great pulsation but you are not. There is orgasm... but you are not. A dance of energies, a great rhythm, a harmony - something unheard is heard, something unknown is tasted... but you are not. Hence the fear of the unconscious.

And the same happens when you move beyond the con-scious and you go towards the sublime - towards God, prayer, meditation. Again the same fear, you will melt.

With the unconscious sometimes you have a date. Because with the unconscious there is one beautiful thing - you disappear, but you can come back. In one thing the unconscious and the superconscious are the same - that you disappear in both. In one thing they are different - with the unconscious you disappear only for a moment, then again you are back, back home. Again the island is safe and you are the same as of old. It is only momentary, this pilgrimage takes only a few moments.

So people sometimes have a date with the unconscious, but with the superconscious they go on avoiding it. Because once you go into it you are gone for ever. GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASANGATE BODHI SVAHA - gone, gone, gone forever; gone forever, never to come back.

Hence the fear, the tremendous fear. But this fear has to be dropped, otherwise you live in hell - and you live there out of your own choice. You live in misery, and this is your decision.

My whole effort here is to make you alert to see how misery exists. It exists with your support, with your co-operation; it cannot exist alone. You exist with its support, it exists with your support - it is a conspiracy between the ego and the misery. Have you not watched it? People talk more about their misery than they talk about their happiness. In fact they don't talk about their happiness. People go on talking and boring each other about their misery, their diseases, this and that.

I have heard about a woman who went to a doctor, and the doctor said, 'What is wrong with you?'

She said, 'Don't bother about what is wrong - just do some operation.'

The doctor said, 'But what do you mean? For what? Have you gone mad?' She said, 'Anything will do - remove my tonsils, or remove my appendix, anything will do. But I am tired of listening to other people's stories about their operations. Whenever I meet a woman, she goes on talking about how her tonsils have been removed, and I have to listen to the whole story. Somebody's appendix has been removed... and the whole story. And I have nothing to talk about. Remove anything whatsoever, let me also have something to talk about.'

People talk about their miseries and feel very good. Because the more they have miseries, the more they are: They exaggerate their miseries. You can see it in yourself - when you talk about your misery you exaggerate it, you make it look bigger, you magnify it.

I had one woman colleague when I was a professor in a university. And she used to bore me about her illnesses and operations and.... One day I phoned her husband - her husband was a very famous advocate - and I told him, 'Your wife has tortured me like anything. Wherever she finds me she immediately starts - and just out of politeness I have to listen to all this nonsense.'

The husband laughed. He said, 'That's why I am feeling a little bit relieved - so she is doing it to you! But don't believe her! If she says 'cancer' just think that she must be having a headache or something, not... don't believe her! I myself used to believe her, in the beginning.'

She exaggerates so much. But why do people exaggerate their misery? The bigger the misery, the bigger they are. So many troubles they are facing, so many challenges - they are fighting a great war. They exaggerate the enemy because only by the exaggeration of the enemy do they become greater. And then they conquer the enemy.

If it is just an ordinary headache and you conquer it, what is the point? If it is cancer and you conquer it, then you have done SOMETHING something like a miracle.

Watch, and stop these mechanisms functioning. Never talk about your misery - it is not worth talking about, it is only worth dropping. Never pay too much attention to your misery, because if you pay attention you are feeding it. Attention is food - if you give attention to anything it becomes stronger.

Never feed your misery by paying it attention. Just remain aloof, unconcerned. Even if it is there it's okay, remain unconcerned. And by and by, you will be surprised - the big misery starts becoming smaller, smaller, smaller... one day suddenly it has disappeared. You were helping it to be there by giving it attention.

Remember, attention is really food, nourishment. Now there are scientific experimentations proving the fact that attention is food. You pay attention to anything, and it grows. Now they say even trees grow faster if the gardener pays attention. If the gardener pays special attention to one tree, other trees will not grow as fast as that one tree will grow.

You can experiment yourself - it is not a big problem, you need not have a big lab for it. You just choose ten plants of the same size and pay attention to one. Give water to everybody, give manure to everybody - but pay attention to one. Sometimes caress that plant, hug it, kiss it, pay attention to it. Sit by its side, talk to it, sing a song to it. And you will be surprised - scientists have been surprised - that plant grows faster. Within months it will be double the size of all other plants. They have been neglected - not that you have been neglecting by not watering them; everything was the same. Just one thing was missing: attention was not paid.

That's why children grow faster when they are with their mother. You can give them to a nurse who will take every care - maybe far better than the mother herself, because she is a trained one, she knows how to take care. But something is missing: the nurse cannot give the attention that the mother can give. The mother may not be a trained one, but that is not the point - the child knows that the mother goes on paying attention, the child feels important. He knows the mother is around, he can trust. The hug of the mother, the warmth of the mother, and the very attention, makes him feel worthy.

He is needed. Somebody needs him, somebody's happiness needs him. If he is not there the mother becomes unhappy, if he is ill the mother is unhappy. So he is not useless in this world, somebody depends on him. Somebody has investments in him - there is somebody who will be unhappy if he is not there, he is making somebody happy. When you feel needed, you feel good.

There is a need to be needed - the attention gives him certainty that he is needed. Without him the mother won't be the same woman. She won't smile, and she won't run like this, as she runs around him; she will be sad and miserable. So he is significant; he has brought meaning into the world.

When you love a woman she becomes more beautiful. When a woman loves you you become more graceful, suddenly all your awkwardness is gone. You become more clean - you take a bath every day, you brush your teeth more carefully, now you are worried if you perspire too much.

You change overnight if a woman falls in love with you. What happens? She pays attention to you, you become important. Now those two eyes are waiting for you - you have to satisfy those two eyes, their happiness depends on you. You are not just irrelevant in this world, you are needed. You are a must here - without you the world won't be the same. Suddenly, a significance, a glory, arises around you; you are surrounded by an aura. You can see in a man whether he is in love or not. Just by watching him you can see whether he's in love or not. When a man is not in love he becomes lethargic. His feet lose dance, he becomes dull, there is no joy, he is not bubbling. He no more has any wings, his wings are clipped.

But when a man is in love, suddenly he has wings. Again dreams, again poetry, arise. There is not a single man or woman on the earth who has not become poetic when she or he was in love. In fact the people who are called poets are people who are in love continuously. Their object of love may be anything - maybe nature, maybe God, maybe a woman, maybe just humanity - but the people who are known as poets are the people who are continuously in love. Hence, they remain poetic.

Otherwise everybody is poetic - you just lose track of love, and the poetry is lost.

Attention is food, very subtle food. Remember it: Don't pay attention to the negative, don't pay attention to your misery.

Don't talk about it, don't magnify it - you are destroying yourself, it is self-destructive. Neglect it, and neglected it dies. Be indifferent to it. Indifference is poison - if you want to destroy it, train yourself into more indifference towards it.

Be more concerned with happiness, pay more attention to happiness. Small happinesses should be given all attention - small moments, but you should focus your whole energy into them, you should pour yourself utterly into them. And they will grow, and they will spread all over your life.

Paradise is not something geographical, it is not somewhere THERE - paradise is a way of life, just as hell is a way of life. Hell is here, and paradise is here. And sometimes it is possible that you may be in hell and the person sitting by your side may be in heaven. So heaven and hell are not so apart.

They are psychological states, ways of life, and it is up to you.

Question 3:

If you go on hesitating, you will miss all that is beautiful. Because the beautiful comes only in rare moments - if you are not ready enough to jump into it when the moment is there, you will go on missing. A man who continuously hesitates goes on missing - because when the moment comes, he is hesitating. When the moment has gone he may even decide, but now the opportunity is no more there. So he has to wait for the opportunity.

It is said about Immanuel Kant, a woman told him that she would like to marry him. It was so good of that woman - because people rarely fall in love with people like Immanuel Kant. Just hung-up in their heads... who wants to fall in love with such people? The woman must have been a woman of great compassion.

Immanuel Kant said, 'Let me think about it.' He thought for three years - he meditated over it, for all pros and for all cons. His diary is still preserved; he has written three hundred reasons for and against. There is only one reason more for 'for' - finally, because of that one reason, he decided.

Now, this kind of decision is not much of a love. Mm? this is too much of logic - syllogistic.

He went to the woman's house, knocked on the door. The father opened the door and he said, 'What do you want, young man?' And he said, 'I have decided to marry your daughter.'

The father laughed. He said, 'You came a little late - she is already married, and she has a child!

You have missed the opportunity.' And Immanuel Kant remained a bachelor for his whole life - because no other woman ever asked him, and of course he could not ask any other woman himself; that is impossible for such people. He would hesitate to ask, he would hesitate for years to A newly-married society girl was determined to prove to her husband what an accomplished cook she was, and on the servant's day off, set about cooking a chicken for his dinner. She plucked the fowl carefully, arranged it neatly in a pot, and put it in the oven.

Two hours later, she heard a loud banging on the oven door. Investigation proved that the disturbance was being made by the chicken.

'Lady,' it cried piteously, 'either give me back my feathers or turn on the gas! I am freezing to death in this oven.'

You have waited long enough. Either do something or die! Have a little mercy upon yourself. And why be so afraid, and why be so careful? Life belongs to those who are courageous. And I am not saying don't be careful - but to me, carefulness has a totally different meaning than it has to you.

Carefulness, to me, means alertness, awareness. Carefulness does not mean cunningness, cleverness; it does not mean calculation. Carefulness means: be alert, behave in an alert way.

Don't move sleepily in life, move with open eyes. I am not saying, 'Be blind, and do anything.' Keep your eyes open. But just by keeping your eyes open and sitting silently and never taking a risk, you are not going to go anywhere. You will simply die there.

You are not living, you are vegetating. Move! Life is movement, life is a river. If the river hesitates it will become a pond. And a pond is a dead thing, and a pond naturally becomes dirty. And sooner or later the pond will become dry, the water will evaporate.

The river flows and reaches to the ocean, enters the infinite. And the river has no map and no guides, and does not know really where it is going to land. The ocean is far away - not even the noise of the ocean can be heard. But the river goes, slowly slowly moves, moves into the unknown, goes on groping into the unknown... and one day reaches to the ocean. All rivers reach.

If you want to reach, be riverlike. One has to be aware, that's right - but too much carefulness can be a hindrance. It will not allow you to have the unknown in your life. The known is never enough - only the unknown satisfies. Only when you move into the unknown are you fresh and young.

Now, you have lived a life of a non-sannyasin long enough. If you are happy, if you are blissful, perfectly okay - then don't bother about sannyas. Then there is no point in being a sannyasin; I will be the last person to initiate you. If you are happy the way you are, then there is no need.

But if you are unhappy and miserable the way you are, then be a little courageous. Take a few steps beyond the boundary in which you have lived up to now. And I am not saying that sannyas will make you blissful - things are not so easy. But one thing I can promise: you will be greater, more expanded. Your boundaries will not be so small, you will not be closed in a prison. And when you are bigger, there are bigger possibilities - more opportunities to be happy. Just by becoming a sannyasin nothing happens, but this courage to enter into a new adventure will make you more alive. And happiness happens to people who are more alive.

Sometimes, too much calculation, too much of a business-like mind, creates unnecessary troubles which are unasked-for.

Newly-weds went to Washington D.C. for their honeymoon and decided to check into the Watergate Hotel. The bride got into bed and said, 'Honey, I feel so uncomfortable, maybe this room is bugged.'

So the groom began looking behind pictures, into lamps, between furniture. Then he lifted up the rug and found a metal disc on the floor. He removed the screws and pulled up the disc. The relaxed newly-weds now consummated their marriage vows in great style.

Next morning in the lobby the desk clerk asked them, 'Did you spend a pleasant night?'

'Oh, yes,' replied the groom.

'I'm glad,' said the clerk. 'The couple in the room right under yours had a chandelier fall down on top of them!'

So your calculation can harm you and can harm others too. It is harmful. Be a little more courageous - a little dare-devilishness is a good quality.

And this last story for you...

A beautiful girl applied to the circus for a job as a lion-tamer. 'I already have a lion-tamer,' said the owner. 'But I can take you on as an equestrian or as a trapeze artist.'

'No,' she protested, 'I want to work as a lion-tamer.'

Just then the lion-tamer walked in on them with blood oozing from his arm. 'A lion mauled me,' he moaned. 'I won't go on tonight.'

'Okay,' said the owner to the girl, 'the job is yours.'

The girl entered the lions' cage, took off her shoes and her stockings, then her dress, her bra and her petticoat. She folded her apparel neatly. Then, naked, she lay down on the floor of the cage, using her clothes as a pillow.

Two lions walked over to her and started licking her face. her neck, her breasts.

The owner turned to his lion tamer still nursing his wounded arm and asked, 'Why can't you do that?'

'I can,' the man answered, 'if you'll just remove the lions.'

Why are you waiting? Are you waiting for the lions to be removed? then you will talce sannyas?

Then it will be pointless. Yes, it is risky, to become a sannyasin is a risk. It is not a bargain, it is a gamble - one never knows what will happen. And I can't guarantee you anything, and I cannot give you any promise in writing. Sannyas is not a promissory note.

I simply open the door to the wild, to the oceanic, to the orgasmic. I simply open the door. While the door is available, enter, don't hesitate too much. Hesitation is an old habit. Because of your hesitation, I can say you must have missed many more opportunities also in life - because the opportunity comes, and it is gone. It does not wait, it does not bother about you. It comes, and in a moment it is gone. If you are not ready to take it while it is there.... And it is there only for a moment - the window opens for a moment, and then it is closed and may remain closed for ever... one never knows.

So when the window is open, take a jump - go into the unknown. You will not lose anything, because you don't have anything. Why are you worried about losing something? Why are you hesitating?

What have you got to lose?

It is like a naked man who will not take a bath in the river because he is afraid - where is he going to dry his clothes? And he has no clothes, he is a naked man, but he will not take the bath because then it will create unnecessary complexities - where is he going to dry his clothes?

Just look: what have you got to be afraid for? What have you got to lose? Just your miseries!

Question 4:

No, both are the observed - life and death. Beyond both is the observer. You cannot call that observer 'life' because life contains death in it. You cannot call that observer 'death' because death presupposes life. That observer is just transcendence.

That which you are is neither life nor death. You pass through life, you pass through death, but you are neither. You are just a witness to it all. You pass through happiness, you pass through misery, you pass through disease, you pass through health, you pass through success, you pass through failure - but you are none of these. You remain the watcher, you remain the witness.

That witnessing is beyond all dualities. So don't try to make it identified with one part of the polarity.

Life is one part of the same circle in which the other half, death, exists. Death and life are not apart, they are together. Death and life are two aspects of the same energy, two faces of the same coin - on one side life, on the other side death. Can you think of life without death? Or can you think of death without life? So they are not really opposites but complementaries. They are friends not enemies; they are business partners.

I can understand your question. You would like to be identified with life, so that you can say, 'I am immortal. No death for me.' That is your hankering. And I am not saying that you are not immortal, but the word 'immortal' is not right. You are eternal, not immortal. 'Immortal' means you have no death - always life, always life. 'Eternity' means you don't have either. You are part of this totality that goes on and on - through lives, through deaths, ups and downs, valleys and peaks - and goes on moving. You are that which lives and that which dies, and yet remains aloof... a lotus in the pond, untouched.

It happened, Maharshi Raman was dying. On Thursday April 13th, a doctor brought Maharshi a palliative to relieve the congestion in the lungs, but he refused it. 'It is not necessary, everything will come right within two days,' he said. And after two days he died.

At about sunset, Maharshi told the attendants to sit him up. They knew already that every movement, every touch, was painful, but he told them not to worry about that. He was suffering from cancer - he had a throat cancer, very painful. Even to drink water was impossible, to eat anything was impossible, to move his head was impossible. Even to say a few words was very difficult.

He sat with one of the attendants supporting his head. A doctor began to give him oxygen, but with a wave of his right hand he motioned him away.

Unexpectedly, a group of devotees sitting on the verandah outside the hall began singing 'Arunachala-Siva' - a BHAJAN that Maharshi liked very much. He liked that spot, Arunachala, very much; the hill he used to live upon - that hill is called 'Arunachala'. And the BHAJAN was a praise, a praise for the hill.

On hearing it, Maharshi's eyes opened and shone. He gave a brief smile of indescribable tenderness. From the outer edges of his eyes tears of bliss rolled down.

Somebody asked him, 'Maharshi, are you really leaving us?'

It was hard for him to say, but still he uttered these few words: 'They say that I am dying - but I am not going away. Where could I go? I am always here.'

One more breath, and no more. There was no struggle, no spasm, no other sign of death: only that the next breath did not come.

What he says is of immense significance - 'Where could I go? I am always here.' There is nowhere to go. This is the only existence there is, this is the only dance there is - where can one go? Life comes and goes, death comes and goes - but where can ONE go? You were there before life.

That's why Zen masters go on saying to their disciples: Go meditate, and try to see the face that you had before you were born - or sometimes even before your parents were born, or before your grand-parents were born. Look for the original face that you had before you were born.

You were there before birth and you will be there after death. Life is between birth and death. You are not life. You are eternity, you are timelessness. You will be here and now, always and always.

But don't call it immortality, because the word 'mortal' comes from 'death'. It is not immortality - it is life-less, it is death-less.

Remember always, whenever you are dropping the duality, drop the WHOLE of it. If you save half, the other half is saved automatically. If you think that you are life, then you will remain afraid of death. Then you can go on convincing yourself that you are not going to die - but you are identified with life, and you know life dies.

Life is an expression, a manifestation. Death is the energy again moving into unmanifestation. Life is one act of the energy, death is another act, but the energy is beyond acts: it is being.

Yakusan's manner of death was a piece with his life - a great Zen master, Yakusan. When he was about to die, he yelled out, 'The hall's falling down! The hall's falling down!' The monks brought various things and began to prop it up. Yakusan threw up his hands and said, 'None of you understand what I meant!' And died.

'The hall' is based on life-and-death duality. The duality is the house, the hall. The duality is falling - that's what Yakusan means when he says, 'The hall is falling down.' The dual is disappearing and the non-dual is arising... the clouds are disappearing and only the pure sky is left. That pure sky cannot be identified by any word that comes from any pair of any duality. You cannot call it light, because light is a part of darkness, a partner with darkness. You cannot call it love, because love is a partner with hate. You cannot call it man, because man is a partner with woman. You cannot call it any name, because all names are part of dualities.

Hence, Buddha is silent about it. Whenever somebody asks him, 'What will happen to you, Sir, when you leave the body?' he smiles. He does not say a single word - because ALL words will be wrong, inadequate. All words will be false, untrue - because all words come from the dual language. Our language is dual; the non-dual cannot be expressed. That's why Buddha kept silent about God, about the eternal, about the ultimate - he would not say a single word.

A Ch'an story describes how the Abbot Hui-ming approached the master, Hui-neng. Hui-neng is the second great name in Zen history. The first is Bodhidharma, the second is Hui-neng - these are the two foundation-stones of the whole story of Zen. They laid down the whole structure.

Bodhidharma gave the technique, the Zen technique of meditation, zazen - sitting silently doing nothing, and the grass grows by itself. Non-doing, just witnessing. WEI-WU-WEI - action through inaction. For nine years he was sitting just facing a wall, this Bodhidharma - that was his technique that he gave to the world, one of the greatest. All other meditations look childish before Bodhidharma's technique.

Hui-neng gave the koan - another great technique that is very special to Zen. Bodhidharma's technique is not very special to Zen, it comes from Buddha. In that way Hui-neng is more of an original thinker than Bodhidharma; even Bodhidharma is not so original - Hui-neng gave the koan.

'Koan' means an absurd question which cannot be answered, any way you try. It is unanswerable.

And one has to meditate on that unanswerable question: 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'

Now, one hand cannot clap. So the answer is, from the very beginning, impossible. But one has to think about it.

And Hui-neng says when you think about that which cannot be thought, by and by, slowly slowly, thinking becomes impossible. One day, suddenly the whole structure of thinking falls to the ground, shattered. Suddenly you are in a state of no-thought. That's what meditation is.

A Ch'an story describes how the Abbot Hui-ming approached Hui-neng, the sixth patriarch, begging for the doctrine. The patriarch said: 'For the moment, concentrate your mind, not letting your thoughts dwell either on good or evil.'

Hui-neng, is just sitting there with his staff, ready to hit. And he says to Hui-ming, 'Just close your eyes. For the moment, concentrate your mind, not letting your thoughts dwell either on good or evil.'

Good or evil is just one kind of duality. You can call it life and death, you can call it hate and love, or good and bad - just one kind of duality.

And Hui-neng says: I am sitting here. You just keep your mind alert, so that it does not fall a victim of the duality of good and bad. Don't say anything is good, and don't say anything is bad. Don't judge. If thoughts pass, let them pass. If Buddha passes, don't say, 'Good, I am blessed, I have seen Buddha in my thought.' Or if a prostitute passes, alluring you, don't say that this is bad - 'Why should this thought occur to me? Why should this prostitute follow me?' Don't call it any name.

Buddha passes, let him pass, remain unconcerned. The prostitute passes, let her pass. Remain unconcerned, just remain yourself. When you are not in duality, you are yourself.

After the Abbot said that he was thus prepared, the Patriarch continued: 'Now that you are no longer thinking of either good or evil, recall the aspect of the Abbot Ming as he was before his parents had yet brought him to life.'

Now the second question - when the Ming said, 'I am ready now. Now I am not saying good or bad, I am clean of judgement.'

Must have been a rare man, this Ming himself - must have been meditating. He was a monk, a sannyasin, may have been meditating for years - otherwise it is not so easy. And you cannot deceive a Zen master; you cannot just pretend, 'Yes, I have attained.' Immediately your head will be hit hard.

A Zen master does not believe in politeness, a Zen master does not believe in etiquette, a Zen master is a very wild master. And when the Abbot said, 'Now I am prepared,' Hui-neng said...

'Now that you are no longer thinking of either good or evil, recall the aspect of the Abbot Ming as he was before his parents had yet brought him to life.'

Now go backwards. Find out about yourself, who you were before you were born, what you were before you were born. Think of that consciousness, go into it.

The Abbot, under the impact of these words, abruptly entered a state of silent identification. He then did obeisance and said: 'It is like a man who drinks water. He knows in himself whether it is cold or warm.'

Now he cannot answer; he himself cannot answer. He has tasted, he has known who he was, and who he is, and who he will be - but now he cannot say anything about it. It is unutterable, it is ineffable.

He says only one thing: 'Sir, it is like a man who drinks water. He knows in himself whether it is cold or warm. Now I know, but I cannot tell you.'

So knows Hui-neng, but he cannot tell. So knows Buddha, but he cannot tell. So know I - but I cannot tell what exactly it is.

One thing I can say, but that will be always negative: It is neither life nor death. It is neither time nor space. It is neither body nor mind. It is neither the visible nor the invisible. It is neither good nor bad.

It is neither God nor Devil. I can only negate, I can only say that which it is not.

But what it is, you will have to drink. Only when a man drinks water, he knows... whether it is cold or warm.

Question 5:

The question is from Anand Fareed. Fareed, I have nothing to say. And all that I say is only to say this, that I have nothing to say. And all that I say to you is just to prepare you for a moment of eternal silence when you also stop saying, and you start being.

Once Buddha asked his disciple, Subhuti, 'Subhuti, what do you think? Does the Buddha expound the Dharma?' Subhuti said, 'World-Honoured One, the Buddha does not expound anything.'

And for forty-two years, Buddha was expounding the dharma. And Subhuti says, 'World-Honoured One, the Tathagata does not expound anything.' And Buddha gave his confirmation to Subhuti's understanding - because another disciple, Ananda, was sitting there, and Ananda said, 'What do you mean? He has been expounding the dharma for forty-two years, continuously - morning, afternoon, evening, year in, year out. What else is he doing?'

But Buddha confirmed Subhuti's understanding, not Ananda's understanding. Subhuti knows - Ananda has only heard the words. And Buddha says, 'Ananda, you will have to wait to know.

Subhuti is right.'

And it happened, when Buddha died, all the monks, all the disciples, gathered together to collect all the sayings of Buddha. Ananda was not allowed to enter in the hall; Subhuti was the head. Now, this seems strange - but these people called Buddhas are strange people.

Ananda had lived for forty two years continuously with Buddha like a shadow. He had moved with him wherever he had gone, he had slept in his room for forty-two years - he was the only one who was so close. He had heard all that he had said, and his memory was tremendously perfect.

Now Subhuti is the head of the congregation which is going to collect the sayings of Buddha - and the man who had heard him always.... Subhuti was not always with him, rarely - because Subhuti was sent to spread Buddha's message to other parts of the country. So he was rarely there; he had heard Buddha only a few times. He becomes the head, who is going to collect Buddha's sayings - and Ananda, who seems to be the right person to be the head, is not even allowed into the hall.

And Subhuti says to Ananda, 'You sit at the door as a guard - as you used to sit with Buddha too.

You sit at the door outside. Unless you become enlightened we are not going to allow you inside.'

And Subhuti, who says Buddha has not expounded anything, becomes the head of the exposition of the dharma scriptures - all that has been collected under the guidance of Subhuti. But this basic understanding is there, this tacit understanding is there, that all this is superficial - because the ultimate cannot be said. But people are foolish, so even a Buddha has to say the ultimate for these foolish people.

Ananda remained outside the hall. Five hundred monks are inside - they are all juniors to Ananda, Ananda is the seniormost. Not only is he the senior-most disciple, he is also a cousin-brother to Buddha - not only a cousin-brother, he is the elder cousin-brother to Buddha. And he is standing there outside, crying.

For twenty-four hours, it is said, he was standing there crying. And after twenty-four hours, something exploded in him, and he understood. He understood why Buddha had confirmed that 'Subhuti is right; Ananda, you are not right. You have only heard my words - and the words are nothing. The reality is silent.'

He danced. And the moment it happened outside the hall, Subhuti was inside, and they were collecting the sayings: suddenly he stopped and he said, 'Call Ananda in. Now he is worthy to be asked in'

The monks went out, they found Ananda dancing. They had never seen this man so blissful, so luminous. And Ananda said, 'Buddha was right, I had been only hearing the words. Now I have heard the soundless sound.'

Subhuti said, 'Now you can also relate whatsoever you know, whatsoever you have heard from Buddha. Now your memory can be trusted, because knowing has arisen. Up to now your memory was just mechanical - it had no light inside it.'

So say I to you, Fareed: I have nothing to say. And if you hear me rightly, that is the message.

Question 6:

True. Nobody is saying that you should believe. How can you believe? The very expectation is stupid.

Who is telling you to believe? Belief is not being taught here. Belief is the way of ignorance, and by belief a person remains ignorant. A belief is a false substitute - if you start believing, then you are never going to know. Mind you: if you start believing, you have stopped growing. There is no need to believe.

But there is no need to doubt either - that has to be understood. That's what trust is - it is neither belief nor doubt. This will look strange, because ordinarily you think that trust is belief. It is not - trust is neither belief nor doubt.

You need not believe me, you need not doubt me. You can just be here experimentally, hypothetically - 'Maybe this man is wrong, maybe this man is right.' You need not decide. How can you decide?

You have to experiment with your consciousness - the decision will come from there.

If I am talking about something that you have not known, there is no way to believe it. And all belief will be a repression, a repression of your doubt. I am not saying believe me. There is just one thing that you can do, if you can do it; don't doubt it, remain open. Because the moment you doubt, you have fallen into the anti-belief.

Don't say, 'What Buddha says is right, or wrong' - don't say anything, there is no need. How can you say 'right' and how can you say 'wrong'? - because you have not tasted it yet. So remain open, don't get any idea of right or wrong. That openness is trust. And if you are open you will by and by start feeling something is growing in you.

If you are around a man who has SAMADHI, and you are open, SAMADHI will become infectious.

If you are open, SAMADHI will start flooding you. If you are open and your doors are open, the light cannot stay out, it will come in.

So I don't say believe in me, because a man who believes is closed. And I say don't doubt either, because the man who doubts is closed. Then who is the man of trust? The man of trust is the man who is open, vulnerable. To be vulnerable is to be in trust.

Doubt or belief, both are a duality of one energy. Drop both. Be here. And don't be afraid and don't be defensive. Doubt is defensive. Doubt says, 'I am afraid. This man may lead me somewhere where I don't want to go.' Nobody can take you anywhere where you don't want to go. And I am not trying to take you anywhere, I am simply trying to bring you HERE. It is not a question of THERE - there is no there. It is only a question of being here, present.

That presence - that presence comes without any belief, that presence comes without any doubt.

You listen to me as you listen to the birds in the morning, you listen to me as you listen to music.

Somebody is playing sitar - you don't trust, in the way of belief; you don't doubt, in the way of untrust.

You are simply open, the way I would like you to be trusting. You are simply trusting. This man is playing, something may happen, you are open. You are available - that's what trust is. You listen.

And you don't argue inside yourself as to whether this man is playing beautiful music or not. The obvious reveals itself - there is no need to argue, either way.

If truth is here it will reveal itself. Truth is so convincing, it is self-evident; it need not ask for any belief. Only untruth asks for belief. Truth only says don't be entangled by belief or doubt; remain open and available and things will start happening.

And how can you believe me? I am speaking a different language, you are hearing a different language. I say something, you hear something else - how can you believe me? I am talking of another world, you live in another world. I bring another plenitude to you, where you have never been - how can you believe? But how can you disbelieve, either?

Two centipedes go to the movies. Brigitte Bardot is the star. The show is over.

'A beautiful film,' says one of the centipedes.

'And this Bardot has legs - real class,' responds the other exuberantly. To which the first nods and says: 'Yes, but so few.'

Now, a centipede is a centipede. Unless Bardot has a hundred legs, what does it matter to a centipede? Maybe they are even class - but so few....

The bishop goes to the country. He has a friendly chat with a shepherd. 'How big is your flock?' he asks. 'Five hundred and fifty, ' answers the shepherd, who doesn't know the bishop.

'So, in a certain way, we are colleagues - I also have a large flock,' begins the bishop, hinting at his spiritual post.

'Oh?' says the shepherd. 'And how many sheep do you have?'

The bishop reflects, 'Well, it must be a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty thousand.'

At which the shepherd clasps his head in his hands. 'Heavens, you must be busy when it comes to mating them!'

Now, a shepherd is a shepherd - his language is his language. When the bishop says, 'I am also a shepherd,' he is using a word for something utterly unknown to this poor shepherd. He cannot understand the symbol, he cannot understand this metaphor.

When I am talking to you, it is all metaphoric. Metaphors have to be used, otherwise you will not understand at all. How can you believe me? - those metaphors are just metaphors for you. Unless they become your own experience, how can you believe me?

And I am not here to help you believe me, I am here to help you know. Belief is not my way. Don't settle for belief - unless you know, belief is meaningless. And when you know, belief is not needed.

When you know, you know; then there is no way to believe. And when you don't know, you don't know; there is again no way to believe.

So what is to be done? Trust. Trust has nothing to do with belief, and trust has nothing to do with doubt. It is a love affair. If you have fallen in love with me, if you feel that 'Wherever this man is, it is worth exploring' - that's all. 'It is worth exploring, wherever this man is. In whatsoever space this man exists, it is worth exploring.' THAT'S ALL - that urge to explore is enough.

Let me be your adventure. Not an anchor, but an adventure. I don't want to become a prison for you, I want to become your freedom.

Question 7:

You have just run out of gas. And in these days of power scarcity you should be a little more careful!

But it happens. Out of silence it happens, one feels powerful - because in those twenty-one days, energy goes on gathering, it becomes a reservoir. You waste your energy by talking. You waste your energy unnecessarily, for no purpose. You go on dissipating energy - you have a thousand and one leaks in your boat.

When you were silent for twenty-one days, you preserved, you conserved. Then suddenly you had that feeling of power. If it comes another time, don't use it - if you use it, it is again a wastage. Just by stopping a dog from barking... and what is the point of it? Do you want to become a Satya Sai Baba? Don't be so foolish. You wasted it.

But the first time, it happens. This wastage also happens, because the first time you are not aware what is going to happen - the energy is so new. And in the old scriptures it is said that it is exhausted in being used three times. So you have gone very traditionally in your story. The first time when you feel power, shakti, it is just unconscious - unawares you use it. The dog was barking, you suddenly said, 'Stop!' Not that you had deliberately thought about it - just that the power was there, and the power forced you to say it. And you were not expecting that the dog would stop - dogs don't listen so easily. But when the dog stopped, you were puzzled. You must have thought maybe it was just a coincidence.

Hence, you tried the next time - to see whether it was just a coincidence. But the next time you were more conscious, more deliberate. Still, maybe it was just coincidence, you were not confident yet, so you told the man who was walking towards home: 'Run!' And he started running. Now this can't be again a coincidence. Once, it is okay - but twice, it is too much.

The third time you tried, you had become almost an egoist. You knew it happens; you knew now you can do something. Now you tried with a woman - she should look back and wink at you. And she did. And now the ego must have soared high; it must have peaked. And when the ego enters, one becomes weak again.

The power can become very very ego-fulfilling if you use it. So all the secret scriptures of the world say: When this power happens to you, please be aware, don't use it.

I will tell you one story, it is a beauty. Meditate over it.

There was this bloke, see, and he hadn't been able to get the bonk...

Now, I am not going to tell you what 'bonk' is. You will understand it as the story proceeds.

So there was this bloke, see, and he hadn't been able to get the bonk for a year. He was pretty upset about it, see, and of course his wife was too - I mean, a year's a pretty long time. He went to several doctors, and none of them could do a thing. Finally, in desperation, he sought the help of a shrivelled-up little old witch-doctor he'd heard about, down in seedy Soho.

And the witch-doctor said yes, he could help - and gave him a nasty little shrivelled-up black pill.

'Take this,' said the witch-doctor, 'and then use this magic formula. You yell at the top of your lungs:

'Rrrraaaarrrraaaarrrraaaa!' and you'll get a beautiful bonk. When you want it to go down again. you say: 'Shhhhhh...' and it'll go away. But remember, it only works three times.'

Full of gratitude and expectation, the guy leaves. And he's standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus, when he thinks, 'Let's just give it a try.' So he opens his mouth and goes: 'Rrrraaaar- maaaarrrraaaa!' And immediately, it is there. But two little old ladies start screaming for the police, so he has to say: 'Shhhhhh....' And sure enough, it disappears in a second.

He continues towards home, and then he thinks, 'I'll just stop by the pub and show the lads.' So he goes into the pub, says 'Hey, boys, you've got to see this.' And they all go back to the gents and crowd around him, and he goes: 'Rrrraaaarrrraaaarrrraaaa!' and sure enough, it is there again. The guys are amazed. 'Aw, you ain't seen nothin' yet,' he says. 'Watch this.' And he says 'Shhhhhh...'

and it disappears in a minute.

Pleased as punch, he sets off home. He goes inside, creeps up the stairs in the dark, trembling with anticipation, takes a deep breath, opens the bedroom door, and goes: 'Rrrraaaarrrraaaa-rrrraaaa! '

'Shhhhhh!' says his wife. 'You'll wake the children!'

So this is what has happened to you. Next time, please be a little more aware. Whenever you feel powerful, remember: this power can be lost very easily. And you have all the mechanism to lose it - your whole past is a leaking past. It is your past that has played a trick upon you, it is your past that has managed to befool you. By stopping the dog barking, or making a man run, it is your past that has befooled you.

You have run out of gas. Next time you feel powerful again, remain powerful - don't use it at all. If you remain powerful, without using it.... The urge will be there; the urge can become very great, you can become very restless - because the power is there, and you can do something foolish with it.

And all that you can do is foolish, it doesn't matter what it is.

If you can keep yourself cool and calm, and the power remains and remains, and the urge goes to use it - then YOU REALLY become powerful. And then that power is no more in the hands of the ego; it slips deeper. Then the ego is no more strengthened by it. In fact now it becomes your humbleness, your egolessness.

And when power becomes humble - when it becomes simple, egoless - then God starts functioning through you. When you are powerful, only then can you become a medium of God. You can become a vehicle.

Many lotuses are waiting to bloom in you, but they need power. Rather than stopping a dog barking, let the power go inside you, let it permeate your whole being. Many lotuses, a thousand and one lotuses, will flower in you. Don't be foolish again. If it has happened once, it will happen again - there is no problem in it. Next time be a little more alert, aware. And don't play into the hands of the unconscious.