posted January 03, 2008 09:43 PM            

Every day in the morning you wake up again to go -- and nowhere to go! Every day in the morning you get dressed, but you know by the evening nothing is attained, no goal is achieved. Again you fall asleep, again in the morning the journey starts -- the whole meaningless business of it! Inside you go on feeling empty, there is nothing. So with outside things you can at the most deceive others, not yourself. How can you deceive yourself?

The more things accumulate, the more life is wasted because they have to be purchased at the cost of life. You are less alive, death has come near, things are growing more and more, the pile goes on becoming bigger and bigger, and inside you are shrinking. Then comes the fear: "What am I achieving, where am I reaching? What have I done with my whole life?"

And you cannot go back, the time that is wasted cannot be returned to you, there is no way. You cannot get it back, you cannot say, "Sorry, I will start again"; that is not possible. Then by the time you become old you become more and more sad. That sadness is not because of physical age, that sadness is because now you realize what you have done to yourself: you have made a house, of course you have succeeded, you are rich, you have attained prestige in the eyes of others -- but what about your own eyes?

Now you feel the pain, the suffering of a wasted life, of time lost. Death is coming nearer and soon you will dissolve with your hands empty. This emptiness is inner; you cannot fill it with anything that you can get in the world -- unless you get yourself. Hence the insistence of Jesus that, "Even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a man who is rich cannot pass through the gate of heaven." Why? What is wrong with a rich man?

Nothing is wrong with a rich man. The emphasis is that one who has wasted his life in accumulating things of the world -- that is what is meant by a rich man -- cannot enter into the kingdom of God, because there only one who has attained the inner enters. He cannot deceive at the gate of heaven. He cannot enter because he will be too wasted, rotten, a ruin. He cannot dance at the door, he cannot sing. He cannot enter with a certain significance that he has attained in his life. He is uprooted: he possessed much, but he never possessed himself -- and that is the poverty. If you possess yourself you are rich, really rich. If you don't possess yourself, you may be an emperor but you are poor.

The second thing to be understood is why we go on accumulating things. The truth is so clear, but still we go on. Nobody listens to Jesus or Buddha, and even if you listen, even if you feel that you understand, you never follow it. There must be some very deep reason. So Buddha and Jesus are neglected and you continue on your path. Sometimes a doubt arises, but that is all; again you get settled and you follow your own path. There must be something very deep-rooted which even a Buddha or a Jesus cannot shake, cannot uproot. What is that deep-rootedness?

We exist in the eyes of others: our identity consists of the opinion of others; others' eyes are the mirrors, we look at our faces in others' eyes. There is the rub, the problem -- because others cannot see your inner being. Your inner being cannot be reflected in any mirror whatsoever. Only your outer can be reflected: reflections are only of the outer, of the physical. Even if you stand before a mirror, the best mirror, only the physical part of you will be reflected. No eye can reflect your inner part.

So others' eyes reflect your riches, your achievements in the world, your clothes; they cannot reflect you. And when you see that others think you are poor -- that means you don't have good clothes, a good house, a good car -- you start moving towards these things. You accumulate things just to see that you are rich in the eyes of others. Then others' eyes start reflecting that you are becoming richer and richer, you are gaining power and prestige. Your identity consists of your reflection; but others can only reflect things, they cannot reflect you. Hence, meditation is very, very necessary.

Meditation means closing your eyes; not looking at the reflection, but looking at your own being. Otherwise, the whole day you are engaged with others. In the night also, when you sleep, either you are unconscious when there is deep sleep, or you are again engaged with others in your dreams. Continuously living with the other is the problem: you are born into a society, you live in a society, you die in a society -- your whole existence consists of the social. And society means eyes all around.

Whatsoever those eyes reflect, they impress you. If everybody says you are a good man, you start feeling good. If everybody thinks you are a bad man, you start feeling bad. If everybody says that you are ill, you will start feeling ill. Your identity depends on others, it is a hypnosis through others. Move into loneliness -- live with the others, but don't exhaust yourself with the others.

At least for one hour a day just close your eyes -- closing your eyes means you are closed to the society, no society exists, only you -- so you can face yourself directly. Move once a year for a few days to the hills, to the desert, where there is nobody, only you, and see yourself as you are. Otherwise, continuously living with others will create a hypnosis in you. That hypnosis is the reason why you go on influencing others, impressing others. The real thing is not how to live a rich life, the real thing is how to impress others that you are rich -- but these are totally different things.

posted January 03, 2008 09:54 PM            

It happened once: A great Urdu poet, Ghalib, was invited to a dinner by the emperor. Many other people were invited, almost five hundred. Ghalib was a poor man, it is very difficult for a poet to be rich -- rich in the eyes of others.

Friends suggested, "Ghalib, you can borrow clothes, shoes, a good umbrella... because your umbrella is so rotten, your coat is faded, almost gone, and with these clothes and these shoes which have so many holes, it won't look good!"

But Ghalib said, "If I borrow something I will feel very uncomfortable inside, because I have never borrowed from anybody -- I have lived on my feet, I have lived in my own way. To break the habit of my whole life just for a dinner is not good."

So he went to the emperor's court in his own clothes. When he presented his invitation card to the watchman, the man looked at him, laughed, and said, "From where have you stolen this? Escape from here immediately, otherwise you will be caught!"

Ghalib could not believe it. He said, "I have been invited -- go and ask the emperor!"

The watchman said, "Every beggar thinks that he's been invited. And you are not the first, many others have knocked at the door before. Escape from here! Don't stand here because the guests will be arriving soon."

So Ghalib went back. His friends knew that this was going to happen, so they had arranged a coat, some shoes, an umbrella for him -- some borrowed things. Then he put on those borrowed things and went back. The watchman bowed down and said, "Come in."

Ghalib was a very well-known poet and the emperor loved his poetry, so he was allowed to sit just by the side of the emperor. When the feast started Ghalib did a very strange thing, and the emperor thought that he looked a little mad -- he started feeding his coat and saying, "My coat, eat it! Because really you have entered, not I."

The emperor said, "What are you doing, Ghalib? Have you gone mad?"

Ghalib said, "No -- I had come before but I was refused entry. Now this coat has come -- I'm just with it because the coat couldn't come alone -- otherwise I could not have come!"

But this is happening to everybody: not you but your coat is recognized by others; so you go on embroidering your coat, dressing yourself.

Meditation is needed to give you a break from the others, the eyes of others, the mirror of others. Forget them! For a few minutes just look inside -- then you will feel the inner pain and suffering, that you are empty there. Then a transformation starts: then you start looking for the inner riches, the treasury that exists within you -- not for the treasures that are spread all around.

Many are the riches outside, only one is the treasure within. Many are the dimensions and directions outside; one, one-pointed is the goal within.

Jesus says:

THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS LIKE A MAN, A MERCHANT, WHO POSSESSED MERCHANDISE AND FOUND A PEARL.

THE MERCHANT WAS PRUDENT. HE SOLD THE MERCHANDISE AND BOUGHT THE ONE PEARL FOR HIMSELF.

The story is this: One man went to a faraway country to earn money. He earned much, he collected much merchandise, but at the last moment he came upon a pearl. He made an exchange: he sold all the merchandise and purchased the one pearl. When he was coming back, there was an accident and the ship sank. But with one pearl he could swim ashore and he reached his home with his entire treasure.

This is the story to which Jesus refers: that man purchased one instead of many, so even when the ship sank nothing was lost. The one can be saved, not the many. When death comes and your ship sinks, if you have one pearl you will be able to carry it to the other shore; but if you have many, many things, you will not be able to carry them. A pearl can be carried, but how can you carry much merchandise?

Jesus says:

THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS LIKE A MAN, A MERCHANT, WHO POSSESSED MERCHANDISE AND FOUND A PEARL. THE MERCHANT WAS PRUDENT....

He was wise, because it is foolishness to sell the one and to purchase the many. This is wisdom: to sell the many and to purchase the one. The pearl is symbolic of the one, the inner.

THE MERCHANT WAS PRUDENT. HE SOLD THE MERCHANDISE AND BOUGHT THE ONE PEARL FOR HIMSELF.

DO YOU ALSO SEEK FOR THE TREASURE WHICH FAILS NOT, WHICH ENDURES, WHERE NO MOTH COMES NEAR TO DEVOUR AND WHERE NO WORM DESTROYS.

Then be like that merchant, the prudent, the wise one. Whatsoever you can get in this world will be snatched away from you. Have you observed the fact that you cannot possess anything in the world, in reality? You simply feel you possess -- but the thing was here when you were not, somebody else possessed it. Soon you will not be here, but the thing will be here and somebody else will possess it. Your possession is just like a dream: sometimes it is there and sometimes it is gone.

posted January 03, 2008 09:55 PM            

Ebrahim became a mystic in his own right. And when he became known, when he became a realized man, he used to live outside the capital -- his own capital. Once it was his possession, now it was just a sarai. He used to live outside it and people would come and ask, "Where is the BASTI?" 'Basti' means 'the city'; but the word is very beautiful, it means, 'where people reside'. But Ebrahim would show them to the cemetery. He would say, "Go to the right and you will reach the basti, where people reside."

And then people would go. Later they would come back very angry and say, "What type of man are you? We asked about the basti, the city, where people reside -- and you sent us to the cemetery!"

Ebrahim would laugh and say, "So, we use terms in a different way it seems -- because there in the cemetery, once you enter you are a resident forever. That is the real basti, the permanent residence where your address never changes, because you are there forever and forever and forever. So you are not asking for the real basti, then you are asking for this city which is a cemetery because people are standing in the queue just to die.

"Somebody's time has come today, somebody else's will be coming tomorrow, somebody else's the day after tomorrow -- but everybody is waiting just to die! And you call it 'basti'? You call it the place where people reside? I call it marghat, the cemetery, where people are simply waiting to die, where nothing exists except death."

If life exists, it is nothing but a waiting for death, and how can life be a waiting for death? How can life be momentary? How can life be just like a dream? It is there -- and it is gone and not there. Life must be something eternal. But if you are looking for the eternal, then be like the prudent merchant: sell all that you have got. Sell it and purchase the one, the one pearl of your inner being which cannot be drowned, which cannot be snatched away -- because that pearl is you. You can possess only yourself, nothing else can be really possessed.

You can live in an illusion -- that's another thing. You can live in the illusion that you possess this house, this wife, this husband, these children, but this is an illusion; sooner or later the dream will go away. You can possess only yourself because that will never go away. The being is permanent, eternal; it is timelessly yours. It cannot be taken away from you.

This is the difference between a worldly search and a religious search: religion means looking for the eternal, the worldly is looking for the temporal. The world exists in time and religion exists in timelessness. Observe a clear fact: that whenever you close your eyes and thoughts have dropped, there is no time; whenever you close your eyes and thoughts are not there, time disappears. When thoughts are there, then there is time; when things are there, then there is time.

Around you exists time, the ocean of time. Within you exists eternity, timelessness. That's why all the realized ones say that when you have transcended time, when you have gone beyond time, then you have reached yourself, you have come home.

posted January 03, 2008 09:56 PM            

Even a jackass knows when it is time to go back home -- but you have not yet become aware of where your home is and when to leave for home. You go on wandering, you go on knocking at others' houses; you have completely forgotten where your home is. So if you are uneasy it is not strange. If you never feel at ease anywhere, it is not strange. You go on traveling from one corner of the world to the other. Why is there this madness to go from one town to another? What are you seeking? Whenever anybody can afford it he goes traveling. People work, then they save money just to go around the world -- why? What are you going to gain?

I have heard that once an American hunter was looking into a Greek volcano, right into the center of the volcano. Then he said to the guide, "Heavens! It looks like hell!"

The guide said, "You Americans -- you have been everywhere! Once you can afford it you will even go to hell!"

But why does this uneasiness exist? Why is man a vagabond deep down? -- because your home is missing and you are in search of it. Your direction may be wrong, but your uneasiness is indicative. Wherever you are it is not your home, this is the problem. So you go on searching for it, you can even go to hell in search of it, but you are not going to find it anywhere because your home exists within you. And even a jackass knows when it is time to go back!

It is time, it is already time, you have waited enough. Don't search for it in things, don't search for it in others, don't search for it outside -- there you will meet the many, the multiple, what Hindus call maya. Maya means the many, the multiple; maya means the endless. You go on searching and searching and there is no end to it. It is a magical world -- maya means the magic of the many. The magic remains, you go on searching, but you never get anything because it is a magical world: whenever you come closer to it, it disappears like a rainbow. From a distance it is beautiful. It catches you, you become obsessed with it, it enters in your dreams, in your desires; you would like to have the rainbow in your fist. And then you go on and on, and the rainbow goes on receding.

Whenever you arrive you find there is nothing. The rainbow was a dream, an illusory reality. Hindus have called this world of the many, maya -- a magical world, as if a magician has created it. Nothing exists really, everything exists through desire and dreaming. You create it through your desire; you are a creator through your desire -- you create the world of the many.

There is a car, a beautiful car. If there is no man on the earth, what will be the value of the car? Who will appreciate it? Who will bother about it? The birds won't look at it, the animals won't bother. Nobody will pay any attention to it -- it will rot, it will become junk. But when man is there it is valuable. Where does the value come from? It comes from your desire: if you desire it, it is valuable; if you don't desire it, the value disappears. The value is not in the thing, it is in your desire.

The old law of economics was: wherever there is demand, supply follows. But now the law has completely changed: you supply and demand follows. Can you think of any person in Buddha's time dreaming about a car? There was no problem because the supply was not there, so how could you desire a car? Now the whole business world exists on creating new supplies. First they create supply, then they advertise, they create desire; then the demand comes in -- then you rush because then you see, "Now here is the goal I was missing my whole life. Now here is the goal and once I achieve it, everything is achieved."

But the businessman goes on inventing new things, advertisers go on creating new desires. Every year they create new cars, new houses, new goals. Constantly they supply you with ways of moving outwards; they don't give you a gap to think. Your car may be okay, but they say the new model has come. So now, moving with the old model hurts the ego. The new model may not be better -- it may even be worse -- but the new has to be purchased. You have to get it because the neighbors have got it, because everybody is talking about it.

posted January 03, 2008 09:57 PM            

There is even competition in disease! You have to be ahead of each and everyone; whatsoever the consequence, you have to be at the top.

Three commuters were talking in a train. One bragged about his wife saying, "I have a wife. We got married ten years ago, and she still comes every night to meet me at the station when I come back home." Impossible!

Another man said, "I can understand, because I have been married for twenty years and the same thing is happening -- my wife still comes to meet me at the station."

The third man said, "I can beat that! My wife has been coming to meet me for thirty years -- and I am not even married to her. She still comes to meet me -- I can beat you!"

Even if people are telling lies, you have to top them, you have to be the first -- whatsoever people are doing. If the style of dress changes, the new dress may look neurotic but you have to follow it. Nobody is at home because everybody is knocking at each other's door.

Remember this well: nobody is a goal for you except your own self. You are the goal, and you have to achieve yourself -- nothing else is worthwhile.

This is what Jesus says:

THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS LIKE A MAN, A MERCHANT, WHO POSSESSED MERCHANDISE AND FOUND A PEARL.

THE MERCHANT WAS PRUDENT. HE SOLD THE MERCHANDISE AND BOUGHT THE ONE PEARL FOR HIMSELF.

DO YOU ALSO SEEK FOR THE TREASURE WHICH FAILS NOT, WHICH ENDURES, WHERE NO MOTH COMES NEAR TO DEVOUR AND WHERE NO WORM DESTROYS.

Look for the deathless and remain alert; don't waste your time with that which is not going to endure, don't waste your life for that which is going to change, which is part of the changing world.

Then what can you think of which is going to endure? Have you come upon any fact in your life which gives you a feeling that it is going to endure? The visible world is all around you -- nothing endures in it. Even the hills will not endure forever; they also become old, they also die; even continents have disappeared.

The Himalayas were not there in the days of the Vedas, because the original Rigveda never talks about them. It is impossible not to talk about the Himalayas if they are there -- impossible! How can you neglect the Himalayas? And the Vedas go on talking about other things, but they never talk about the Himalayas. Because of this, Lokmanya Tilak decided that the Vedas were created at least seventy-five thousand years ago. It looks meaningful, it may be so; they may not have been written so far back, but they must have existed in oral form for many thousands of years. That's why the Himalayas are not mentioned there.

Now, scientists say that the Himalayas are the latest addition to the world, the youngest mountains; they are the highest, but the youngest. They are still growing, they are still young -- every year they go on growing higher and higher. Vindhya is the oldest mountain on the earth -- maybe that's why it is bent like an old man dying. Hindus have a beautiful story about Vindhya.

posted January 03, 2008 09:58 PM            

Even hills are young, old; they die, they are born. Nothing is permanent in the outside world. Look at the trees, at the rivers, at the mountains: they give the feeling that everything is permanent, but look a little deeper and the feeling disappears.

Then go within and look at your thoughts -- they are even more temporary. They continuously go on moving, not a single thought stays: a moment ago you were angry and the mind was filled with angry thoughts; a moment later you are smiling and those thoughts have disappeared completely, as if they never existed. Just like clouds in the sky they come and go; they are constantly changing their shape, just like the clouds -- they are exactly alike.

Meditate on the clouds and you will see their form is constantly changing. If you don't look you may not become aware, otherwise you will see their form is continuously changing; not for a single moment is the form of a cloud the same. The same happens in your mind: the form of a thought is just like a cloud, it goes on changing. That is the reason why people cannot concentrate, because concentration means the form of the thought should remain constantly the same. That is the problem, because thought goes on moving and changing. Whatsoever you do it is changing: one thought changes into another, one form into another form. The world of thought is also not that which endures.

Hills change, clouds change, only the sky remains the same -- it endures. The same is within you: things change around you and clouds, thoughts change within you -- but the sky of the self, the witnessing self, remains the same. That is the pearl: the witnessing self. It is formless so it cannot change. If there is form, change is going to happen. If there is no form, how can change happen? It is formless, nirakar.

If you go to this formlessness within you, in the beginning it will look empty because you don't know formlessness, you only know emptiness. But don't be afraid, don't get scared, enter into it. When you become acquainted with it, when you have settled in it, then the emptiness is not emptiness: it becomes formlessness. When this formlessness is achieved, you have the pearl. Then you have purchased one at the cost of the many. Right now, at the cost of the one you have purchased the many. And the one is the pearl, the many are just false stones. They may look very valuable but they are not, because they cannot endure.

Endurance, nityata, eternity, is the criterion of truth -- remember this well. What is truth? That which endures, and endures infinitely. What is a dream? That which begins and comes to an end; that which cannot endure forever. So look to that pearl which nobody can snatch from you, not even death. In death the body will die, in death the thoughts will disappear; but you? -- you will go on and on and on.

Death happens near you, but never to you. It happens in the neighborhood, but never at the center; it happens at the circumference. You have never died, you cannot die. Mountains disappear, clouds come and go, but the sky remains the same. And you are the sky. The nature of the self is just like space: empty, infinitely empty, formless. Everything happens within it, nothing happens to it. This is what Jesus means.

posted January 04, 2008 09:32 PM            

JESUS SAW CHILDREN WHO WERE BEING SUCKLED. HE SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES: THESE CHILDREN WHO ARE BEING SUCKLED ARE LIKE THOSE WHO ENTER THE KINGDOM.

THEY SAID TO HIM: SHALL WE THEN, BEING CHILDREN, ENTER THE KINGDOM?

JESUS SAID TO THEM: WHEN YOU MAKE THE TWO ONE, AND WHEN YOU MAKE THE INNER AS THE OUTER AND THE OUTER AS THE INNER, AND THE ABOVE AS THE BELOW, AND WHEN YOU MAKE THE MALE AND THE FEMALE INTO A SINGLE ONE, SO THAT THE MALE WILL NOT BE MALE AND THE FEMALE NOT BE FEMALE, THEN SHALL YOU ENTER THE KINGDOM.

This is one of the deepest sayings of Jesus, and one of the most basic to be understood by a seeker. It is also one of the most difficult to achieve, because if this is achieved nothing more is left to achieve. First try to understand a few things and then we will enter into the saying.

Man, if he lives with the mind, can never be innocent -- and only in innocence does the divine descend, or do you ascend to the divine. Innocence is the door. Mind is cunning, calculating, it is clever, and because of this cleverness you miss -- you miss the kingdom of God. You may attain to the kingdom of this world through the mind, because here cunningness is needed. You have to be cunning: the more cunning, the more successful; the more calculating, the more efficient in the ways of the world.

But the door for the kingdom of God is exactly the opposite. There, no calculation is needed, no cleverness is needed. Mind is not needed at all, because mind is just a mechanism to calculate, a mechanism to be clever. If you don't need any cleverness, any calculation, mind is useless. Then the heart becomes the source of your being, and heart is innocence.

Why do we go on being clever? Why does the mind go on thinking about how to deceive? -- because that is the only way in this world to succeed. So those who want to succeed in this world will be failures in the kingdom of God. If you are ready to accept your failure in this world, then you are ready to enter the other world. The moment one is ready to recognize that, "The success of this world is not for me, I am not for it," immediately a conversion happens, a turning. Then the consciousness doesn't move outward, it starts moving inward.

Jesus emphasizes innocence very much. Hence, he goes on talking about the beauty of children, or the innocence of the flowers, of lilies, or the innocence of the birds. But that type of innocence won't help, you have already lost that. So don't imitate him verbally, don't try to understand literally, it is just symbolic.

You cannot be a child again -- how is it possible? Once you have tasted knowledge you cannot fall back. You can transcend it but you cannot go back, there is no way to go back. You can go ahead, you can go beyond it, but you cannot go behind it now -- there is no way. You cannot be an ordinary child again. How? How can you lose that which you have known? But you can go beyond, you can transcend.

Remember this, otherwise you may start imitating a child and that imitation will be a cunningness, it will again be a calculation... because Jesus says, "Be like a child," so you start practicing how to be like a child. But a child never practices. A child is simply a child, he doesn't even know that he is a child, he is not aware of his innocence. His innocence is there, but he is not self-conscious about it. But if you practice then self-consciousness will be there. Then this childhood will be a false thing. You can act it but you cannot be a child again -- in the literal sense.

A saint, a sage, becomes like a child in a totally different sense. He has transcended, he has gone beyond mind, because he has understood the futility of it. He has understood the whole nonsense of being a successful man in this world -- he has renounced that desire to succeed, the desire to impress others; the desire to be the greatest, the most important; the desire to fulfill the ego. He has come to understand the absolute futility of it. The very understanding transcends. The very understanding -- and immediately you are transformed into a different dimension.

Then there is again a childhood; that is called the second childhood. Hindus have called that stage 'the twice-born', dwij. Again you are born, but this is a different birth, not out of a father and a mother. This is out of your own self, not out of two bodies meeting, not out of duality. It is through your self that you are born.

This is the meaning of Jesus' birth -- that he was born out of a virgin. But people take everything literally and then they miss. Out of the virgin means out of the one: there is no other, so who can corrupt it? Who can enter into it? The virginity remains absolutely pure because there is no other. When the other is there you have lost your virginity. If in the mind the other is there, you have lost innocence. So the consciousness of the other, the desire for the other, is losing virginity. This second birth can be virgin; the first birth is bound to be out of sex -- there is no other way, there cannot be.

Jesus is born out of sex like anybody else, and it is right that it should be so. Jesus is just like you in the seed, but in the flowering he is absolutely different, because a second birth has happened; a new man is born. Jesus who was born out of Mary is no longer there, he has given birth to himself. In the old Essene sect it is said that when a man is transformed he becomes his own father. This is the meaning: when we say Jesus has no father, it means Jesus has become his own father now. This looks absurd but this is how it is.

The second birth is a virgin birth -- and then you are innocent again. And this innocence is higher than a child's, because the child will have to lose his innocence. It is a gift of nature, it is not earned by the child, so it has to be taken away. When the child grows he will lose his innocence -- and he has to grow! But a sage remains innocent. Now this innocence cannot be taken away because it is the climax, the crescendo of growth; there is no further growth. If there is growth then things will change; if you have reached the goal beyond which nothing exists, only then will things not change.

posted January 04, 2008 09:33 PM            

When you are born out of two you are going to remain two, because both are there: a man is not only man, he is woman also; a woman is not only woman, she is man also -- because both are born out of two. Your father goes on existing in you, your mother goes on existing in you, because they both participated, they both meet in your body and their streams go on flowing -- you are two. And if you are two, how can you be at ease? If you are two, there is going to be a constant conflict. If you are two opposite polarities together, a tension is always going to remain. This tension cannot be lost, yet you go on trying to find out how to be silent, how to be peaceful, how to attain bliss. It is impossible, because you are two!

To be silent, oneness is needed, so you have to be born again -- that's what Jesus said to Nicodemus. Nicodemus asked him, "What should I do?"

Jesus said, "First you have to be born again. Only then can anything happen. Right now, as you are, nothing can be done."

And the same I say to you: Right now, as you are, nothing can be done. Unless you are reborn, unless you become your own father, unless your duality disappears and you become one, nothing can be done. When the woman within you and the man within you meet, they become a circle. They are not fighting, they disappear, they negate each other, and then oneness is left. This oneness is virginity.

That is what Jesus means when he says, "Be like children." Don't take it literally. But why "like children"? -- because when a child is conceived, for the first few weeks he is neither male nor female. Ask the biologists, they will tell you that he is neither. For a few weeks the child is neither male nor female -- he is both or neither: the division is still not distinct. That's why medical science is now able to change the sex of the child. A few injections can change it, because both are there -- the male and the female. The balance will soon be lost, either the male will predominate or the female will predominate. And whichever predominates will become the sex of the child. But in the beginning there is a balance, both are there. It will depend on hormones now.

If we inject male hormones the child will be male; if we inject female hormones the child will be female. The sex can be changed because sex is an outer thing; it does not belong to the being, it belongs only to the circumference, to the body; it is a hormonal thing, physical. The being remains totally different from it. But soon the distinction arises: the child starts becoming either a male or a female.

In the beginning the unity. Then the child is born: bodily now he is either a male or a female. But deep in the consciousness the distinction has still not penetrated; in consciousness he is still neither -- the child does not know whether he is male or female. A few more months and then the distinction will enter into the mind. Then the child will have a different outlook -- immediately he will become self-conscious.

In the beginning the body was one, then the body separated. But even when the body separates the child is one. Then the child also separates: the human being disappears; you are identified with being male or female, and that continues your whole life. That means you never reach the source again, the circle remains incomplete. A sage reaches the source again, the circle becomes complete. And first the distinction disappears in the mind -- just the reverse!

In the child, first the distinction comes into the body, then into the mind. In the sage, first the distinction disappears from the consciousness, then from the body, and before he dies he is again one. This is the second childhood: again he becomes innocent -- but this innocence is very rich.

The innocence of a child is poor because there is no experience; the innocence of childhood is just like an absence of something. But the innocence of a sage is a presence of something, not an absence. He has known all the ways of the world, he has moved, he has experienced all that was to be experienced. He moved to the very opposite end: he became a sinner, he delved deep, he indulged, he experienced all that this world can give, and now he has come out of it. His innocence is very, very rich because experience is there. You cannot destroy it now, because he has known all that can be known -- how can you destroy it now? You cannot motivate him any more, all motivation has gone.

If you reach this stage -- in the beginning you were a child, in the end you can become a child -- your life has been a circle, complete; this is what perfection is. If you don't reach the source again, your life has been incomplete. Incompletion is suffering. That is what Buddha calls dukkha, misery. If you are incomplete there is misery, if you are complete you are fulfilled.

posted January 04, 2008 09:33 PM            

But what happens to the ordinary mind? The distinction remains to the very end, sex remains to the very end. Even if the body becomes weak, the mind goes on -- and sex is the basic duality. So unless sex disappears, the oneness, the nondual, the Brahma is not going to happen. Remember, the nondual -- the adwaita, the Brahma, the one -- is not a hypothesis, it is not a theory, it is not a doctrine. It is not a philosophical thing you can argue about, it is not a belief -- it is a transcendence of sex. It is a very deep biological phenomenon, it is alchemical, because your whole body needs a transformation.

Three old men were sitting in a garden on a bench discussing their miseries -- because old men have nothing else to say. One old man, who was seventy-three, said, "My hearing is going. People have to shout into my ears, and even then I cannot hear rightly!"

Another, who was seventy-eight, said, "My eyes are becoming weak, I cannot see rightly, and moreover, I cannot even make a distinction between a blond and a redhead!"

Then they asked the third man, they said, "Mulla Nasruddin, and what is your trouble?"

Nasruddin, who was ninety-three, said, "My trouble is deeper than both of yours. Last night it happened: we had dinner, then some wine, then I rested on the sofa and I fell asleep. About half an hour later I became aware that the wife had gone to bed. So I went into the bedroom and I told the wife, 'Give me a little space, let me come into bed and we will have a little fun!' The wife said, 'What? We had a little fun just twenty minutes ago!'"

And then Nasruddin tapped his head very sadly and said, "Gentlemen, my problem is that my memory is slipping!"

Sex goes on following you to the very end, to the last. And you may not have observed, you may not have thought about it, but if a man has not transcended mind, the last thing in the mind when he dies will be sex -- because that was the first thing when he was born. It is bound to be the last thing, it is natural -- try it!

When you go to sleep at night just watch the last thought -- the last, the very last; after that fall into sleep. Remember it, and in the morning you will be surprised: that will be the first thought in the morning -- if you observe. Or do it the other way: in the morning, observe the first thought and remember it. In the night that will be the last thought, because life is cyclic. Sex is the first thing in life and it is going to be the last. If you don't transcend it you are just victims, you are not your own masters.

Do you know what happens whenever a person is hanged? If a male is hanged, the semen is released immediately. This happens in every prison, wherever people are hanged. The last thing, when he is dying, semen is released. What is the meaning of it? Why should it be so? Life is a cycle, it completes itself: that was the first thing, through which he entered life; that is going to be the last thing, through which he will again enter into another life.

A sage transcends sex -- but a sage has not repressed sex, remember, because repression is not transcendence. If you repress you are still in it; if you repress you are still divided. A sage has not repressed anything. Rather, on the contrary, the male and the female energy within him have become a unity; now he is neither male nor female. That is what Jesus has called 'eunuchs of God'. That is what Hindus mean when they depict Shiva as ardhanarishwar -- half-man, half-woman: he has become one. And Hindus say Shiva is the most perfect god, the greatest -- Mahadeva. Why do they call him Mahadeva, the greatest? -- because he is half-man and half-woman, and when you are half-man and half-woman consciously, both become one circle and both disappear. The duality has disappeared, he has become one.

Jesus is talking about this oneness -- ardhanarishwar, half-male, half-female. Then you are neither, then a new childhood has started, the second childhood; you are dwij, twice-born. A new world of innocence is discovered.

posted January 04, 2008 09:34 PM            

JESUS SAW CHILDREN WHO WERE BEING SUCKLED. HE SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES: THESE CHILDREN WHO ARE BEING SUCKLED ARE LIKE THOSE WHO ENTER THE KINGDOM.

THEY SAID TO HIM: SHALL WE THEN, BEING CHILDREN, ENTER THE KINGDOM?

This is how disciples always miss: they take things literally, they understand words too much -- and the message is wordless. They cling to the symbols too much, they make them too concrete, while when a Jesus speaks his symbols are not concrete, they are liquid. They show something, they don't say anything. They are like indications, fingers pointing to the moon, not saying anything.

Once Jesus says: THESE CHILDREN... ARE LIKE THOSE WHO ENTER THE KINGDOM, immediately we think that if we become like these children, then we will be capable, then we will be able, then we can enter into the kingdom of God.

The disciples said: SHALL WE THEN, BEING CHILDREN, ENTER THE KINGDOM?"

Jesus said, "No! Just being children won't help."

JESUS SAID TO THEM: WHEN YOU MAKE THE TWO ONE, AND WHEN YOU MAKE THE INNER AS THE OUTER AND THE OUTER AS THE INNER, AND THE ABOVE AS THE BELOW, AND WHEN YOU MAKE THE MALE AND THE FEMALE INTO A SINGLE ONE, SO THAT THE MALE WILL NOT BE MALE AND THE FEMALE NOT BE FEMALE, THEN SHALL YOU ENTER THE KINGDOM.

This is what he means by being children again. Try to understand every sentence: WHEN YOU MAKE THE TWO ONE....

This is the basic problem. Have you observed that if a sunray enters a prism, immediately it becomes seven? Then all the colors of the rainbow appear. That is how a rainbow happens: in the rainy season, whenever the air is filled with vapor or tiny drops of water, those drops of water hanging in the air behave like a prism. A sunray enters and it is immediately divided into seven -- that's how a rainbow happens. In the rainy season, when the sun is out of the clouds a rainbow will be there. The sunray is white, pure white, but through a prism it becomes seven; the whiteness is lost, seven colors appear.

Your mind functions as a prism; the world is one, existence is pure white, and through your mind it is divided into many. Everything seen through the mind becomes many. If you are very alert, you will see seven things in every mental concept. Mind divides just like a prism -- into seven. That's why we have divided the week into seven. Mahavira, because of this attitude of the mind, divided his whole logic into seven steps. They are called 'seven aspects of logic', and if you asked Mahavira a question he would give seven answers.

You asked one question -- he would immediately give you seven answers. It was very confusing, because if you asked one question and he gave seven answers, you left more confused than you had come. And because of those seven, Mahavira could not be understood; it was impossible to understand him. But he was absolutely correct, because he was saying, "You ask through the mind, I have to answer through the mind -- and mind divides everything into seven." And those seven contradict each other, they are bound to, because the truth can only be one, the truth cannot be seven.

When you say a thing in seven ways you have to make contradictions. If you asked Mahavira whether God exists, he would say, "Yes, God exists"; and he would say, "No, God doesn't exist." Then he would say, "Yes and no, both -- God exists and doesn't exist"; and then he would say, "Neither" -- and in this way he would go on, up to seven.

Mind divides like a prism. Whenever you look through the mind everything becomes seven. If you look keenly, then seven; if you don't look keenly, then two. If you ask an ordinary man he will say, "Only two answers are possible. If you ask about God, either God is or God is not -- there are only two possibilities." But he is missing five because he is not very alert; otherwise, the possibilities are seven, not two. So two is the beginning of the many, seven is the end of the many.

Jesus says: WHEN YOU MAKE THE TWO ONE....

He is talking to very ordinary people, while Mahavira was talking to the greatest scholars and logicians. That is the difference between the audiences: Jesus is talking to very poor, ordinary people -- just the mass; but Mahavira was talking to a very select few. He could talk about the seven, Jesus talks about the two -- but they mean the same.

Jesus says: WHEN YOU MAKE THE TWO ONE.... Mahavira says, "When you make the seven one, when the seven disappear and one is left, you have attained." Jesus says, "When the two disappear and one is left, you have attained." The difference is in the audience, but they mean the same thing.

How can the two disappear? What should you do? Nothing can be done through the mind because if the mind is there the two will remain. How should the rainbow disappear? How can it disappear? You just throw the prism and there is no rainbow; just take away the drop hanging in the air and the rainbow disappears. Don't look through the mind and the world of the many disappears; look through the mind and it is there.

Don't look through the mind, put it aside and see. Children look at the world without the mind, because the mind takes time to develop. The body comes first, then later on mind follows -- it takes many years really. When the child is born, on the first day he looks at the world and the world is one, he cannot make any distinctions. How can he make any? He cannot say, "This is green and that is red." He does not know red, he does not know green, he simply looks -- the world is one. It is so 'one' that he cannot make a distinction between his own body and the mother's body.

Jean Piaget has worked very much on the developing mind of a child. He has been working on this his whole life, and he has come to reveal many truths: a child cannot make any distinction between his own body and things. That is why he will take his own toe and start eating it, because he cannot make distinctions. He cannot think that this is his own toe and it is useless sucking it, he catches hold of it as he will catch hold of anything -- there is no distinction. He will defecate and start eating it -- no bad, no good. We will say, "What dirtiness!" but for him there is no distinction, so what can he do?

Because of this, for centuries in India many people have existed who have tried to imitate the child. So they will eat food in the same place where they defecate, and foolish people call them paramahansa, those who have attained. They are simply imitating the child, they don't make any distinction -- but they do; otherwise, what need is there to do it? They make the distinction, but they force themselves not to make it. Buddha will not do it, Jesus will not do it, Krishna will not do it, but these so-called paramahansas -- you can find them somewhere or other all over the country -- they force themselves not to make distinctions.

posted January 04, 2008 09:35 PM            

When the two become one... just like the child. When the child is born, he opens his eyes -- he looks, but he cannot think; the look comes first, thinking will follow. It will take time, sometimes years before the child will become able to make distinctions. A child will immediately snatch a toy from another child's hand, and you will say, "Don't do that! That's not good, that toy is not yours!" You are making a distinction of property because you believe in individual property. You think, "This is mine, and that is not mine." For a child no distinction exists -- a toy is just a toy. He cannot think how it is not his: "If my hand can reach and snatch it, it is mine." 'Mine' and 'thine' are still not clearcut.

A child cannot make any distinction between a dream and a reality. So in the morning a child may be weeping and crying because he had a beautiful toy in his dream: "Where has it gone?" He wants it to be given back immediately. He cannot make a distinction between the dream and the real; he cannot make any distinctions. His innocence is because he is still unable to make distinctions.

And a sage's innocence comes when he has dropped making distinctions. Not that he cannot see that green is green and red is red, not that he cannot make the distinction that this is bread and that is a stone -- but he has dropped the mind. Now he lives through the look and not through thinking. That is why Hindus have called their philosophies darshanas. Darshan means to look, not to think; and philosophy is not a right translation, because philosophy means to think -- it is just the opposite.

Darshan means to look and philosophy means to think -- they are just the opposite of each other, they cannot be joined together in any way. Darshan means a look like a child's, when distinctions have been dropped: WHEN YOU MAKE THE TWO ONE, AND WHEN YOU MAKE THE INNER AS THE OUTER.... Because this 'inner' and outer' is also a distinction.

I myself have to say: Leave the outer, come to the inner; move within, drop the without. But you can misunderstand the whole thing, because when you drop the without, the within will be dropped automatically. When the outer is no more, how can the inner exist? They are relative terms: the inner exists only as the opposite of the outer; when there is no more outer there is no more inner. First you drop the outer, and then the inner drops automatically by itself; there is no 'in', no 'out' -- you have become one. If there is still inner and outer then you are still two, not yet one, you are still divided.

That's why Zen monks have said one of the most strange things ever asserted: they say this world is God; they say ordinary life is religion; they say everything as it is, is okay. Nothing is to be changed because the very concept of change creates the two: that which is has to be changed into something which ought to be; A has to be changed into B, the two comes in. They say this very world is divine; God is not somewhere else, because that somewhere else creates a duality. God is not the creator and you are not the creature -- you ARE God. God is not the creator -- this very creation is divine, the very creativity is God.

Mind always tries to make distinctions, that is mind's speciality. The more distinctions you can make, the more clever a mind you have. And mind will always say that these mystics are a little foolish, because boundaries are not clear. That's why they call religion mysticism, and by mysticism they don't mean a very good thing. They mean something vague like mist, something cloudy, something that is not a clear reality, but like a dream.

These mystics are fools to logicians because they don't make distinctions -- and distinctions are everything you have to make; you have to know what is what! And logic thinks the more distinctions you can make, the nearer you come to the reality. That is why science -- which follows logic, which is the application of logic and nothing else -- has reached the atom; making distinctions, by and by, separating everything, they have reached the atom.

Religion, not separating but joining, dropping the boundaries not drawing the boundaries, has reached the ultimate, the one. Science has reached the atom, which means the many, the infinitely many; and religion has reached the one, the infinitely one. The approaches: science uses mind and mind makes boundaries, clearcut distinctions; religion doesn't use mind and then all the boundaries disappear, everything becomes everything else, things are meeting. The trees are meeting the sky, the sky is dropping into the trees; the earth is meeting heaven, heaven is reaching the earth.

And if you look deep into life, you will find that these mystics are right. All boundaries are manmade, there are no boundaries in reality. They are useful, utilitarian, but not true; they help in certain ways, but they hinder also in certain other ways.

Try to find distinctions: for the last week you have been unhappy -- can you exactly pinpoint the moment when you became unhappy? Can you draw a line? Can you say, "Exactly on this day, at nine-thirty sharp in the morning, I became unhappy"? No, you cannot draw a line. If you search, suddenly you will find everything is vague, you cannot say when you became unhappy. Then you become happy -- watch when you become happy again. You may have missed because you were not aware in the past, but now you are unhappy and sometime you will become happy, because mind cannot remain in one state forever. You cannot help it. Even if you want to remain unhappy permanently, you cannot. Then watch: at exactly which moment do you become happy again? You will become happy and you will again miss the moment because it will be vague.

What does it mean? It means happiness and unhappiness are not two things. That's why you cannot make the distinction: they melt into each other, they mingle into each other, their boundaries merge into each other. There are no boundaries really -- they are like a wave, they are like the hill and the valley: the valley follows the hill; the wave comes and the hollow follows the wave. Where does the hill start, and where does the valley end? Nowhere! They are one.

It is your mind which says, "This is the valley and this is the hill." Can you have a hill without the valley? Can you have a valley without the hill? Can you have happiness without unhappiness? If you are trying to, then you are trying for the impossible. Can you have unhappiness without happiness? Drop it! -- because this happiness and unhappiness is more poetic. Health and illness are more physiological. Watch: exactly when did you become ill? Where can you draw the boundary? And when did you become healthy? Nobody can draw any line of demarcation: illness becomes health, health becomes illness; love becomes hate, hate becomes love; anger becomes compassion, compassion becomes anger. It may be uncomfortable to conceive, but mystics are true.

posted January 04, 2008 09:36 PM            

When to declare that a man is dead? When he is not breathing? But there have been yogis who have demonstrated in scientific laboratories that they can remain without breathing even for ten minutes. So, the criterion of death cannot be that a man is dead whenever he is not breathing. He may not be able to breathe again, but this is not the criterion because people have demonstrated that they can remain without breathing for ten minutes. This man may be a yogi. He may not want to come back, but you have no right to declare that he is dead. Still, we have to declare death because the dead have to be disposed of.

When is a man really dead? When his heart stops functioning? Or when his brain stops functioning? Now, in scientific laboratories there are brains without bodies -- and they are functioning. Who knows what they are thinking? -- may be dreaming? They will not even be aware that they have lost the body. And scientists who have been observing brains which have no bodies say they also have the same rhythm: they sleep, they are awake; they sleep, they are wakeful; they show signs that they are dreaming, and they show signs that now they are not dreaming; they show signs that they are thinking, and they show signs that they are sometimes angry and agitated and tense, and sometimes relaxed. Inside, what will they be thinking? They must not be aware that the body is no longer there, but can you call those minds dead? They are functioning well. Which part can be the criterion? Which moment can be the criterion?

In the second world war they experimented in Russia, and at least six persons are still alive who were declared dead because of a sudden heart failure. They were declared dead but they were pumped blood, they were revived, and six of them are still alive. What happened? They have been reclaimed!

Is there really a boundary where life ends and death begins? No! Just a wave phenomenon. Life follows death just like a wave is followed by a hollow. They are not separate, they are one -- the rhythm of the one.

Mystics say that for utilitarian purposes it is okay that you divide, but the reality is indivisible. What to do to know this indivisible reality? Just put aside the mechanism that divides -- this is what meditation is. Put the mind aside and look; look without the mind. Be aware without the mind. See! -- and don't allow thoughts to stand as a screen between you and the universe. When the clouds, the thoughts, are not there and the sun shines with full awareness, the world is one.

WHEN YOU MAKE THE TWO ONE, AND WHEN YOU MAKE THE INNER AS THE OUTER AND THE OUTER AS THE INNER, AND THE ABOVE AS THE BELOW, AND WHEN YOU MAKE THE MALE AND THE FEMALE INTO A SINGLE ONE, SO THAT THE MALE WILL NOT BE MALE AND THE FEMALE WILL NOT BE FEMALE, THEN SHALL YOU ENTER THE KINGDOM.

The greatest and the deepest distinction is between male and female. Have you observed that you never forget that somebody is male or female? You may forget the name, you may forget the religion, you may forget the face completely, but you never forget whether the person is a man or a woman. It is impossible, it seems, to forget. That means the deepest impact on your memory is left by the division.

You met somebody twenty years ago: you cannot remember anything -- the face has disappeared, the name has disappeared, but whether they were a man or a woman?... that remains, that sticks. That made the deepest impact on you, as if the first thing you look for in the other is whether they are a man or a woman; the first thing that you look for and the last thing that remains with you. You may not be so consciously looking for it, but whenever you look at a person the first thing you note deep down is whether they are a man or a woman. If she is a woman you behave differently; if he is a man you behave differently. If she is a woman, then your man inside you is attracted whether you know it or not. You may be unconscious of it, but your behavior becomes more tender.

Now the people who run markets know it well, so all salesmen are by and by replaced by saleswomen. It is bound to be so: if the purchasers are men then it is better to have a saleswoman, because then the purchaser cannot say no so easily as he can say to a man. When a woman puts a shoe on your foot, touches your feet -- a beautiful woman -- suddenly the shoe is not important, the shoe becomes secondary. It may be pinching you but you say, "Beautiful! It is good!" and you have to purchase it. You are purchasing the woman not the shoe.

That's why with every advertisement -- reasonably, unreasonably; related, unrelated; consistent, inconsistent; it makes no difference whether you have to sell a car or shoes or anything -- you have to put a naked woman near it. The car is not purchased, the woman in the car is purchased. Sex is purchased and sold, everything else is superficial.

Deep down you are looking for sex -- everywhere. Jesus says you will not be innocent if this looking for sex remains. Then you will remain divided: if you are a man, then you are looking for a woman; if you are a woman you are looking for a man. Then the looking will go on being concerned with the outer, it cannot become inner; you cannot move within, you cannot be meditative. The woman will disturb you, she will follow you. If you resist, if you fight, if you close your eyes, she will become more and more beautiful, she will tempt you.

posted January 04, 2008 09:36 PM            

Watch: you are sitting in your room and a woman enters. Watch yourself, watch what happens. Suddenly you are a different person. And if she is beautiful then you are transformed even more. What happens? Immediately you are no more, just the man exists; you are no more, just the sex hormones. They start functioning, they put you aside, your consciousness is lost, you are almost unconscious, you behave as if you are drunk.

As yet, we have not been able to discover a greater alcohol than sex, a greater drug than sex: it immediately changes everything. If you take LSD things become colorful -- sex is an inbuilt LSD. Whenever you are sexual things become colorful; everything has a different look, a different shine: you are more alive, you don't walk, you run; you don't say anything, you sing. Your life has become a dance, you are living in a different dimension.

Whenever sex is not there, suddenly you are back into the flat world, the world of things, uncolored, no shine in them. You cannot sing, you cannot run, everything has become lazy. Again a woman or a man enters into your life and everything takes on color, it becomes a romance to be, it becomes poetry to exist. What is happening? And if this goes on happening then you will be again in a duality -- the deepest -- and this duality will not allow you to see the real. And the real is blissful, it is neither happy nor unhappy.

The real is beyond happiness and unhappiness. It is neither tense nor relaxed, it is neither dark nor light; it is beyond. When all duality has ceased then you are blissful. Hindus have called that ananda -- it means 'beyond the two'. You cannot say a sage is happy. He is not happy because happiness has to be followed by unhappiness. You cannot say a sage is unhappy. A sage is blissful, he has passed the duality. Now there are no hills and no valleys; he moves on the ground, he moves on one level. There are no ups and downs because 'up' and 'down' exist as a duality.

So Jesus says, "When there is nothing above and nothing below, no up and no down, when there are not two, then you cannot choose, you simply exist." And that existence is on one level: there are no waves, the ocean is absolutely silent and without any waves, not even a ripple, because nothing goes above and nothing goes down. The ocean has become a mirrorlike thing, no ripples, all agitation has ceased.

The whole agitation exists through duality, and sex is the base of all duality. You can leave all other things very easily, but the basic thing to leave is sex. And that is the most difficult because it is in every cell of your body, every cell of your being -- you are a sexual being, you are born as a sexual being. That's why Jesus said, "Unless you are born again, nothing will be of any help." As you are you will remain tense; as you are you will remain miserable.

posted January 04, 2008 09:36 PM            

So what is to be done? Inside, a circle has to be made. Jesus has not said exactly what is to be done because those secrets cannot be given openly, those secrets can be given only to disciples. Jesus must have given them to his disciples, because just by saying, "Become one!" no one is going to become one. Just by saying that the male should be female and the female should be male, no one is going to become one -- because this is the goal, what is the method?

Jesus must have kept that method secret. He must have given it to his disciples as a secret key, because those greater secrets which can make you one are also very dangerous. If you miss, if you apply them in even a slightly wrong way, you will go mad. That is the problem, and that is the fear.

Normally, as you are, you are a divided being: your male energy seeking female energy outside, your female energy seeking male energy outside -- this is the normal human being. The whole thing has to be transformed: your male energy seeking female energy within. The man within you trying to meet the woman within you is very dangerous, because nature has not provided for it. Nature has given you an urge to meet the woman, to meet the man, and that urge is natural. But to try for this happening to occur within you alone, is not natural. The key has to be applied very, very delicately. It can be done only under a master, one who has traveled the path. That's why the deepest secrets of religion cannot be given through scripture, they can be given only through initiation.

I will give you a few hints though, how it can be done. But remember well: if you want to do them be careful not to move away from whatsoever I say, not to move astray, otherwise things can go wrong. It is better then to be normal, because many religious people become mad. This is the reason: you have the key but you don't know how to use it, you can use it wrongly. And if you once use a key wrongly the lock is disturbed; then it will be very difficult to repair the lock.

These methods are to be done only under a master, so that the master goes on continuously watching what is happening with you. I am giving you a few things because I am here, and if you want to work you can work.

The first thing: whenever you make love to a woman or a man, that is the right moment to look for the inner woman or the inner man. Whenever you make love to a woman, do it with closed eyes, make it a meditation. The woman outside always helps the inner woman to become awake. And when you make love your inner energies, both male and female, come to a peak. When the orgasm happens, it is not between you and the outer woman, it always happens between you and the inner woman.

So if you are alert you will become aware of the phenomenon that inside a meeting of energies is happening. And whenever this happens, the orgasm will be all over the body; it will not be local, it will not be confined to the sex center. If it is confined to the sex center it is just masturbation, nothing else. Orgasm means the whole body, every fiber of the body throbs with a new life, with a new energy, because much energy is released by the meeting. The meeting is happening within, but if you go on looking outside you will miss.

The outer woman or the outer man is just a representative of the inner. When you fall in love with a woman or a man, you fall in love only because that woman or man corresponds somehow with the inner. That's why you cannot give any reasons why you are in love with this woman, because it is not a rational thing at all.

You carry a woman within. Whenever any woman fits with that inner woman, suddenly you are in love. That love is not manipulated by you, it is not your mind that is falling in love, it is something very unconscious. In this woman you have a glimpse, suddenly you feel that this is the right person.

What makes this woman the right person? ... Because for others she is not the right person: there are people who will hate her, there are people who will be repelled, repulsed. There are people who will never look at this woman again; there are people who will not recognize that she has anything. And there are people who will laugh about you: "How have you fallen in love with this woman? Are you mad?" But this woman or this man somehow fits with the inner. That's why love is an irrational thing: whenever it happens, it happens -- you cannot do anything about it; if it is not happening you cannot do anything about it.

posted January 04, 2008 09:37 PM            

If you do it a few times, you will immediately become aware that the outer woman or man is not needed. This can be done without the outer, because this is happening without the outer -- the outer is just a trigger-point. That trigger-point can be created inside. And once you know how, you can do it inside. But this has to be experienced, only then do you know -- I cannot say how. You have to observe, watch, and then you will know how the energies come, how orgasm happens; how they separate again, and again the two arise.

For a single moment the one happens in you. That's why there is so much attraction in sex, that's why so much pleasure is derived out of orgasm -- because for a single moment you become one, the two disappears. And in the moment of orgasm there is no mind. If mind is there orgasm cannot happen. In the moment of orgasm, not a single thought... the whole prism is put aside. You are, but without thoughts. You exist, but with no mind. This happens only for such a single moment that you can miss it easily; you have been missing it for many lives. It is such a small gap that if you are interested outside, you have missed it.

So close your eyes and watch what is happening inside. Don't try to make anything happen, just watch whatsoever is happening. By and by it happens, just like when you come inside a room after walking outside in the sun. You come inside the room and everything is dark, you cannot see anything because your eyes are still not accustomed to this dark room. Wait! Sit down and go on silently looking. By and by the darkness will disappear and you will become aware of things now that your eyes are accustomed to it.

Coming from the outer to the inner is a great problem only because your eyes are accustomed to the outside. The inside looks dark and by the time you are ready the moment has gone. So meditate more and more with closed eyes, and look inside so you can become attuned to the inner darkness. It is not dark, it just appears dark to you because you are accustomed to the outside light. By and by a diffused light comes, things becomes clear; a moment comes when things become so clear that when you open your eyes you will find the outside is darkness.

Arvind is reported to have said, "When for the first time I came to know what is inside, the light that is outside became like darkness. The life that is outside became like death, because now something higher, something greater, something of the source was happening."

Watch how the inner circle comes, how the two energies become one. In that oneness there is no mind and no thought. Look! -- by and by you will be able to see what is happening. And once you know what is happening, the outer can be dropped -- no need to drop it, but it can be dropped.

posted January 04, 2008 09:37 PM            

When this circle remains continuously within you, this is the state of ardhanarishwar -- and this is what Jesus means:

AND WHEN YOU MAKE THE MALE AND THE FEMALE INTO A SINGLE ONE, SO THAT THE MALE WILL NOT BE MALE AND THE FEMALE NOT BE FEMALE, THEN SHALL YOU ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

Then you have entered: you have become perfect, you are not divided, you have become indivisible. Now you have a self: now you have freedom and independence, now you lack nothing, you are complete in yourself. Unless this circle happens you will lack something and you will depend on others to fulfill it.

That is why sex looks like a bondage -- it is! It looks like a dependence, and whenever you feel there is dependence you resent it. Hence the continuous fight with the lover: you feel resentment, you cannot go away from the other because you are dependent.

And nobody wants to depend on anybody, because every dependence is a limitation: the other tries to dominate, the other tries to possess -- and if you are dependent you have to allow the other a certain domination because you are afraid. This is a mutual agreement: "I will be dependent on you, you will be dependent on me, so we both can possess each other in certain ways, and we both can dominate each other in certain ways."

But nobody likes domination and possession. That's why love is such a misery. And if you love a person and also resent them, how can you be happy? Even the most beautiful person becomes ugly.

Mulla Nasruddin was sitting with a friend. His wife came and the friend said, "I suppose this is your most charming wife!"

Mulla Nasruddin looked sad and said, "This is my only wife!"

That sadness is always present with lovers, because no woman can fulfill a man. Even if you get all the women of the world it will not be a fulfillment, because the inner is greater than the 'all'. All the men in the world will not be able to fulfill a woman -- no. It is not possible. Something or other will always be lacking, because no man can be exactly like the inner man. And this problem of time.... Only for a single moment can the meeting happen, and then separation, because no man can be exactly like the inner.

Unless you attain to the inner unity you will move from one misery to another; from one woman to another, from one man to another; from one life of misery to another life of misery. The change may give you the hope -- but it is hopeless, the whole affair is hopeless.

When this circle happens you again become one, innocent like a child -- more than the child, more than any child can ever be -- you have become a sage.

Meditate on these words of Jesus, and try what I have said. But if you want to try let me know. If you start working for the inner circle, then let me know continuously what is happening, because if something goes wrong and two energies meet in a wrong way, you will go mad.

That's the fear of becoming a sage: if you fall, you fall to the very bottom, you become mad. If you reach, you reach to the very top, you become a sage. It is always so. If someone wants to walk on the heights he has to have courage, because if you fall, you fall to the depths. Near the heights the abyss is always there.

So remember that a very balanced effort is needed, and many other things. If you want to work on it I will tell you, but that can only be done personally. That's why Jesus talks about the goal, but never talks about the method. The method is to be given personally, it is an initiation.

posted January 08, 2008 06:50 PM            

Self-knowledge is the most difficult thing -- not because it is difficult, but because you are scared to know about yourself. A deep fear exists. Everybody is trying to escape, escape from himself. This fear has to be understood. And if this fear exists, whatsoever you do will not be of much help. You may think that you want to know yourself, but if this unconscious fear is there you will continuously avoid, you will continuously try to hide, deceive. On the one hand you will try to know yourself, and on the other hand you will create all sorts of hindrances so that you cannot know.

Consciously you may think, "I would like to know myself," but in the unconscious, which is bigger, stronger, more powerful than the conscious, you will avoid self-knowledge. So the fear has to be understood. Why are you afraid? One thing: if you really penetrate within yourself, your image that you have created in the world will prove to be false. Your whole past will come to mean nothing, because it has been like a dream. You have invested so much in it, you have lived for it, and now to know that it has been a false phenomenon you feel hurt: then your whole life has been wasted.

If whatsoever you have been living has been a pseudo-life, not authentic, if you have never loved but just pretended to love, how can you encounter yourself? ... Because then you will come to know that the whole thing has been a pretence: not only have you pretended that you love, you have also pretended that you are happy when you love. You have deceived nobody else but yourself. And now to look back, to look within, fear grips you.

You have been thinking that you are something unique; everybody does. That is the most ordinary thing in the world, to think oneself extraordinary, something special, 'the chosen'. But if you look at yourself you will come to know that there is nothing, there is nothing to be egoistic about. Then where will the ego stand? It will tumble down, fall down to the dust.

Fear is there, so you do not look at yourself. In not looking, you can go on creating dreams about yourself, images about yourself. And it is very easy and cheap to create an image, but it is very difficult and hard to really be something. One always chooses the cheapest -- and you have chosen the cheapest. Now, to look at it is difficult.

In one house, the phone rang in the middle of the night -- it was four a.m. The man got up, he was furious, and he shouted into the instrument, "What do you want?"

The man at the other end said, "Nothing!"

Then the first man was more furious. He said, "Then why have you phoned me in the middle of the night?"

The other man said, "Because the rate is cheaper!"

If the rate is cheaper, you can even buy nothing. And that's what you have done. To create an image that you are unique is cheap, but to be unique is arduous, very hard. Many, many lives of struggle, striving, many lives of effort culminate into something when you become unique. But to believe that you are unique is just cheap, you can do it right now, there is no need to even move. And you have been believing in cheap things -- that's why fear exists.

You cannot look at yourself. All that you have been thinking yourself to be you will not find there -- and you know it well. Who else will know it as well as you know? If you think you are beautiful, then you cannot look in the mirror if this beauty is just an idea. And you know well! Rather than looking in the mirror, you will break all mirrors. Whenever an ugly man or an ugly woman looks into the mirror, he or she thinks that something is wrong with the mirror -- because it is so painful to realize that you are nobody.

You are somebody in your eyes. Everybody else may know that you are nobody, but not you. Even a madman thinks that the whole world is mad. The whole world says to him, "You are mad!" but he will not listen because this is too painful. He will create all sorts of arguments, rationalizations to say, "I am not mad."

It happened: Mulla Nasruddin came running into a farm one evening and asked the farmer, "Have you seen a lunatic woman passing through here?"

The farmer said, "What did she look like?"

Nasruddin described her. He said, "She is six feet four inches tall, very fat, and weighs forty-five pounds."

The farmer looked a little puzzled and said, "If she is six feet four inches tall and is very fat, how can she weigh only forty-five pounds?"

Nasruddin laughed and said, "Don't be silly -- didn't I tell you that she is a little crazy?"

posted January 08, 2008 06:51 PM            

And then you ask how to be blissful. Your nightmare is natural: whatsoever you have done, only a nightmare can come to flower from it. And you ask how to be at ease. No one can be at ease with fiction, only with fact. Howsoever hard it may be to accept, only fact can make you non-tense, only fact can lead you towards truth. If you deny the factuality then there is no truth for you, and then you go on moving around and around and never hit the center.

I have heard, once it happened: A doctor came to see a patient, a very ill woman. He entered the room and after five minutes he was out. He asked the husband who was waiting there, "Give me a corkscrew!" The husband was a little worried why a corkscrew should be needed. But then the doctor came again after five minutes, perspiring, and he said, "Now give me a screwdriver!" The husband got very excited, but still kept silent -- because the doctor knows what to do. After five minutes the doctor was back again and he asked for a chisel and hammer. Then it was too much, the distraught husband couldn't stand it any longer and he said, "What is wrong with my wife?"

The doctor said, "I don't know yet, because I have not been able to open my bag!"

And I tell you, you are still struggling with the bag! And not only that -- that you are not able to open it -- but you don't even want to open it. All these corkscrews and screwdrivers and chisels and hammers that you carry with you are just phony. You don't even want to open the bag, because once you open the bag then what are you going to do? Then the patient -- which is you -- then the patient has to be diagnosed, then you have to look into yourself.

So everybody is occupied with the bag -- that's what your business is, your profession, your occupation. You may be a poet or a painter or a musician, but all your occupations are just ways to remain engaged outside. That's why nobody is ready to be alone, even for a single moment. It is so fearful, because when you are alone you may come across yourself. When you are alone what will you do? When you are alone you are with you -- and the reality may erupt.

So everybody tries for continuous occupation, to be occupied twenty-four hours a day. When you are occupied you look a little happy, when you are not occupied you become unhappy. Psychologists say that if a man is left unoccupied for a long period he will go insane. But why? Why, if you are sane, should you go insane if you are left unoccupied for a long period? If you are sane, then in a long fallow period, a long period where nothing is done, you will become more sane, you will grow. But why should you become insane if you are left alone for a long period? -- because you are insane! Your occupation simply hides the fact.

Look around -- because it is difficult to look at yourself -- but look around, look at people. A man is constantly occupied with money. What is he really doing? Focusing his mind on money so he can avoid himself. He goes on thinking about money, morning, evening and night. Even on his bed he thinks about money and the bank balance. What is he doing with the money? That's why when he gets the money he is at a loss -- what to do now? So the moment he gets the money he was thinking about, he starts thinking about more money -- because money is not the thing he was asking for. Otherwise, when he gets it he should feel fulfilled, but not even a Rockefeller or a Ford is fulfilled.

When you get money you immediately demand more, because the basic motivation is not the money, the basic motivation is how to remain occupied. Whenever occupation is not there you are uncomfortable, a deep unease arises in you. What to do? If there is nothing to do, you will read the same newspaper again and again and again -- the same newspaper you have already read completely. If there is no occupation, you may do anything which is not needed at all, but you cannot remain at ease. Hence the insistence of all the masters, that if you can sit for a few hours without doing anything, soon you will become enlightened.

An unoccupied state of mind is meditation. An occupied state of mind is the world, the sansar. It doesn't matter what type of occupation -- whether you are interested in money or politics, or social service or revolution, it makes no difference: your sanity is the same. Even if you leave Lenin alone he will go mad: he needs the society and the revolution; if there is nothing to do it will be impossible for him to exist, his sanity will be lost. He is sane through you. Because of so much work, the energy is lost in the work, you are exhausted, you can go to sleep.

Old men look almost crazy and eccentric, and the reason is that they have nothing to do. Old age is not the reason: they are now unoccupied, they are not needed, retired. Retired people always become a little eccentric. Something has gone wrong with them. The man was okay -- he may have been a president or a prime minister of a country, but retire him and see what happens. Immediately he deteriorates. His body and mind both deteriorate and he starts becoming a little eccentric, crazy, mad, because now there is no occupation, nobody looks at him, nobody is interested in him. He has no work to do, nowhere to focus his mind. The whole turmoil goes in and in -- he becomes a turmoil.

Psychologists say that retired persons die ten years earlier than they would have died if they had still been occupied. What happens? Why is it so difficult to be with yourself? And you always think that others should feel happy with you -- your wife should feel happy with you, your husband should feel happy with you. You yourself never feel happy with yourself, so how can anybody else feel happy with you? If you are such a boring personality that you yourself get bored with yourself, how is it possible that others can tolerate you? They tolerate you for other reasons -- not because you are such a loving person, no! They tolerate you because you give them an occupation. A husband is enough occupation for a wife, a wife is enough occupation for her husband. This is a mutual deception: they have agreed to deceive each other and help each other to remain occupied.

posted January 08, 2008 06:52 PM            

Napoleon became a prisoner in his last days. He was kept prisoner on a small island, Saint Helena. He was nothing anymore -- nobody ever is, but now even to continue in the fiction was very difficult. He was an emperor, one of the greatest conquerors: "What to do now? How to allow this fact that I am nothing anymore, just a prisoner, an ordinary prisoner?" But he would not look at the fact, he continued in the old fiction. He didn't change his clothes for six years, because the prison wouldn't give him clothes that suit an emperor. His clothes were completely rotten, the color faded, they became dirty, but he would not change them. The doctor of the prison asked him, "Why don't you change this coat? It has become so dirty! We can give you better clothes, cleaner."

Napoleon looked at him and said, "This is an emperor's coat -- it may be dirty but I cannot change it for an ordinary coat!" He walked as if he were still the emperor, he talked as if he were still the emperor, he ordered -- there was no one to listen to his orders, but he continued ordering. He would write letters and orders, and he had brought his letter-pad with him. In his mind he was still the emperor.

What was happening to this poor man? And unoccupied, he began to be permanently ill. The doctor who was with him kept a diary, and in the diary he writes, "I feel that he is not really ill, now illness is just an occupation. Sometimes he says 'my stomach,' sometimes 'my head,' sometimes 'my legs,'" and the doctor thought that nothing was wrong, the body was absolutely okay. But now he had nothing to remain engaged with, now the only 'other' was the body. The whole world of others had disappeared, he was alone. Now the body was the other, so he remained occupied with the body.

Many people are ill as an occupation: in the world, fifty percent of illness exists as an occupation. You remain occupied, then you need not face yourself. Otherwise, what would have happened to Napoleon? If he had faced himself, then he would have seen that he was a beggar -- and that would have been too much. He died an emperor. Before his death he ordered how he should be given the last send-off, every detail. Nobody was there to follow those details because nobody was interested. But he gave the orders, and he must have died at ease thinking that he was going to be given the last send-off like an emperor.

With Napoleon the thing is so clear because he had been an emperor. That too was a fiction -- supported by the society. But nothing had changed, Napoleon was the same, only the support had disappeared. This is difficult to understand: there are fictions when the society supports you, there are fictions when nobody supports you. That is the difference between a sane and an insane person: a sane person is one whose fiction is supported by the society; he has manipulated the society to support his fiction. An insane man is one whose fiction is supported by nobody; he is alone so you have to put him in the madhouse.

But your support doesn't make anything real -- if it is a fiction, it is a fiction. If you look at yourself, immediately you will feel you are nobody, nothing important. But then the whole earth, the base under your feet is withdrawn, you are in an abyss. Better not to look at it -- just continue in your dreams. They may be dreams, but they help you to live in a sane way.

posted January 08, 2008 06:52 PM            

But it is difficult to maintain these fictions, so you have to change again and again. Why are you so exaggerated in your perceptions? Why don't you see clearly what is there? -- because you are afraid to see clearly. You want clouds around so everything remains in a mist; you want not to know yourself. And all those who have known, they insist: "Know thyself!" Buddha, Jesus, Socrates, they go on insisting, "Know thyself!" The whole insistence of religion is to know thyself.

And you insist not to know yourself. Sometimes you even play the game of knowing yourself. I come across many people who are playing the game of knowing themselves, and they don't want to know. This is a game: now they again want to create a new fiction, a religious fiction, and they come to me so that I can support them. They say, "I have realized this, I have realized that," and they look at me and their eyes are begging.

If I say, "Yes, you have experienced this," they are supported, they go away happy. And if I say, "No," they become unhappy, they never come back to me again. They simply disappear because they have to find somebody else, some other authority. But why are you in search of an authority? Why do you need a witness? If you have realized something, you have realized it -- no need for any authority, because the experience in itself is self-evident.

If you realize your soul, you will not need anybody's recognition, a certificate. Even if the whole world says you have not realized, it makes no difference; a vote is not needed, you know it has happened. If a blind man has started seeing, he doesn't require anybody as a witness to say that now he can see -- he can see, that's enough. But if the blind man is dreaming that he can see, then he will need some authority to seal the fact that this is true, that he can see.

People play games; even spiritual games exist. And unless you stop playing and become sober about the fact that fictions have to be dropped and the hard truth has to be faced as it is, nothing is possible -- because this is the door. And if nobody supports you, then you yourself support yourself. Then you stop talking with people, because they cannot understand you.

A man came to me a few months ago and he said, "You can understand, nobody else can understand me, because I have been receiving messages from God every night." And he had a big file with him -- absolute nonsense! But he thinks he is receiving messages from God. And he thinks that this is the latest Koran, that since Mohammed nobody has received such messages -- now the Koran is out of date. If Mohammedans come to hear of it they will kill him, because they believe in another fiction and he is trying to destroy their fiction. And this man who receives messages from God, he was so nervous and trembling, looking at me to see what I would say -- because whomsoever he meets, they laugh and think, "You have gone crazy!" But he said, "I know that you are a realized man" -- now he is bribing me! -- and continuously begging, "Just say, 'Yes, this is right.'"

But I said, "If God is giving you messages you need not come to me, God is enough."

Then he became a little doubtful, puzzled, and he said, "But who knows, it may be just my mind playing tricks." That he knew well. Whenever you are playing tricks, deep down you know it, and nobody is needed to show it to you -- but you want to hide the fact.

I told him, "This is madness!" Then he never came back to me again -- now I am not a realized man! He wanted a mutual thing: if I had said, "Yes, you are receiving messages," he would have gone and said, "This man has become realized!"

If I accept your fiction, then you can help my fiction; this is the mutual game that is going on. And this game is so satisfying that you don't want to break it. But a deep discontent also follows like a shadow. It is bound to be so because the whole thing is a fiction.

A beggar, thinking that he is an emperor, knows that he is a beggar. This is the problem: he thinks he is an emperor, pretends he is an emperor, and knows deep down that he is a beggar. He feels very satisfied about the emperorhood, but a deep discontent follows like a shadow: "I am just a beggar." This is your problem: you think something about yourself, and you know it is not true.

posted January 08, 2008 06:52 PM            

That's why death is so difficult. Death has nothing dangerous in it, it is one of the most beautiful phenomena in the world -- you simply go to sleep! And everything goes to sleep: a seed sprouts and then there is a tree; then again, seeds come and they fall down and go to sleep; then again they will arise. After every activity a rest is needed. Life is an activity, death is a rest. It has to be there so new life may arise out of it. Nothing is wrong in death, nothing is dangerous in death.

But why is everybody so afraid of dying? -- because at the moment of death all your fictions will disappear; at the moment of death you will see that your whole life has been a wastage. Why do people say that at the moment of death a person comes to see his whole life? It happens, it is true: at the moment of death a person has to face his whole life, because now there is no future and he cannot create any more fictions.

For fictions the future is needed, because fictions exist in hope, fictions are for tomorrow. Death brings home the fact that now there is no tomorrow; tomorrows are finished, now there is no future. Where can you dream? Where can you project your fictions now? Nowhere to go! Suddenly you are stuck. And your whole life you have been creating fictions in the future. Now you are stuck, there is no future -- where will you look? You have to look at the past, and at the moment of death the society is disappearing; you have to look at yourself, there is nothing left. Then you come to realize the pain, the anguish of a whole life wasted.

If it can happen to you before death, you become a religious man. A religious man is one who has realized before death that which everybody realizes in death. A religious man is one who has looked while still alive -- looked into the past, seen through the whole game, realized the fictitiousness of his life -- looked into himself.

If you look into yourself the change is certain, absolutely certain, because once the fiction is realized as a fiction it starts dropping. To be retained, a fiction has to be retained as a fact; if it is to be carried, even an untruth has to be thought of as true. The moment you realize that this is untrue and the thing penetrates, it starts dropping -- it is already out of your hands, you cannot catch it. To continue the dream one has to believe that this is not a dream, this is reality. The moment you become aware that this is a dream, the dream is already disappearing.

But not to know is your whole effort; you avoid it -- that's why you are never at ease when you are alone. Even if you go to the Himalayas you take your radio with you, and the radio carries the whole world; even if you go to the Himalayas, your wife, your friends, your children are with you. You go for a holiday but you never go -- you carry the whole atmosphere there to the beach, to the hills, and again you are surrounded by the whole nonsense.

posted January 08, 2008 06:53 PM            

You need two churches, at least two religions, because the mind is a duality: "This is the church I say yes to, and that is the church I say no to. That is the wrong church; wrong people go there, those who don't belong to me." He was alone, but he had created the whole world. And he was eager to go back to the world, he was not ready to look at the newspapers. And he did well, because once you look at the newspapers you would not like to be rescued.

Look at your newspapers! What is happening in the world? Is it worth living in it? But you read, you don't look; your reading is not looking, you just read sleepily. You don't realize what is happening in the world, what man has done to man, what man is continuously doing to man: such violence, such foolishness, such a poisoning of every type of significance, of everything that is beautiful and true and good -- everything poisoned. Would you like to live in it? If you look, then it will be very difficult to decide to live in it. That's why it's better not to look, just move as if you are in a hypnosis.

In order not to look at oneself, another technique has been used that Jesus talks about in this sutra, and that technique is: look in the other for all that is wrong so you can infer that you are good.

There are two ways to be good: being good -- that is difficult; then there is another way to be good and that is relatively: prove that the other is wrong. You need not be good, just prove that the other is wrong. That gives you a feeling that you are good.

posted January 08, 2008 06:57 PM            

Have you observed the fact that there have been millions of people who have said, "We will believe in God but first give us proofs"? But nobody has yet written a book requiring proofs for the devil -- nobody! Nobody requires any proof for the devil, nobody says, "I will believe in the devil only when he is proved." No, you already know the devil is there all around. Only God is missing, he is not there.

Why does good need proof and bad need no proof? Observe the tendency and you will come upon a beautiful phenomenon, one of the mysteries of the human mind. Deep down everybody seeks to be good. But it is difficult, so what to do? Prove that the other is bad: "You are worse than me -- so then I am at least a little good!"

JESUS SAID: THE MOTE THAT IS IN THY BROTHER'S EYE THOU SEEST, BUT THE BEAM THAT IS IN THINE EYE THOU SEEST NOT.

WHEN THOU CASTEST THE BEAM OUT OF THINE EYE, THEN THOU WILT SEE CLEARLY TO CAST THE MOTE OUT OF THY BROTHER'S EYE.

You go on looking on the other as darkness. This may give you an illusory feeling that you are light, but this cannot give you light. And if you try to make the other enlightened because you think he is in darkness, that is going to make things worse -- that is adding insult to injury. In the first place darkness is projected by you, and in the second place you are not light yourself so you cannot enlighten the other.

So people who try to transform the society are the mischief-makers; people who try to change the other are always dangerous. They are murderers in a very subtle way, but their murder is so subtle that you cannot catch it. They don't kill you directly, but they cripple you, they cut you -- and 'for your own good', so you cannot say anything against them. Your so-called saints are just trying to destroy the darkness which is not in you or may not be in you, but which they see to be there. They see a hell in you because that is the only way they can see and feel themselves as heavenly.

Mulla Nasruddin died. He knocked at the doors of heaven. Saint Peter opened the door, looked at Nasruddin and said, "But I am not expecting anybody today, because in my reservation list there is no name; nobody is to come today. So how...? You surprise me, how did you get here? Say your name loudly. Spell it, so I can check."

So Nasruddin spelled his name loudly: "M-U-L-L-A N-A-S-R-U-D-D-I-N."

Saint Peter went in and looked at his list, but there was nobody to come on that day. He came back and he said, "Say! You are not expected to come here today, you are not due for ten years yet. So tell me, who is your doctor?"

Doctors can kill you before your time; do-gooders can kill you before you are due, and do-gooders are always dangerous. But you are all do-gooders in your own ways, small or big. Everybody wants to change the other because everybody thinks the other is wrong; everybody wants to change the world. And this is the difference between a political mind and religious mind.

A political mind always wants to change the world because he cannot think that he is wrong -- the whole world is wrong. If he is wrong, it is because the whole world is wrong and the whole situation is so wrong. It has to be wrong, otherwise he would be a saint. A religious person looks from precisely the other end. He thinks, "I am wrong, that is why the world is wrong, because I contribute to the evil in it. Through me the world is wrong. Unless I change myself, there can be no change."

The politician starts from the world, but he never reaches any goal because the world is so big -- and the world is not the problem. He creates more problems: through his medicine, many more diseases arise which were not there; through his efforts he creates more misery. A religious man changes himself. He only changes himself because that is the only thing that is possible.

You can only change yourself, and the moment you are changed the world starts changing, because you are a vital part in it. And when you are enlightened -- changed, totally changed -- you become more vital; you now have the supreme energy in you. A Buddha simply sits under his bodhi tree and the world is transformed. And the world will never again be the same as it was before Buddha.

A Jesus is crucified, but that becomes a mark: history is divided from that day, history will never again be the same as it was. So it is good that we acknowledge and divide the years in the name of Jesus: we say 'before Christ', 'after Christ'. It is good, because before Christ a totally different humanity existed; after Christ a different humanity came into being. The phenomenon is so vital that whenever there is a Christ, whenever a consciousness rises as high as the consciousness of Jesus, all other consciousnesses are simultaneously affected. They also rise, they also have a glimpse -- and they cannot be the same again, the same old level cannot be achieved.

A religious man simply transforms himself, but the transformation is possible only if you look; the transformation is possible only if you drop the fictions. If you come to realize your 'nobodiness', if you come to realize your nothingness, if you come to realize your inauthentic life, immediately it starts dropping.

Knowledge is revolution -- not knowledge that you gather through the mind, but knowledge that you come to possess when you encounter yourself. Self-knowledge is a transforming force, nothing else is to be done. This has to be understood: people think, "First we will know, and then we will change." No! The moment you know, change occurs. Knowledge itself is transforming; it is not that first you know and then you do something to change. Knowledge is not a method, it is not a means; knowledge is the end in itself.

But when I use the word knowledge I mean self-knowledge. All other knowledge is a means: first you have to know the know-how and then you have to do something. But with self-knowledge the quality is absolutely different: you know, and the very knowing changes you.

Drop the fictions. Gather courage to know yourself. Drop the fear and don't try to escape from yourself!