Chapter 1: Being

[!info] Note

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed. It is for reference purposes only.]

NEITHER HOT NOR COLD

The moon is very symbolic. It symbolizes two things particularly. One is light and coolness. The sun is also light, but very hot. The sun is fire; it can burn, it can kill. The moon is very soothing; it can revive, it can rejuvenate, it can bring you back to life, to abundant life.

The sun represents passion. Passion is hot, feverish, fiery. The moon represents compassion. Compassion is cool, non-feverish, just a subtle well-being. And a sannyasin has to learn how to be cool without being cold.

It is easy to be cold. It is as easy to be cold as it is to be hot, so it is not difficult to move from hot to being cold. That’s what your so-called monks and nuns have been doing down the ages: from being hot they became cold, from being one extreme they became the other extreme.

The cooler you become, the more graceful you are; the hotter you are, the uglier you become. Passion is hot, it makes people ugly. When a person is full of lust you can see that his eyes and his face are all distorted. They are no more human, they look animal. He has fallen below humanity. The greedy person – look at his face, his eyes – he is a disgrace. But when there is no greed, no anger, no lust, and one is very cool… I don’t mean cold, because the cold person is also ugly. Hate is cold, lust is hot.

One has to be neither hot nor cold; one has to be exactly in the middle, the golden mean has to be followed. That is the path of the sannyasin: to be cool in all circumstances. It is like walking on a tightrope: you should not lean too much towards the left not too much to the right, otherwise you will fall. Keep your balance and remain in the middle, and then there is great grace, great beauty.

That is the beauty of a Buddha, of a Lao Tzu, of a Jesus. It has nothing to do with their body; it comes from their innermost core, it radiates from there. Of course it affects their body – their body also becomes luminous with it, bathed in it. But it comes from far deeper sources than the body. It comes from their inner balance, their inner coolness.

The second thing: the moon is a mirror. It simply reflects the rays of the sun. It not only reflects them but transforms them from hot to cool; it is a great transformer. But it is a mirror, it simply reflects.

And that also has to be the very being of a sannyasin. He is a mirror. He does not project, he simply reflects whatsoever is the case. He has no ideas, no opinions, no prejudices; he lives an un-prejudiced life. He lives without any ideology, without any dogma and creed. He simply reflects the reality moment to moment and responds to it accordingly. He does not carry the past, he does not answer out of the past; he responds to the present. He is always fresh, as fresh as the mirror. He never becomes contaminated, he never clings to any reflection, he never accumulates memories; hence he does not create a mind. Mind is memory.

A sannyasin lives in a state of no-mind. He functions from a state of not-knowing. And that has tremendous beauty because it is true reality and it is in tune with reality. One cannot commit any error, it is impossible; whatsoever happens is right. One never feels guilty, one never repents; one never looks backwards, not does one look forwards. One simply looks inwards.

The moon also represents the feminine. It is not masculine. The sun is masculine energy, aggressive, violent. The moon is receptive, the moon is like a womb.

A sannyasin also has to be feminine. Whether he is man or woman is irrelevant. The biological, the physiological, is not relevant. A psychological femininity is needed. One should not be aggressive, one should not be ambitious. One should learn to wait. One should be patient, one should be a womb to receive god. To be a sannyasin is to be a child of the moon.

DRUNK WITH THE DIVINE

Our being is tremendously sweet, it is delicious, but we have not tasted of it at all. We are running from one object to another object, from one desire to another desire like crazy dogs, and we have completely forgotten where our home is. We are lost in our desires, we never come home. For the whole day we are fantasizing, thinking, and in the night we are dreaming. This is our whole life.

Meditation helps you to come back home. It is a journey towards the source of your being, it is a dropping of thoughts and desires and memories and all that keeps you away from yourself. The moment you enter your own being it is so sweet, it is nectar. And it is very intoxicating too!

So Madhu has two meanings; one is honey, the other is alcohol. Whenever one comes back to one’s own source, one is full of sweetness and absolutely drunk, drunk with the divine. Of course that state of drunkenness is so totally different from any kind of drunkenness that one may have experienced before that it is not right to call it drunkenness. But there is no other word; so it has to be expressed in a paradox: it is drunkenness plus awareness. One is absolutely drunk and fully aware. That is the state of the Buddha, the Christ.

Every sannyasin has to keep it as a goal deep down in his heart. Less than that is not going to suffice. One has to be a Buddha because that is one’s total potential. And unless you achieve one hundred per cent of your potential you can never feel fulfillment.

SANNYAS MEANS ULTIMATE SANITY

Man either can be just a heap of flowers or he can become a garland. If one is just a heap of flowers then one is a crowd. Then there is no unity, then there is no togetherness, there is no center. One is only peripheral.

The whole art of religion is to create a garland out of the heap of flowers. Meditation becomes the thread that runs through the flowers. It is invisible, but it gives them a certain unity, a certain integrity. And once you know that you are integrated, life has a different flavor. You are no more insane; the crowd is gone. The noises have stopped; there is silence and there is sanity. Sannyas means absolute sanity, ultimate sanity.

FALLING IN ACCORD WITH EXISTENCE IS PRAYER

Prayer is a state of being. It is not something that one can do. It is something that one can only be. If you do prayer that is going to be false. If you are prayer, then only is it true. And the difference is immense. In the mosque, in the temples, in the synagogues, people are doing prayer – just repeating traditional words. They are beautiful words, but words are words. They are not the reality. The word ‘fire’ is not fire and the word ‘god’ is not ‘god’ either. So one can repeat beautiful words, hallowed by tradition, but they are empty unless one is prayer. What do I mean when I say ‘unless one is prayer?’

I mean when one’s heart is absolutely silent, utterly still, then a harmony arises between you and existence. you fall in step with existence; a subtle dance starts happening between you and existence. You are dancing together. That dance is prayer, that harmony is prayer, that falling in accord with existence is prayer.

Then whether you say something or not is irrelevant. One can say something, one may keep absolutely silent, one may not say anything, but one thing is certain: if you say something in those moments, those words will not be from the memory. Those words will not be borrowed; they have to be authentic, they have to be spontaneous, they have to arise in that moment. They have to be part of your feeling, not part of your thinking.

Then whatsoever you say – just any word will do, any gesture will do, even silence is perfect enough, more than enough… but one feels grateful, one feels surrendered and one feels in a great blissfulness. That’s what I mean by being a prayer.

WITH MEDITATION LIFE IS PARADISE

There is nothing more valuable than meditation. The people who have not tasted meditation are the poorest in the world. They may have all the riches, but still they are beggars because they have not known the real treasure yer – the treasure that cannot be destroyed by death, the treasure that cannot be taken away from you, the treasure that you are.

We are carrying an inexhaustible treasure of diamonds but we are not exploring it. We have completely forgotten to explore our own inner world. We have become too obsessed with the outside. We have become so outwardly, so extrovert, that not only do we not explore the inside, we don’t believe that there is any inside. That’s what people say when they say there is no soul, no god. In fact they are saying there is no interiority to man. They are saying there is no interiority to existence. They are talking nonsense because the outer cannot exist without the inner, nor can the inner exist without the outer.

In the ancient days the so-called saints talked nonsense: they said the outer is false, the inner is true. Now the pendulum has moved to the other extreme. Now people say that the inner is false, only the outer is true. Both are wrong, both are lopsided, both are extremists.

My approach is that both the outer and the inner are true, and one has to be aware of both, then only is life really balanced, harmonious. Then life is a synthesis and a song.

Turn in, search inside. Our true reality is there. And the wonder of wonders is that the moment you know your own treasure, the whole existence becomes infinitely more beautiful because it starts reflecting your richness. Existence is like a mirror: it reflects you. If you are rich, fulfilled, contented, it reflects your richness, fulfillment, contentment. If you are poor, ugly, depressed, it reflects that. It simply goes on echoing you. The same existence becomes hell for a few people and becomes a paradise for a few other people. It all depends on you.

The whole magic is in the art of meditation. Without meditation the world is a hell, life is hell. With meditation it is paradise.

BE COURAGEOUS AND FACE YOURSELF!

The treasure is within and we search outside, hence we are doomed to fail. Everybody fails. Those who fail, of course they fail; and those who succeed, they also fail.

We have a saying that nothing succeeds like success. I don’t agree with it, I say nothing fails like success. You can ask Alexander the Great and all others Alexanders – they have all failed because whatsoever they succeeded in was worthless. It was not in any way enhancing their being, it was not making them rich in their being. They remained as poor as ever. In fact a poor man never becomes aware of his inner poverty. Only a rich man has that privilege; he becomes aware of his inner poverty because he has the possibility to compare and contrast. On the outside he goes on heaping up treasures and inside he can see the emptiness, the absolute emptiness.

Sannyas means turning in… and suddenly you are the master. Nothing is lacking, nothing is missing. All that you need is already there within you. Just a little turning in and a transformation happens. It can happen in a single step. It need not be gradual, it can be sudden, like lightning. It all depends on how much courage you have to move in. Be courageous and face yourself.

IT IS TIME TO LOOK WITHIN!

That’s the only difference between the religious person and the non-religious person: the non-religious person goes on seeking somewhere else, everywhere except in his own being. He seeks and searches everywhere. He has reached Everest, he has reached the moon; soon he will be reaching the stars. It is some vague search. He is not even clear about why he is doing it, why he is going to the moon.

We have not been able to make this earth happy yet. Half of humanity is dying, starving, and the other half which is not starving is not in any way happier. Maybe physically they are getting nourishment, but psychologically they are becoming so insane, imbalanced. The earth is in a chaos and we are putting so much money and so much intelligence and so much effort into reaching the moon. For what? What are you going to do on the moon?

Some vague desire…. We have not found it here, maybe it is somewhere else. Let us go to the moon and then to Mars and then on and on…. And there is no end to the universe.

The religious person is one who searches within in the first place. And that seems to be very logical: before you go searching anywhere else, at least have a look within. If it is not there, then go somewhere else. But anybody who has ever looked within has always found it there. There has never been an exception. This can be said to be one of the most fundamental laws of life, it is unexceptionally proved: whosoever has looked within has become rich, has found an inexhaustible treasure. He has found the pearl, he has found the divine, the eternal.

So now it is time for you to look within. Devote as much time and as much energy as possible so that in this very life you can find yourself. Blessed is the man who dies knowing who he is, because then there is no death. He only leaves the body, an old garment, and becomes free of all bondage. He moves into the universal soul. He is not only free, he becomes freedom. He not only achieves truth, he becomes truth.

TO RULE ONESELF IS DIVINE

To rule others is destructive, it is inhuman. To rule oneself is divine, it is creative. The people who rule others are only apparently rulers; deep down they are slaves of their own slaves, because their kingdom depends on others. Anything that depends on others is not much of a kingdom.

Alexander is not a real ruler, nor is Napoleon. Any day that the kingdom is lost they are beggars. And even if the kingdom is not lost, one day they die, and they go empty-handed. They cannot carry anything of that kingdom away with them.

A Jesus, a Buddha – these are real masters. Nobody can take away their kingdom. Not even death can destroy it. These are the people who are full of joy, these are really rich people. Become rich in the inner sense of the word, become a master.

THE DEEPER YOU GO THE MORE INTELLIGENCE IS REQUIRED.

Sannyas is only for the intelligent because it requires more and more intelligence each day. The deeper you go, the more intelligence is required. But this is the beauty of the whole process, that when you accept the challenge more intelligence is created in you. You have it potentially. It manifests only when the challenge is accepted.

Sannyas is a challenge to transform your potential intelligence into actuality, into a reality.

SANNYAS IS A GAMBLE

Bravery is one of the most neglected qualities as far as religion is concerned. And it is very surprising, because without courage nobody can ever be religious.

It is not dispensable, but it has been ignored, neglected. In fact cowardly people have been praised too much by the priests because the cowardly are ready to become slaves. They are ready to be exploited; not only ready, they are asking to be exploited, to be oppressed. They are hankering for somebody to lead them. They are afraid to be themselves, they are not ready to take the responsibility. They want somebody else to take the responsibility.

And that’s what the priests want and the politicians want, that people should not be their own leaders; they should always be in need of somebody else to lead them. Hence the churches and the temples and the synagogues are full of cowardly people. In fact the brave people avoid churches and temples; you will not find them there. But only they are the right people to be there, because religion is the greatest adventure in life. The cowardly person cannot go on such an adventure. He clings to the familiar, he is afraid of the unknown. And god is unknown, not only unknown, but unknowable.

Religion is rooted in courage because it is moving into the world of the unknown, it is entering into the mysterious and miraculous, it is getting into something where your intellect will not be of any use. It is going into the dark. But those who have entered into the darkness of the heart have come out of it luminous. They have come out of it enlightened.

But before one can be enlightened one has to pass through a very dark night of the soul – and that is where courage is needed.

It needs guts to go into the uncharted sea without any map… because no map exists. In the very nature of things a map is not possible. Life is so vast, it cannot be contained in any map. And it is so changing, it is so dynamic, that any map is going to be wrong. By the time it is made, life changes; it never fits, it is always out of date.

So one has to go without maps and one has to go knowing perfectly well that one is risking, risking the safety of this shore for the unknown shore, which may exist, may not exist. But the courageous heart feels intrigued by the unknown, feels immensely attracted by the unknown. It is a challenge. And fortunate are those who accept the challenge, because in that very acceptance they become integrated. In that very acceptance their souls are born. They are no more empty bodies.

Life is not for cowards. Cowards only pretend to live. They go on moving in such a way, so cautiously, so afraid of committing any error, so scared of going astray that they cannot live. Life needs a little foolhardiness, a certain quality of totality, a certain madness to jump into things.

Unless one is a gambler one misses the whole joy of life. I teach you to be gamblers. Sannyas is a gamble. You are risking your life with a dangerous man: (laughter) You are trusting somebody who is not to be trusted at all! He can cut off your head… so be ready!

TRUST MEANS A READINESS TO ENQUIRE INTO THE UNPROVABLE

Rudi literally means the wolf, but symbolically it means courage and loyalty. In ancient times the wolf was thought to be the very incarnation of courage and loyalty. And those two words are worth remembering. Only the courageous one can be loyal – the coward always betrays.

Judas must have been a coward; how can you betray a man like Jesus otherwise? And for only thirty silver coins! That must really be the ultimate in cowardliness. It is as if he was trying to find an excuse to betray – thirty silver coins was enough.

He was the most educated disciple of Jesus, the most scholarly, the most clever, the most argumentative and logical. If he had not betrayed him he would have been the successor. He would have easily dominated the other disciples. They were simple people – loyal, faithful, but simple. He was cunning and clever. But cowardliness always hides in cunningness and cleverness. Those are not the signs of a courageous person.

The courageous person is intelligent but not cunning. He is brilliant, sharp, he has tremendous clarity to see things as they are; he need not be clever and cunning. Cleverness and cunningness are poor substitutes.

And to be loyal means trusting the invisible, trusting in love, trusting in god, trusting in the mysterious and the miraculous. There is no way to prove it; one can feel it but there is no way to argue about it. Nobody can prove it, nothing valuable has ever been proved. Whatsoever has been proved is mundane, ordinary. You can prove a stone but you cannot prove the beauty of a flower; that has to be experienced. And it depends on you: however much of a poet in heart you have, that much beauty you will be able to experience. It depends on how capable you are of seeing colors, how clear your eyes are. You need the eyes of a painter, then only will you be able to see the proportions, the color, the dance of colors. It depends on how sensitive you are, then only will you be able to feel the delicateness of its petals. The existence of a stone can be easily proved; anybody can hit you on your head with a stone and it is proved. You will have to accept that, ‘Yes, the stone exists.’

That actually happened. Berkeley, one of the English philosophers, was proposing a philosophy that the world is illusory. He and Doctor Johnson were going for a morning walk together and he started talking about his philosophy. Doctor Johnson took a stone, a big stone, almost a rock, and hit him hard on the feel with it. Blood started oozing out of his feet and he screamed. Doctor Johnson said, ‘Now what do you say? – is this rock real or not?’

Yes, a rock can be proved to be real very easily; but beauty cannot be proved, love cannot be proved, prayer cannot be proved, meditation cannot be proved, god cannot be proved, bliss cannot be proved. Trust means a readiness to enquire into the unprovable, a readiness to go into the uncharted, a readiness to risk the familiar for the unfamiliar.

Both these qualities, courage and loyalty, are of tremendous significance for a sannyasin.

ONLY IN DEEP COURAGE IS ONE'S REAL SPIRIT BORN

Sannyas is only for the courageous. For cowards there are many temples, churches, mosques; the whole earth is full of cowards. It is the cowards who have become Christians and Buddhists and Hindus and Mohammedans.

The courageous person will never become a Christian, he will become a Christ. He will never become a Buddhist, he will become a Buddha. He will not become a Mohammedan, he will become a Mohammed. And when one can become a Christ or a Buddha, why bother about something third rate – being a Christian or a Buddhist? And that is not going to satisfy. But then one needs courage – to be a Christ is risky. One has to carry one’s cross; visible or invisible, the cross is there.

By becoming my sannyasins you will be carrying a cross wherever you go. It is far more subtle than carrying a wooden cross. Your very presence will offend people, your very presence will create discomfort in them. You may not do anything to them – just sitting silently with your closed eyes is enough to provoke them.

Jesus was not doing any harm to anybody. The poor fellow was just talking, and talking about beautiful things. He was not dangerous at all in that sense. Telling a few parables, explaining them… why did people become so antagonistic to him? His presence irritated them; somewhere deep down something happened to them. They could not tolerate him.

His presence proved to them that their lives were meaningless, his was the true way to live. That was the offence. His joy, his blissfulness, was a constant reminder to them that ‘You have not lived the great opportunity that has been given to you to the full. You have not become grown up, you are still immature, you are still worried about toys. You have not done the real thing, you have been fooling around. And here is a man who has done it. This man has to be removed, otherwise you will not be able to sleep peacefully again. His presence is a challenge.’

That’s why it is dangerous to be a sannyasin: your presence will be a challenge everywhere. And you are taking a courageous step – but only in deep courage is one’s real spirit born. The greater the danger you enter into, the greater will be the birth. You will become integrated, you will become something solid, something substantial – otherwise people are only shadows.

NOBODY EVER DIES

No one is new. No one can be new because nobody ever dies. We have all existed from eternity and we are going to exist to eternity; it is impossible to die.

One changes the body just like old garments, but one remains. And that which always remains, the ancient one, the abiding one which never changes, which is beyond time and beyond change, which is always now and here, is your reality.

It is like the ocean: the ocean remains, the waves go on changing. Our body changes, our mind changes, everything changes except one thing within you. And that one thing has to be discovered, because that is your reality. To know it is to know all. To know it is to live in bliss. To know it is to go beyond fear. To know it is to know god.

DIVINE MADNESS: A BRIDGE

Deva means divine; avril means april. I don’t know why april is associated with fools… because they go on being born all the time, all year round. But it is beautiful to be a divine fool. That’s what Jesus is, that’s what Francis is, what Buddha is, what I am!

It is better to be a divine fool than to be humanly clever and cunning, because that divine madness becomes a bridge. It is the ultimate in sanity.

THIS IS THE TRIBE WHERE YOU REALLY BELONG!

Sabine has no special meaning. It is the name of an old Italian tribe. It simply means a woman from the tribe of the Sabines. But it sounds beautiful… and that is far more important, because meanings are arbitrary, sounds are natural.

If man disappears from the earth there will be no meaning in any sound, but there will be sounds. The wind will still pass through the pine trees creating great music, and the waterfalls will go on falling on the rocks, creating great sound, and the clouds will come and the thunder, and the birds will sing. Everything will continue but nothing will have any meaning. Meaning is arbitrary; it is man’s creation.

Sounds are natural. Hence music comes far closer to god than mathematics because mathematics is man’s creation. Without man there would be no mathematics, but without man music would continue. Hence when you listen to music you don’t bother about the meaning – just the sound. If it rings bells in your heart it is enough. You don’t ask, ‘What is the meaning of this sound?’ The question would be absurd.

A philosopher asked Picasso, ‘What is the meaning of the painting that you are doing right now?’ Picasso looked outside the window – a beautiful rose flower was there – and he said, ‘What is the meaning of that rose flower? If the rose flower can exist without any meaning, why not my painting? If the rose flower has no obligation to be meaningful, what is the need for my painting to be meaningful?’ He is right.

Sabine sounds beautiful, it has some music. So your name – if you want some meaning – will mean divine music, divine sound, or a divine meaninglessness! (laughter)

How long will you be here? – I don’t know… till the end of this month.

Mm mm. Then come back again, Sabine. This is the tribe where you really belong!

THIS VERY LIFE IS DIVINE

At the very center of our being is light. As we go away from the center towards the circumference, darkness deepens. The farther away we go from ourselves, the more we are in darkness; the closer we come to ourselves, the more we are in light. When we have gone very very far away, all is darkness. That’s where people are living, in absolute darkness; hence the feeling of meaninglessness in life, hence so much desire to destroy oneself.

There is a deep desire in everyone to commit suicide for the simple reason, that life seems to be meaningless. People go on living, not because they love life, they go on living just because they are afraid to commit suicide. There is a desire to; and in many ways they do commit suicide. Monks and nuns have committed psychological suicide, they have renounced life. And these suicidal people have dominated humanity for centuries. They have condemned everything that is beautiful. They have praised something imaginary and they have condemned the real; the real is mundane and the imaginary is sacred.

My whole effort here is to help you see that the real is sacred, that this very world is sacred, that this very life is divine. But the way to see it is first to enquire within. Unless you start feeling the source of light within yourself, you will not be able to see that light anywhere else. First it has to be experienced within one’s own being, then it is found everywhere. Then the whole existence becomes so full of light, so full of joy, so full of meaning and poetry, that each moment one feels grateful for all that god has given, for all that he goes on giving.

Sannyas is simply a decision to turn in, to look in. The most primary thing is to find your own center. Once it is found, once you are centered, once you are bathed in your own light you have a different vision, a different perspective, and the whole of life becomes golden. Then even dust is divine. Then life is so rich, so abundantly rich that one can only feel a tremendous gratitude towards existence. That gratitude becomes prayer. Before that, all prayer is false.

Prayer is possible only when you have experienced light. Then you know in deep gratitude just to say thank you – thank you to the unknown, to the unknowable, thank you to the mysterious, the miraculous, thank you to the eternal.

EVEN DARKNESS IS ANOTHER FORM OF LIGHT

God is never experienced as a person because he is not a person. All ideas about god as a person are childish. They are only metaphors, parables; don’t take them literally. When one enters into the world of god one simply experiences light within and without. All, everything, disappears into that light, everything melts into that light. Then rocks are light, condensed light, and trees are light and people are light and you are light. The whole world becomes a dance of lights and lights.

That’s the experience of god. God is only a symbol. It is good to remember that, otherwise people start imagining: they imagine god in a Christian way or in a Hindu way – but all those are just poetic metaphors. The reality is that when you enter the deepest core of your being you explode in absolute light. The whole universe becomes simply light; hence the word ’enlightenment.’ One who comes to know himself, comes to know himself as light. And the moment you know that you are light, you also know simultaneously that all is light. All darkness disappears. All death disappears because death is another form of darkness. All fear disappears because fear is rooted in darkness. Even darkness becomes luminous, even darkness is another form of light.

Keep it as a seed in your heart. One day it is going to become a reality. Is is a reality – we just have to discover it.

MEDITATION: A WAY TO DISCOVER YOUR WAY BACK HOME

For god there is no darkness. For light there is no darkness. Darkness exists only when light is absent; hence they never meet. Light does not know that darkness exists at all. How can light know? – because when light is present, darkness is not. Darkness is only an absence. God knows no darkness. And we know only darkness – that’s how we have become unbridged with god.

We also have to reach a point where darkness disappears and only light remains. That day – when darkness disappears for you – is of great celebration, is a day of great blessing. It is possible only when you realise that you are light.

Meditation is only a way, a method, a technique to discover your way back home. It is inside you. It has always been there and it will always be there. You can go on wandering everywhere, you will remain in darkness unless you come back to your own being, unless you turn in and see your own self. The moment you see yourself all is light.

And from that moment there is no darkness, no blindness. Everything is as clear as it can be. All problems disappear. Life becomes a sheer celebration.

Meditate more and more. Make it a point that whenever you have time, you give it to meditation. The first preference should be meditation.

THE STUFF CALLED GOD

People are ready to go anywhere except within. They are going to the moon…

In Japan a company is selling tickets for ‘85 to go to the moon – and all their flights are fully booked. What are people going to do on the moon? There is nothing. They will only feel homesick, that’s all. But people are ready to go anywhere – they never think of going within.

Whenever you have time, forget the outer – it is superficial – and dive deep into the inner, and you will find the light, the light that is our very life, the light that is the stuff we are made of – and of which the whole universe is also made.

In the old days that stuff was called god. Now that word has become a little dangerous. People don’t like that word; it looks a little old fashioned. It smells of priesthood, churches, and the smell is not good.

So I don’t say that you will encounter god within. But I can’t help it: you will! That light is what god is. And unless one knows that one is something eternal which cannot be destroyed by anything, one remains on the circumference, accidental.

So make it a point now to give more and more emphasis to the inner, more and more time and space to the inner. And it is only a question of remembering; slowly slowly your consciousness takes a turn. And when you start facing yourself you are facing the greatest phenomenon, the most exquisite, the most beautiful experience of life, because you are seeing life in its intrinsic grace and splendor. About this same thing Jesus says: The kingdom of god is within you.

THE DARK NIGHT: THE WOMB FOR THE DAWN

Man is born with a very small flame of god within him; he is hidden behind layers and layers of darkness. So whenever one enters oneself, first one has to pass through a jungle of darkness – and that’s what scares many people. Many people try to go in but then they escape again, because that darkness makes them really afraid. It looks like death.

The Christian mystics have given it the right name: the dark night of the soul. But one has to pass through the dark night, otherwise there is no dawn. The dark night is the womb for the dawn. The master is really needed to help you while you are passing through the darkness. Once you have seen your own light you can say goodbye to the master. Once you have seen your own light there is no need for any help. You are grateful to the master, but you have come home, the journey is over.

While you are reaching towards that inner flame… it is really an arduous path with many pitfalls. Moving in darkness one stumbles, moving in darkness one gets hit, moving in darkness one falls and has to rise again. One needs constant encouragement, one needs constant support, one needs somebody to prevent one from running away and escaping.

That’s the function of the master, to go on holding your hand, to go on telling to you, ‘Don’t be afraid – the goal is not far away – it is just around the corner.’ It is never around the corner, remember (laughter)… but the master always says it is just around the corner. One day it is! (laughter) But one has to wait for that day, one has to be patient.

THE SMALL STAR WITHIN CAN EXPLODE...

Bliss is a small star within our being. It is so small… that’s why we go on missing it. It is atomic. But just as the atom can explode and can create great energy, can release great energy, this small star can also explode and can create eternity, infinity, it can open up doors to god. But right now it is just like a small seed.

And we go on searching for it in the outside world. It cannot be found there because it is not there at all. You have not lost it there, it is lost within our own being. But it is so small and we are so full of garbage. That’s what meditation is all about: digging into the garbage of the mind for something which is really precious and not part of mind, digging for something which is eternal, timeless, deathless.

It is there but it is a very tiny seed, a small star. I call it a star because it is luminous, and it can be found because it is luminous. We just have to dig deep. The garbage is very ancient, for lives and lives we have been piling it up; but howsoever ancient it is, it can be broken through. One can go beyond it, one can find the shining star. And once you have found it, it starts growing into something vast. Just your becoming aware of it is the beginning of its growth. Then it fills you, then it starts overflowing. Ultimately it fills the whole universe. You become the center. Everyone is the center of the whole universe. Everyone is the center and the circumference is nowhere.

Buddha says that when he became enlightened the whole universe became enlightened with him. Now this is a very strange statement. Buddhists have been arguing about it for centuries: what does he mean? – because existence has not become enlightened, there are millions of people as unenlightened as ever. And he says that the whole existence, not only human beings but trees, rocks, animals, birds – everyone became enlightened the moment he became enlightened.

He is saying something about that experience when his inner light exploded and filled the whole universe. He has seen it happening, he is saying it truly. He is not wrong, he cannot be wrong. It is impossible for a Buddha to be wrong. Sometimes he may appear very wrong but then something must have been misunderstood by us.

He does not mean that the whole universe has become enlightened – now there is no need for anybody else to become enlightened. He simply means that ‘I am filling the whole universe. So much light is happening that I don’t see any darkness anywhere. All is god.’

Right now bliss is just a small star, but it can become an unbounded source of light. And when it becomes that, life is fulfilled, one has arrived. Before that all is futile, meaningless.

AN UNENDING PROCESS...

Once your inner light is found your life is nothing but pure bliss. It is not only bliss for yourself, it becomes contagious, it starts affecting other people. Those who are receptive will start feeling something when they are close to you. Their hearts will respond, some bells will start ringing in their beings, a kind of synchronicity….

One man becoming blissful can trigger a process in thousands of people. Hence my interest is not in the society, but in individuals. If I can transform a few thousand people, that will do: they will ignite thousands more. And it is an unending process, it goes on and on. Jesus is dead but still the fire lives. Buddha is dead but the fire is being transferred from one hand to another hand. It goes on and on.

It is not in organized religion, it is not in the Christian church that you will find the flame of Christ. You will find it in a very different kind of people. In George Gurdjieff you will find it, or in J. Krishnamurti you will find it… people who have nothing to do with Christianity at all. You will not find Buddha’s flame in the so-called Buddhists, you will find it in me – and I have nothing to do with Buddhism. It is never found in the organized religions; organized religions are pseudo. But it goes on from one individual to another individual in very subtle ways.

Become blissful, become luminous. The flame is already there. You have not to do anything, you just have to discover it. It is within you so you have not to go anywhere else. Just be in silence, be still, looking in, searching.

You will have to pass through a big crowd of thoughts and desires, but it is not as big as it appears from the outside. Yes, you have to push and pull a little bit and you have to force yourself inwards a little bit. But it is a beautiful game, it is fun! To meditate is fun. And once you have been able to pass through the crowd into the open space of your inner being you will see the flame. That’s your inner being. That flame is part of the great flame of god, part of the universal fire.

MAKE A GREAT DECISION...

Life is an opportunity, an opportunity to realize yourself. One can miss it – many miss it. Only a few very rare people fulfill it. And those few people who fulfill it are the ones who enter into their inner world.

To go on remaining concerned about money, power and prestige is a sheer wastage. One’s primary concern should be to know ‘Who am I?’ Don’t feel contented till you have known it. Make a great decision at the innermost core of your being: ‘I have to attain it’ – because that very decision becomes a seed.

EVERYONE IS A HIDDEN GOD OR GODDESS

Man ordinarily lives for name and fame. And that is a very futile kind of life, because both are false. Neither the name has any truth about it… You are born without a name – nameless is your reality – and you will die and you will go nameless again. But between these two namelessnesses you hanker for a name. One is ready to die for one’s name; that is so stupid.

The name is a lie; it is utilitarian, but still, a lie is a lie. And so is fame. What does it matter how many people know you? If you don’t know yourself how can anybody else know you? The whole world may know about you but if you are not acquainted with your inner being you are empty.

And this fame cannot become a substitute for self-knowledge. That’s what people are trying to do: not knowing themselves, they create a substitute, they make every effort to be known by others. That is not a true substitute. You can be known by others but you will still remain ignorant.

And if you yourself don’t know who you are, what can others know, how can others know? Whatsoever they know is going to be superficial.

The first thing is to drop the very desire for name and fame, then one starts turning in. Name and fame keep you hanging outside. When both are dropped there is nothing outside left to hang onto. One has to turn in, one has to explore inside.

Sannyas is inner exploration. It is the greatest adventure there is because it brings you to the truth of your being, it reveals your reality to you – and that is tremendously beautiful, that is divine. Everyone is a hidden god or goddess.

ONLY BUDDHAS ARE VICTORIOUS

The only possible victory in life is inner. Those who struggle on the outside are doomed to fail. Outer victory has never happened, it cannot happen. All the Alexanders are failures; only Buddhas are victorious.

Let sannyas be the beginning of an inner journey. Turn inwards more and more. Enjoy the outside world – but the outside world is not all. It is only the circumference of our life, not its center. And unless you know the center you will be able to know even the circumference.

Once you know the center of your being even your circumference becomes luminous.

A PEACE WHICH SINGS, DANCES AND CELEBRATES...

Man only thinks that he dies; death is a fallacy. No one has ever died and no one has ever been born. Birth and death are both episodes in eternal life. Birth is not the beginning and death is not the end. You were before birth and you will be after death. To remember it, to realize it is the whole purpose of religion.

To experience immortality is the only way to get rid of all fears and anxieties, because they are all rooted in the fear of death. Once you know there is no death and no birth you are free from fear, you are free from hell. You are free from all kinds of nightmares. A great peace settles in, and that peace is not the peace of a cemetery, it is a peace which sings and dances and celebrates. It is a peace full of life.

A SANNYASIN IS ALWAYS YOUNG

Life is a journey, a pilgrimage. It is not static, it is dynamic; it is always moving towards the unknown. But because of our fear, we cling to the known and do not allow life to move, do not give it enough freedom to go rushing towards the unknown, to go dancing towards the ocean. It is like a river, but we make it a pond. And to become a pond is a death; to remain a river is to remain alive.

Ponds never reach anywhere. They only dry up; they become muddier and dirtier, and they stink because they are stagnant. They can’t remain fresh, they can’t remain pure. The river remains pure, fresh, flowing. And there is joy because there is always a surprise awaiting you, there is wonder – what is going to happen next? Every moment life is a surprise, a non-ending surprise, a non-ending suspense – a mystery which knows no beginning and no end. But one should remain without any fear, without any clinging.

That’s what sannyas is all about: remaining flowing, never allowing yourself to become stagnant – remaining dynamic, young. The body is bound to become old one day but the spirit need not be old. It becomes old only if we allow it to become old.

A sannyasin is always young. Even in death he is on a pilgrimage, he is ready to explore even death. Death does not come to him as an end but only as a new beginning – a new door opens up.

ONLY WHEN YOU ARE ORIGINAL DO YOU REJOICE

Wisdom is our nature. It is not a question of becoming more informed, more knowledgeable. On the contrary, the less knowledgeable you are, the better. The less informed you are, the better, the more innocent you are, the better, because then you have that much less of a burden.

Those who are knowledgeable will have to put their knowledge aside if they really want to be wise. It is not ignorance that hinders wisdom, it is knowledge that hinders wisdom; hence knowledge is real ignorance.

The first thing you have to learn as a sannyasin is that all that you know is not real knowing; it is not your knowing, hence it is not real knowing. Put it aside – it is all garbage – so that you can know.

You are looking through others’ eyes – how can you see? You cannot see through my eyes – that is impossible. You have to have your own eyes to see. And it is true not only for the outer eyes, it is also true for the inner eyes.

You cannot live in a borrowed way – and that’s what people are doing. That’s why their life is just an imitation, a carbon copy. It has no beauty, no joy. You can’t see any dance in it, any celebration in it. Only the original dances, sings, because only when you are original do you rejoice.

Clean yourself of all borrowed information and knowledge, unburden yourself, and then your own nature will start surfacing and a totally new kind of wisdom happens: a great clarity and insight into things, into problems, into life. And one is so clear about everything and so absolutely certain, so unconfused about everything that life is no more a problem. There is no problem any more. Everything is absolutely clear, nothing is a riddle, nothing has to be solved. There is no question left.

When all questions have disappeared and you are simply living out of your own natural wisdom, your own authentic wisdom, life is a joy. Before that life is hell.

My whole effort here is to destroy knowledge so that your wisdom is freed from the burden of knowledge, from the burden of words. Your silence has to be freed from the burden of words, your being has to be freed from the burden of mind, your wisdom has to be freed from the burden of knowledge.

And the day it happens is the greatest day of your life; you are really born. So start working towards it.

MEDITATION IS A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

Knowledge is not reliable. Howsoever knowledgeable one becomes, the doubt continues like an undercurrent. Knowledge cannot destroy doubt. Who knows? – maybe Jesus was right, maybe he was not. Just by believing in him how can you be absolutely certain? Certainty is not possible. One can shout, ‘I am absolutely convinced,’ but the more one shouts, the more one shows that something is wrong somewhere. By shouting loudly the fanatic is simply trying to convince himself that he believes, that there is no doubt in him. In denying his doubt he is simply indicating that doubt is there.

Knowledge cannot destroy doubt. Doubt disappears only when wisdom arises in you.

Meditation is the technique to get rid of knowledge on the one hand and to help your nature start growing on the other hand. Meditation is a double-edged sword, it works in two ways. On the one hand it helps you to get rid of all the nonsense that others have taught you, and on the other hand it helps your inner nature to assert itself.

And when your nature takes possession of you, you are free and there is no doubt left. It is simple because you know; from where can the doubt come now? Only when you know do you know, otherwise not. Trust only your own knowing. Be a light unto yourself.

WISDOM IS THE EXPRESSION OF YOUR SELF-BEING

Wisdom is absolutely individual. You cannot get it from anywhere else – from the scriptures, from other people, from other peoples’ experiences. If you gather all that, it will be knowledge, not wisdom. Wisdom is possible only if you go deeper into your own being. Wisdom is the experience of your own nature, it is the expression of your self-being. It is the flowering of your own consciousness. It is not information, it is transformation.

And that is the whole effort here: not to make you more informed – about god, about truth, about love – but to make you more aware of your own potential. My approach is to help you to be yourself. Anything else is a distraction.

And you are not to search anywhere else, you have to seek within, because all that one needs is already there. It has not to be invented, achieved, it has only to be discovered. Even while you are not aware of it, it is there, it is yours. The moment you become aware you start using it, otherwise it remains unused.

Everybody is born wise but everybody is behaving as if there is no wisdom in their own being. Everybody is gathering knowledge in order to become wise. That is the most stupid thing one can do. Knowledge will keep you unaware of your wisdom. Knowledge has to be dropped, unlearned, so that you can become purified of all information, so that your nature can express itself in its true form, in its authenticity. That truth liberates, that truth becomes your freedom, your bliss.

If you really want to find greatly stupid people, you will have to go to the universities: Ph.Ds and D.Lits. There you will find really stupid people, so burdened with knowledge that they have completely forgotten who they are. They are carrying so much rubbish, all borrowed, nothing of their own. And this is one of the fundamental laws of life, that truth cannot be borrowed. You cannot say to somebody ‘Can I borrow your truth?’ That is impossible; it is untransferrable. There is no way to give it to anybody. You have to unburden yourself of all borrowed knowledge. When all that rubbish is dropped and burned, utterly burned, then your nature starts asserting itself – and that brings wisdom, insight.

INTELLIGENCE GROWS ONLY IN DANGER

Sannyas is not for the mediocre, sannyas is only for the intelligent. The mediocre lives according to others; the intelligent person is one who lives according to his own light. Whatsoever the risk, he is capable of taking it, because he relies on his own intelligence. He knows that the greater the challenge, the greater will be his intelligence; hence he accepts challenges, he is never afraid of challenges. He lives in danger because intelligence grows only in danger, in insecurity.

When there is no danger, no insecurity, intelligence dies. That’s what I mean by a mediocre person: one who has allowed his intelligence to die, who has allowed his intelligence to gather rust.

Meditation is the way to sharpen your intelligence more and more. And the more intelligence you have, the closer you are to god.

SANNYAS: RENUNCIATION OF STUPIDITY

One needs to be more intelligent to go inwards than to succeed in the outside world. In the outside world not much intelligence is needed. In fact to be more intelligent may be a hindrance there because it is a very stupid world. To compete with these stupid people you have to be stupid, you have to be mediocre. But for the inner journey great intelligence is needed.

Only the intelligent ones reach the ultimate peak of life. And intelligence is not something which is any one person’s possession; everybody is born intelligent. But to compete in the outside world everybody becomes unintelligent, has to out of necessity, because the more stupid you are, the more successful you become.

This is a learned thing, this stupidity that prevails in the world. It is not natural, it can be dropped.

Sannyas has to be renunciation of all kinds of stupidities, superstitions, beliefs. One then starts becoming more and more sharp. And only when you are totally sharp can you cut the Gordian knot in a single blow and you can be free from all bondage.

MAN: AN UNOPENED SCRIPTURE

Man is an unopened scripture. We go on reading the Vedas, the Bibles, the Korans, but we never read our own inner being. And all that is contained in the Vedas, in the Bibles, in the Korans, is contained within you, and is contained within you in absolute purity. Vedas are contaminated; Bibles, Korans are all contaminated. It is the nature of things: the moment you speak a truth it becomes a lie, utter it and you have already made it false. It remains true only when it lives in deep silence within you.

My effort here is to help you to read your inner being, because only there will you find the virgin truth, unpolluted, uncorrupted by words, language, scholars, priests, interpreters, commentators. It is only within your own being that you will find the still, small voice of god. Just one condition has to be fulfilled: you have to become silent, noiseless, so that you can hear it, so that you can read it.

SUDDENLY YOU HEAR A CELESTIAL MUSIC...

When the mind ceases completely and all its noise disappears, then suddenly you hear a celestial music that you have never heard before within yourself. It has always been there but because of the noisy head it was impossible to hear it. That sound, the sound of silence, is called aum.

The word ‘aum’ is made of three syllables: a, u, m. And these are the seed sounds. All other sounds are by-products of these three sounds: a, u, m. Aum is the basic sound; it divides into three: a, u, m – the first trinity. And then out of a, u, m, all sounds go on growing, then the whole world of sounds.

In the Bible it is said: In the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god. They are talking about aum – that is the word. It is a wordless word, it is a soundless sound, but it is the most mystical experience of life, the most liberating experience of life. Once you have heard it you have known all that is worth knowing.

DON'T FORGET ON THE WAY...

Every being brings a message from god, but forgets it on the way. The distance is so great that by the time he reaches earth he forgets the reason why he has come and for what, what he has to do. Not only that: he forgets who he is and he forgets all about from where he has come. And he starts creating arbitrary purposes, just to keep himself occupied somehow.

Unless we find our true purpose life remains futile. One has to remember the true purpose, the true meaning. And people are like unopened letters: they have not opened themselves, they have not read the message that they contain within themselves.

We are making every effort here to help you to read your own heart, because it is there that the real Bible, the real Koran, the real Gita, exists.

Meditation is only a way to help you look into your own heart. It is a device. Once you have learned how to look into your own heart meditation is no more needed. Through your heart you are directly connected with god. Then you can dial him – g, o, d – any moment. Your heart is always in connection with the divine. But we live in the head, and the head has no connection with god.

Move from the head to the heart. Feel more, think less, so that one day you can feel totally without thinking at all. That day is the day of arriving home. How long will you be here? – This is my last day. Come back again for a longer period…. (to her retreating back) And don’t forget on the way!

START LIVING IN YOUR OWN LIGHT

Every being is unique. God never creates carbon copies, he always creates originals. He only believes in the original. He is truly a creator, he never repeats. But man goes on living in imitation. We are trying to be somebody else – which is impossible. Whatsoever you do you are going to fail. You can only be yourself; there is no other possibility. But we are all trying to be somebody else. That is the whole story of our failure, the tragedy of life.

My work consists in helping you to respect yourself, to love yourself, to accept yourself and to be yourself, because that’s the only possibility; you cannot be otherwise. And there is no need to be otherwise – god has created you unique.

I am not giving you a certain character or a certain style of life, but only an insight, an awareness, so that you can decide your lifestyle, so that you can live in your own light. And the moment you start living in your own light, bliss is yours.

LOVE YOURSELF AS YOU ARE

Priests down the ages have condemned man so much that everybody feels rejected, everybody feels that ‘I am just junk.’ Slowly slowly the priests have destroyed all self-respect. They have created a division in every person: the condemned part and the condemner.

The condemner they call your conscience and the condemned part they call your instincts. This division keeps you constantly in a quarrel with yourself, in a disharmony. You are at daggers with yourself – and that is no way to know god.

The first lesson is to love yourself as you are, because god loves you as you are. That does not mean that you have to remain the same forever. In fact this is the first step of transformation: if you love yourself you will be able to grow quicker, faster.

Now scientists have discovered that if you love a plant it grows faster than other plants which are given the same water, the same soil, the same fertilizers, but which have one thing missing: love is not given. The gardener never says hello to them, that’s all. Their growth is prevented. They feel unloved, uncared for, not needed. And that’s what has happened to humanity.

My effort here is to remind you that god loves you, that you are a beloved. If god loves you, you have to love yourself. If even god can love you… You can’t have better standards than god, you can’t have more perfectionistic ideas than god.

Love yourself – and that does not mean to just fall asleep. When you love yourself the journey begins. Because you love yourself you would like to make yourself more and more precious, more and more joyous, more and more conscious, more and more worthy of god.

ONLY THROUGH LOVE TRANSFORMATION HAPPENS

Manfred means man of peace. That’s precisely the definition of a sannyasin: one who is at peace with the world – and not only with the world but with himself too.

The old concept of sannyas was only half… sannyasins were at peace with the world but not at peace with themselves. They were taught for centuries: renounce the world – so there is no conflict obviously – and to fight with yourself because there is something in you which is wrong, it has to be destroyed; something which is evil, it has to be killed; something which is animal, which has to be controlled, repressed. So the old concept of sannyas all over the world – Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan – was rooted in self-condemnation.

It has created a civil war within you, between the lower and the higher. But the division is arbitrary because man is one, there is nothing lower and nothing higher. But for centuries that stupid idea has dominated the world and has created a schizophrenic humanity. It has entered the very bloodstream of humanity. Science has polluted the outer atmosphere, and religion has done far bigger harm: it has polluted the inner being of man.

My effort is to change the whole idea, to bring a new idea of sannyas to the world. You have to love yourself, you have to be very friendly to yourself because it is only through love that transformation happens. It is only through love that understanding grows. Nothing has to be killed, everything has to be transformed. There is nothing evil in you. There is no devil anywhere. You are only raw material. If skill is used you can be transformed into a god.

DROP ALL GUILT AND DIVISION: ACCEPT YOURSELF.

The whole purpose of all religious endeavor is to create a state of peace within you. Ordinarily man is constantly in a turmoil, in inner conflict, in a kind of civil war, and the war goes on and on. It destroys your whole life because it dissipates your energy. This war has to be stopped.

The so-called organized religions have not been helpful; on the contrary, they have created this inner conflict more and more. They have made it more acute, more chronic, more canceric, because they create guilt. They divide every human being into the lower and the higher, into the good and the bad. And once you are divided you are bound to be in struggle, a struggle with yourself. You cannot win, you cannot be defeated either. You remain in a limbo, fighting and fighting: no defeat, no victory. Nothing comes out of it – simply a frustration, a boredom. That’s what has happened to the whole humanity.

This is not the way of the Buddhas. The Buddha may be Gautam Siddhartha or Jesus Christ or Zarathustra or Lao Tzu – it doesn’t matter who the awakened one is, but this is the way of all the awakened ones: not to create conflict in you. But the priest lives on it, his whole business depends on it. The more you are in conflict, the more he flourishes, the more clients he has. This is his trade secret: to create guilt in people and through guilt to create division in people, make them schizophrenic. Once they are in inner turmoil and fight they are bound to come to the priests.

Now the same people are going to the psychoanalyst; the psychoanalyst is the modern priest. And the priests have understood it; they are studying psychoanalysis, they are becoming psychoanalysts. Now every religion is trying to exploit psychoanalysis, because they are seeing that their clients are moving towards psychoanalysis. The business is the same, the secret is the same.

My effort here is to destroy this whole business. I want you to love yourself because only through that love does peace descend. I want you to accept yourself in toto, as you are. Not that that means there will be no growth: in fact once you accept yourself as you are a great explosion happens, because the energy that gets involved in conflict is released and that energy is available for you. That makes you strong, that makes you more intelligent, that makes you more alert, that makes you more alive, that creates a soul in you.

So this has to be your first lesson in sannyas: accept yourself, love yourself, drop all guilt, don’t divide yourself. There is nothing higher, nothing lower; all of you is divine. The lowest is as divine as the highest. Matter is as divine as consciousness. Matter is one aspect of god; consciousness, another aspect. There is no question of lower and higher, there is no question of hierarchy.

Just by understanding it you suddenly see great peace settling inside. And with that peace is the beginning of a radical change, of a revolution, of a new birth.

YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS SHOULD BE THE ONLY DECIDING FACTOR

Never be worried about what other people say about you, never take any note of it. Always think of only one thing, that ‘God is my judge. Am I able to face my god?’ Let that be the criterion of your whole life and you will not go amiss.

But people don’t think of god at all. They think of other people, what others are thinking about them. If they think you are good they feel puffed up, your ego feels like a balloon becoming bigger and bigger. If somebody says something against you, criticizes you… just a pinprick is enough and your balloon starts disappearing, because there is nothing but hot air in the ego; it is utterly empty.

So people have to constantly be satisfying other people, their demands have to be fulfilled. You have to do what they say is moral whether you feel it is moral or not. You have to follow what they say is good. You have to be simply a sheep, not a man.

By becoming a sannyasin one declares to oneself that ‘I am no more concerned about what others say about me. My whole concern now will be: “Am I able to stand before god?”’ Then do only that which will enable you to look into the eyes of god. And you will not need to hide and escape and pretend and deceive.

This single criterion can become the center of your whole change. Your whole life will be lived in a totally different light. You will have a real perspective. You will not be confined by societies and their changing mores and moralities. Morality changes like fashion: something is good today and tomorrow it becomes bad.

For centuries war was good, now it is bad. For vegetarians, non-vegetarian food is the greatest sin. For the non-vegetarians no problem arises at all. They look at vegetarians as a little bit eccentric, crazy, crackpots, nuts!

If you look around the earth there are thousands of moralities and thousands of ideas which conflict with each other. For Hindus the cow is the mother. Everybody laughs about the idea but no Hindu will laugh about it; it is the sacred animal. And the situation is the same everywhere. The Chinese eat snakes, and it is thought in China that that is one of the most delicious foods. It may be, who knows? – because I have not tasted it! (laughter) And they think the whole world is simply foolish missing such a pleasure, such a great opportunity. There are tribes that eat cockroaches (squeals of horror)… and very religiously. Now people are here who, if they come across a cockroach, escape. They only stop in Goa, they don’t stop here at all!

These opinions are irrelevant to the real problems of life. One has to be on one’s own feet and the only consideration should be: Whatsoever I am doing should be according to my light, my inner light. My consciousness should be the only deciding factor. Then god is your judge!

SANNYAS IS A BRIDGE TO GOD

You are divine and you are formless. God is not something quantitative, god is only a quality. God is not something material, it is only a presence. It is not like a flower, it is more like fragrance. One can feel it but one cannot catch hold of it. One can enjoy it, one can love it, one can dance with it, but one cannot possess it. One cannot put it into a bank, one cannot treasure it, because god is not one’s property. That’s the meaning of formlessness.

Never think of god as a person. Think of him only as a presence surrounding the whole existence. And then there is no need to go to any temple, to any statue; wherever you are you can bow down in deep love and gratitude, and your prayer is accepted. Wherever you are in gratitude you are connected with god. Whenever your heart is full of thankfulness and surrender you are bridged with god. Sannyas is a bridge to god.

We have become unbridged. God is not far away, but we are disconnected. We are no more plugged in. The socket is there, the plug is there, both are available – you are there and god is there – somebody just has to give you a few hints about how to put the plug back into the socket. You need an electrician, a Haridas (the main ashram electrician). That’s my function.

MEDITATION BRINGS GREAT UPSURGE OF INNER HEALTH

Meditation brings a tremendous well-being, a great upsurge of inner health. Without meditation a man is ill. Something is missing in him; he is not whole. Without meditation a man is insane because there is no inner harmony in him. He is a crowd of thought but he has no center. And well-being arises only when you are centered, grounded, rooted.

Man without meditation is like a tree which has been uprooted from the soil. As you move into meditation you become rooted in god again. God is our soil, god is our nourishment. Meditation is only a way of getting rooted in god. And once you are in tune with god there is great joy, there is great peace, great health, great well-being. You start feeling a beautiful music happening within you. A melody, a meaning, arises in your life.

WHENEVER LIFE IS SPONTANEOUS YOU ARE ALWAYS IN TUNE

We can live our life in two ways. One is the way of reaction and the other is the way of spontaneity. Reaction means we never look at the situation, which is constantly changing. We go on responding with our old ready-made patterns, answers. Of course they never fit; we always go on lagging behind. That’s what gives people a feeling of failure, otherwise there is no need to feel a failure. Nobody is a failure. Only this pattern – that we act out of memory, not out of consciousness – creates an illusion of failure.

Spontaneity means acting out of consciousness, not allowing memory to interfere, being just like a mirror, reflecting that which is. One has to be very very silent, simple, innocent, unknowledgeable, to be spontaneous.

I don’t teach knowledge. I teach methods of becoming ignorant again, of becoming children again, how to attain to childlike innocence. Then your life is spontaneous, and whenever life is spontaneous you are always in tune. There is great fulfillment and such contentment arises out of that tuning with existence, such joy and such music and such poetry is felt at the deepest core of your being, that one cannot imagine it unless one has experienced it.

That music is what god is all about. But it is possible only if one is spontaneous; it is not possible for people who live out of memory, who go on reacting.

Don’t react; respond, reflect, and be in tune with that which is. Never carry ready-made answers. Let the situation be there, and you be there: be conscious of it and let the answer arise out of your consciousness, out of the present.

When one lives moment to moment and goes on dying to the past and goes on throwing the past away and keeps oneself fresh… that is the way of true spirituality.

RELIGIOUSNESS IS ALWAYS MOVEMENT

Two things have to be remembered. One is that faith does not mean belief. Belief is of the mind and faith is of the heart. Faith is a love affair and belief is only an intellectual conviction. Belief can be easily destroyed by arguments; faith can never be destroyed. No argument can destroy faith because it is not based on arguments in the first place. But belief is based in arguments.

Belief is philosophical; faith is religious. Belief is a false coin. It looks like faith but it is fake. Somebody believes in god – that is not faith. Jesus has faith in god, not belief. The pope believes in god – it is not faith. He has not experienced it himself. That is the first thing to be noted. I am all in favor of faith but absolutely against all belief systems. The second thing is that faith is never static.

Belief is always static. Faith is like a river: moving, dynamic, alive, increasing – like a tree growing, new foliage coming, new buds opening, new flowers. It is always a movement from one peak to another peak, from one perfection to another perfection, from one joy to another joy, from one mystery to another mystery. It is a non-ending pilgrimage.

Belief is dead, it is like a corpse. It never moves. It is like a pond, stagnant, it stinks. And the world is full of believers; that’s why there is so much misery, so much ignorance, so much superstition. The whole earth is stinking for the simple reason that people have lost all contact with real religiousness.

Religiousness is always movement. Buddha used to say that the religious person lives in verbs, not in nouns. In fact nouns don’t exist in reality, only verbs. Nouns exist only in dictionaries and human languages. They are our inventions. For example a tree: it is a noun, it is only part of our language. If you look at a real tree, it is not a tree, it is a treeing, because it is constantly moving. When you are looking at it a few old leaves are falling, new leaves are coming out. It is treeing, it is not a tree.

We say river – that is a noun – but no river is a river, all rivers are rivering, moving, going towards the ocean.

Faith is always increasing, and the person who lives in faith grows, grows to ultimate heights. And the person who lives in beliefs is a dead person. He trusts in something which is dead, and the ultimate result is that he becomes dead himself. Avoid beliefs and risk everything for faith.

THE WHOLE SKY IS YOURS

God is oceanic, infinite, unbounded. We have fallen apart because we have become identified with boundaries, with the boundaries of the body and the boundaries of the mind. These boundaries are keeping us away.

Just get rid of these boundaries. I’m not saying to get rid of your body. The body is perfectly good, use it; it is your house, live in it. But don’t think that you are the body. You are in the body but you are not the body. You are in the mind but you are not the mind. And the moment you become disidentified with these boundaries, suddenly the gestalt changes, you start feeling unbounded. And that’s what god is.

You start becoming oceanic, vast. Then there is no need to seek and search for god anywhere – you become it. And that is the only way to know god. The only way to know god is to become god. There is no other way. One cannot know god without becoming god. That will all be mere information, about and about, around and around…

My approach is not that of a philosopher. I am utterly existential. I want you to become the experience itself, because only the experience is going to liberate you. All theories and all philosophies and all ideologies only become new boundaries. You become more and more confined. You become a Christian; now you are smaller than the whole humanity. Then you become a Protestant; you are even smaller than the whole Christianity. Then there are sects and sub-sects, and people go on dividing. People seem to be so interested in being small. They are afraid of being vast. They are afraid to cope with vastness so they go on limiting themselves.

The smaller the unit, the better they feel. And that is sheer stupidity. We are not small. It is going against nature, and anything that goes against nature creates suffering, creates hell. Go beyond all the boundaries. The whole sky is yours.

DON'T LEAVE THIS LIFE WITHOUT EXPERIENCING THAT YOU ARE GOD!

In the East we have many names for god. Because god has no name you can give it any name; any name is as valid as any other. God is a nameless experience, but we have to call it something – x y z, just to communicate.

Govindo is one of those names. It will remind you that in your true reality you are a god. You may have fallen asleep and you may be dreaming that you are a beggar, that you are a man or a woman, that you are white or black, that you are this and that, that you are poor or rich – but all those are just dreams. When the mind stops dreaming only one thing remains, and that is “I am god.”

To die without knowing this is to have lived in a futile way. One is fulfilled only when one knows “I am god”. And it is not a question of believing. The priests have been saying for centuries that the kingdom of god is within you – but that doesn’t help. You need to experience it on your own. Being Christian does not help, only being Christ can help. Buddhism is not going to give you the inner kingdom; it can be attained only when you become a buddha.

My effort here is not to create Christians and Buddhists and followers, but to create buddhas, awakened people, who are not following anybody but are simply living their true nature with authenticity, with responsibility, with joy.

Belief is easy; you can start believing that you are a god. That will simply be megalomania, that will simply be madness. It is a question of experiencing.

When you believe that you are a god, when you believe that “I am god”, the “I” is very important and god is just a shadow. When you experience that “I am a god”, the “I” is just a word, a utilitarian word; only god is real. “I” has to be used just for the purpose of communication, otherwise there is no I. That’s the difference between the madman and the mystic. The madman can also declare “I am god”, but he is simply declaring “I am”. And this is the ultimate ego, to declare that “I am god.” The mystic also declares “I am god,” but he says “I am not, hence I am god.”

So I am not saying to believe it. I am saying that the name will remind you that you have to experience it. Don’t leave this life without experiencing it. This is an opportunity to experience your reality.

SANNYAS MEANS USING EVERY POSSIBLE METHOD TO GROW

To be a man is a great gift, but very few people realize it. You could have been anything in this vast universe – a rock, a cabbage, a potato (laughter)… anything! And there is no court of appeal! Whatsoever one is, one is; nothing can be done about it. What can the poor potato do about it? (laughter) But very few people realize that they are human beings and that they have tremendous potential to grow.

The beauty and the grandeur of being human is that it is only through being human that one can reach to god. It is a first basic requirement. No other animal has any approach towards god, only man – and not even all men. Only people who are really alert and aware – those very few people create a bridge between themselves and god. Without that bridge life is meaningless and a great opportunity can be lost very easily.

Becoming a sannyasin means recognizing that life is a great opportunity and that to be human is a great gift. And we are not going to loose the opportunity; we are going to make the best out of it.

Unless one realizes one’s godhood nothing is achieved, life has been a failure. And one can realize it, it is every man’s birthright, but one has to claim it, one has to work for it, one has to be very creative about it. That’s what sannyas is all about: becoming alert about the great opportunity and using every possible method to grow: to grow beyond humanity, to surpass humanity, to become divine – because that is our reality.

MEDITATION TRANSFORMS THE ANIMAL INTO THE HUMAN AND THE HUMAN INTO THE DIVINE

Man ordinarily is not even human. He is just like other animals. It is only through meditation that he first becomes human. That is the beginning of meditation. And when the meditation has become total, when you have achieved meditation so entirely that there is no need to meditate anymore, when you have become meditative – it is there like breathing or your heartbeat, always surrounding you within and without – then you become divine.

Meditation has two steps. One is the beginning, it transforms the animal into human. And the second, the ultimate, the crescendo, the climax of meditation, the peak, is when it transforms the human into the divine.

Unless one meditates one has no proof of god. One has not even any proof of humanity. As far as ordinary human beings are concerned, they are not human beings. They are so cruel, so ugly, that in fact they are far worse than animals.

Now, no animal can compete with Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. No animal has done anything wrong like Genghis Khan or Tamerlane. No animal has killed its own species; it is only man who kills other human beings. No animal kills its own brothers and sisters – impossible. Only man is a cannibal. He can eat human beings, either really or metaphorically – and that’s what people have been doing down the centuries.

Just the other day there was a question, a very beautiful question – I forgot to answer. Somebody asked, ‘What do you think, Osho, is a blow job vegetarian or non-vegetarian?’ I simply forgot about it! (laughter) Talking to you about cannibalism, I remembered.

It depends: if it is being done by a cannibal it is non-vegetarian (uproarious laughter). (chuckling) Go deep into meditation. Good, Michel!

[!info] Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)