True wisdom -- Questions and Answers The True Sage #10

A lot of difference. And not only of quantity, but of quality, of direction, of plane, of dimension. It has to be understood very minutely because the difference is subtle.

The passive mind can appear as if it is flowing, with the river, but the passive mind also is not flowing with the river because it has a certain attitude of passivity.

The passive mind is also a mind. To flow with the river you need a no-mind. But because of the similarity, through the centuries many have been deceived. And to cultivate passivity is easier than to flow with the river. To condition your mind into passivity is very easy. That's why, in the past and even now, monasteries, monks, sannyasins have existed -- people who have renounced the world.

What are they really trying to do? They are trying to become absolutely passive. But their passivity is negativity. They have already chosen an attitude. First, these persons were too active in the world: running, desiring, ambitious. The mind was active -- excited with desire, future, hope. Then they got frustrated, because whatsoever you hope, it is not going to be fulfilled. All hopes are hopeless, all desiring comes to frustration, all expectations carry frustration as a seed within.

So, sooner or later, everybody is bound to come to a point in life when the active mind looks simply a hell. Too much activity and no result out of it. Running and running, and never arriving. If you are intelligent, it happens soon. If you are stupid, it takes a little longer time -- but it happens all the same. If you are very intelligent, then when you are young you will come to see it. If you are not that intelligent -- then in old age. But sooner or later, everybody comes to feel that a life with the active mind is frustrating; it leads nowhere. It promises much, but it never fulfills anything. It leaves a distaste in the mouth, a discontent in the being. One simply feels tired and wearied, defeated. One simply feels that the whole thing has been futile.

Whenever the mind feels this, the mind immediately suggests: 'Try the opposite.' Because the mind lives in polarity, in opposition. It says: 'You have tried activity. Now try passivity.

You longed too much in the world. Now renounce. You were clinging to money. Renounce money. You had become too attached to the house. Renounce the house. You got too involved with a woman, children. Now leave them and escape from all this.'

The mind suggests to try the opposite -- and it seems natural and logical. You have done one thing and failed; now do the opposite. Maybe the opposite will succeed.

This is the pattern of the old type of sannyasin, monk -- the monastery, the Himalayas. They are born, then they escape from activity. They just try the opposite. Then they try not to desire -- but to try not to desire is still a desire. Then they try to leave the world -- but the very effort to leave the world shows their attachment.

If you have really become unattached, what is the point of renouncing anything? You can renounce a certain thing only because you are too involved in it. Then you escape from a woman -- but that simply shows that your mind is still fantasizing about women. Wherever you go, you may go to the opposite, but still, you will remain the same. This has to be understood: through the opposite you never change. You appear to have changed; your remain the same.

And this is one of the most important things to be understood -- otherwise you will be in the trap again. Now the trap will be of passivity, of NOT desiring, renunciation, non-attachment, non-violence. First, the world was your activity; now, the world has become a passive thing for you. But YOU are the same. Now God, moksha, will become your activity -- a faraway world somewhere in the sky, where everything is beautiful. This world will be ugly -- now the beauty will be transferred to the other world. Your object of desire changes, but you don't change. First you were asking for money, now you ask for meditation -- but the greed is there. First you were asking for things of this world, now you ask for things of the other world. But the asking is persistent, the same.

People who will be looking at you from the outside may be deceived because you will look totally transformed: you don't touch money, you don't have much to possess, you live in a cottage or under a tree, you are a naked fakir. People who are in the world -- they will worship you because now they think that you have transformed your being -- and they are still in the world. When they come to you, they compare. And they imagine that you must be very peaceful because you look passive.

Passivity can give an appearance of peace. It is not peace; it is just a deadness. Peace is alive! Passivity is dead.

Just for example: think yourself swimming in the river, trying to go up current, fighting; you are active. Then, a dead body floating down the river: not fighting at all, just floating down the river. But dead I -- a corpse that is passive. Life is fighting. Death is passive.

And the man who I say really floats with the river is neither alive in the sense of fight, nor is dead like a corpse. He floats with the river, but he floats consciously. He floats with the river not because he is dead, but because he co-operates. He floats with the river not because he cannot fight, but because he has come to know that fighting is futile -- and has not moved to the opposite.

He floats. He communes with the river, he has become one with the river. Sometimes you will see him active and sometimes you will see him passive. Passivity and activity are not two polarities to be chosen -- he has accepted both. That's what I mean when I say: 'floating with the river.'

Sometimes you will find him in the marketplace: very active.

Sometimes you will find him in the temple: very passive. But now he has no fixed mode of his being. He can move from passivity to activity, he can move from activity to passivity. There is no barrier, he has not created a fence around him. He is fluid, liquid, flowing. Otherwise, passivity itself can become an imprisonment.

I have heard of one Hassidic story. A man was going to see his friend. The friend was a farmer in a deep-hidden valley in the hills. When the man came near the house of the friend, he saw something which puzzled him very much.

He saw a small meadow, not more than one mile long. But one thing was very special and disturbing: in that meadow thousands of birds and animals were staying together. Thousands! It was difficult to count. There was no space left; the place was very much crowded. And the whole beautiful forest around this meadow was empty of birds and animals. He could not believe: 'Why are they huddled together? Why are they not moving into the sky, to other trees? The whole vastness is available.' They looked very nervous, tense, worried -- not at ease at all.

Of course, everybody needs space, everybody needs a certain space to live. Whenever that space is encroached upon, nervousness arises. But nobody was preventing the animals and birds from leaving, there was not even a fence there. When he reached his friend's house the first question he asked was about these birds: 'What misfortune has befallen them?'

The friend said: 'I don't know exactly -- because I have not seen, but I have heard: in the past, many many years ago, there was a landlord -- a very violent and sadistic man. He enjoyed this whole experiment. He created a high fence around the meadow. He placed guards all around the place, and he ordered the guards: "If any bird or any animal tries to escape, kill him immediately." He forced thousands of birds and animals into the meadow, into that prison. And for years this was the routine: whenever any bird or animal tried to escape, he was killed.

By and by, the birds and animals settled, they accepted their prison. They forgot about their freedom, because freedom became associated with fear and death.

Then the landlord died. The guards disappeared, the fence fell. Now there is nobody to prevent them from leaving. Neither the guards nor the fence is there -- but the birds and animals have developed a fence mentality. They believe that the fence is there. They actually see the fence! It has become deeply ingrained, it has become a conditioning.'

The man said: 'Why doesn't somebody try to make them understand?'

The friend said: 'Many good people have tried, but the birds don't listen. It is not only now ingrained in them -- their children are born with the idea. It is in their blood and bones, it has become a part of their blueprint. The children are born with the idea of the fence. Good people have tried, they go on trying. And you will be surprised: the birds have been very angry and the animals have attacked good people. They don't want to be disturbed. In fact, they have created a philosophy that they are in freedom and the world beyond is the imprisonment. Still, good people go on trying, but it seems to be almost impossible to persuade them that they are free and that there exists no fence, and that they can fly into the sky.'

I loved the story.

That's what Jesus, Baal Shem, Moses, Mahavir, Buddha, Christ, have been doing with you -- the birds and the animals. But you have developed a fence mentality; you don't believe them. Either you are active or you become passive -- but both belong to the same fence: the mind.

Think of a fence made of wood. One board is white, another is black. Then again one is white, another is black. A fence made of wooden boards, coloured in two colours -- one board white, one black: that is the mind.

One idea passive, one active; yin, yang; right, wrong; good, bad; the world, the nirvana -- all belong to the same fence.

And you go on choosing. Sometimes you choose the white -- then you get fed up with the white. Then you start loving and worshipping the black, but the black is as much a part of your imprisonment as the white.

Mind is active. Mind is passive. Both are part of the mind. And what I mean when I say: 'flowing with the river' is to go beyond passivity and activity, white and black, day and night, love and hate, the world and the god. Go beyond it. Just see the whole point: that the active becomes the passive, then the passive will again become the active. This I have seen.

People who are in the world are very active. They are always thinking deep down to renounce all nonsense. And I know monks who have lived their whole lives in the monasteries, and whenever they have confessed to me, they have always said that they always think that they have missed life. They are always fantasizing to come back to the world. The active wants to become the passive, the passive wants to become the active.

Choice is of the mind! To be choiceless is to flow with the river. That's why Hassidism and I insist not to leave the world. Renounce it and be in it! That looks difficult, almost impossible for the mind to conceive. The mind can conceive the world, the renunciation -- because both belong to the same pattern. When I say: 'Be IN the world and not be OF the world,' then the mind becomes uneasy. It cannot understand: 'What are you saying?'

People come to me and they say they would like to become sannyasins but they are in the world: 'And how is it possible to be a sannyasin in the world?' Particularly in India, it looks absolutely absurd. The sannyasin is one who leaves the world. But I tell you, a sannyasin is one who lives in the world, and yet is not of the world. When I say these things to people, they look confused. They say: either this or that. I say: both together.

When you take both, negative and passive together, they cancel each other; you become neutral. Then you are neither man nor woman, neither yin nor yang, neither body nor soul. You have gone beyond the duality, you have become transcendental. That transcendence is flowing with the river.

Flowing with the river is the greatest art. That is: to be active and passive both, in deep co-operation with existence. You have to do something. You will have to live, you will have to earn. At least you will have to breathe, at least you will have to move. Activity has to be used. And you have to relax also. Otherwise, activity will become impossible.

So sometimes be active, sometimes be passive -- but don't get identified with either. Remain aloof. Use activity, use passivity -- but remain the third. Just like when you put on clothes: sometimes white and sometimes black. Just as in the day you work and in the night you rest. Just the same. Use both the dualities. They are means; don't get identified with them. Then you will be flowing with the river. And this is the message of Hassidism.

Hassids are the greatest people who have lived in the world, yet have not allowed the world to corrupt them. It is very easy to go to the Himalayas and become uncorrupted. Very easy! Because who is there to corrupt you? To live with the mountains, you will become innocent, but that innocence may be just an appearance.

Come back to the world. The test is in the marketplace. There you will come to know whether you have really become innocent, because when the opportunity to become corrupted arises, then only will you be able to know: are you still corruptible or not? The Himalayas, their silence, can deceive you. It has deceived millions of people. Hassids say: 'Live in the marketplace. Move with people, because people are your environment.'

Somebody asked Socrates: 'Why don't you go to the mountains to study? -- near the rivers, trees, birds, animals.' The man said: 'We have heard of ancient wise men who used to go deep in the mountains to live and study nature.'

Socrates said: 'My nature is people. What can trees teach me? They are good to look at, but what can they teach me? What can mountains teach me? Good to relax. What can rivers teach me? My rivers, my mountains, my trees, are people. People are my environment.'

He lived his whole life in Athens -- lived and died there, IN people. And he's right.

The true sage will not be an escapist. He will live IN people and learn how to remain uncorrupted where everything is a temptation to corrupt you. Then you attain to the highest peak.

And that highest peak uses both the dualities of life. And that highest peak is going to be very rich.

I have come across a few people who have lived their whole life in the forest. They are very saintly, but a little silly also, because with the trees you will become silly -- that is natural. You cannot have that intelligence which a Socrates has.

You will become a tree. You will vegetate. You will look very pure, but that purity is not of a higher revelation; that purity is of a regression, you have fallen back. You have been trees in your past lives, you have transcended that. Now you are falling back.

Just think you are thirty years, thirty-five years of age -- you can attain to innocence in two ways. One is to somehow become a child again -- but then you will be foolish also. Innocent you will be, but foolish also -- because a child is a fool. Then there is another possibility: to grow and become wise through experience. You mature, you learn. And at the very end, when you have become almost an ancient, you attain to your childhood. But you do not attain through regression.

Go ahead. Let the circle be complete. Don't fall back! Go on and on! And one day you will see: the circle is complete. You are old and yet you are a child. Then you will not be foolish.

A wise man is like a child, but also is not like a child. A wise man is both. He is a grown-up -- REALLY grown up, mature, lived the life, experienced it, enriched by it -- and yet has come to understand that innocence is the only way to be, is the only way to be divine.

An old man is again in a second childhood, but the childhood is a second childhood. He is reborn.

When I say to flow with the river, I don't mean to become a driftwood. I don't mean to become a corpse and flow with the river. All corpses flow; there is nothing much to say about it. If you are dead you will float with the river -- because you cannot fight! First, you were encaged in activity. Now you are encaged in passivity.

Never move to the opposite. Always remain in both, and yet beyond. Always remember never to go to the extreme, because the way is just in the middle. Buddha has called his way 'the middle path' -- MAJJHIM NIKAYA. And he is right.

One day in the afternoon it happened: a parrot, a beautiful parrot was allowed to air himself every day. It was hot, and the whole house was fast asleep. The servant came and allowed the parrot to move around the room.

The dog of the house was also fast asleep. The parrot came near the dog, near his ear, and said: 'Rex!' Of course, the dog became alert -- 'Rex!' He went round and round, looked around every corner. Finding nothing, he again went to sleep.

The parrot waited. The trick had succeeded: he befooled the dog. So again he came near and said: 'Rex!' Again the dog opened his eyes, looked around, went around the house, and was very much frustrated.

Then he felt the trick: that there is nobody, everybody is fast asleep -- no rat, nothing -- only this parrot. Maybe he is doing something,. He again pretended that he was asleep, with one eye cocked.

The parrot came again, he tried the trick a third time. The dog jumped on him. Later on, the parrot was heard saying: 'The difficulty with me is that I don't know when to stop.'

And that is the difficulty with you, with all parrots. Where to stop?

From active you will go to passive. From passive you will go to active. And you don't know where to stop. If you know where to stop, if you know the middle.... Because the middle transcends both. There is a point that you cross every day again and again -- but you don't know where to stop. There is a point when you move from love to hate. You must be moving past the point where a Buddha remains. Just in the middle -- where love is no more and hate has not yet appeared, when you move from compassion to anger -- you pass the point where a Buddha remains.

If you watch for twenty-four hours, you must be passing that point at least twenty-four thousand times -- where a Buddha is sitting, where Buddhahood is. You go fast, you swing fast -- from one extreme to another you go. You are not even aware when you pass the point of Buddhahood: the middle way, the middle path, the absolute middle. There, suddenly you are neither a man nor a woman, neither alive nor dead, neither active nor passive. And to know that point is to know all.

To know that point is to know all that religion can give you. It is not in the scriptures. It is crossed by you every day. You come on that crossroad every moment. Whenever you are moving from one polarity to another, you have to pass it; there is no other way to go to the other polarity. But you move so fast that you are not alert when you cross that point.

When I say: 'flowing with the river,' I mean: drop out of polarities and just choose the river in between. Co-operate with it, commune with it. Be the river.

This is what sannyas is all about -- at least MY sannyas.

It is not lonely, but it is alone.

Whenever you say 'lonely', you show a desire for the other; you are missing the other. The word 'lonely' is indicative that you are not happy with yourself, that this loneliness hurts, that this loneliness is getting a little boring, that you would like to move away from his state of loneliness. When you say 'lonely,' you have already condemned it.

Loneliness means absence of the other -- not YOUR presence. You are missing the other and your eyes are focused on that missing, on that absence.

Up there, it is absolutely alone. That's why Mahavir has called it 'kaivalya'. 'Kaivalya' means absolute aloneness. But the quality of aloneness is totally different from loneliness. In the dictionaries they may both mean the same; I'm not talking about the dictionary. But in life's experience they are absolutely different.

Aloneness means presence of your being -- so full of yourself, so totally in yourself that the other is not needed. Aloneness is sufficient unto itself. Loneliness is missing something, loneliness is a gap -- where the other was or where you would like the other to be. Loneliness is a wound. Aloneness is a flowering. You are so happy to be yourself; you are not missing anything. You are totally yourself -- settled, content.

Yes, up there it is very very alone. And that is the beauty of it.

You alone exist -- but you exist as a god, you exist as the universe, you exist as existence itself. Stars and suns and moons move within you. Trees and clouds exist within you. Rivers and oceans flow within you. You become the whole -- that's why you are alone. Your own ego has disappeared, so you cannot be lonely.

The ego always feels lonely. That's why the ego always seeks the society, the club, the movie-house, this and that.

The ego is always seeking the other, because without the other, it cannot exist. The other is a must -- remember this.

'I' and 'thou' exist together. If the 'thou' disappears, the 'I' will disappear_ it cannot be. If you are there, I can be. But if you are not there, how can I exist? 'I' and 'thou' are just two poles of the same phenomenon, two poles of one thing. If 'I' disappears, the 'thou' disappears. If the 'thou' disappears, the 'I' disappears.

In aloneness neither the 'thou' is there nor is the 'I' there. It is absolute.

It has no center in it, in fact. The whole is involved. You cannot say where you are in that state -- you are not. The whole is and you are not. The ocean is, the drop has disappeared. Or, you can say the drop has become the ocean -- which is the same.

Up there, the first thing to be understood: loneliness is impossible; aloneness exists. Aloneness has nothing of the quality of loneliness. Loneliness is sad. Aloneness is blissful. Loneliness is always dependent. It is a slavery, a wound, a thorn in the heart. Aloneness is a flowering, a fulfillment, coming to the goal, reaching home. Loneliness is a sort of illness. Aloneness is health. Aloneness -- is wholeness. Loneliness is something of the world of disease, tensions, anguish, misery. Aloneness has nothing to do with that world -- it is a transcendence, it is absolute blissfulness, SATCHITANANDA.

And the second thing: don't call it 'up there' -- because it is not up. It is neither down nor up.

Down and up are meaningless for the whole. The whole simply is. There is no up to it, no down to it. Those words become meaningless. But in the childish mind of humanity God has always existed 'up there' and the devil always 'down there' and man always in between.

The earth, in between; hell, down; heaven, up. This is a classification of the mind. God is all: neither up, nor down, nor in the middle.

Only God is. In fact, to say 'God is' is to repeat, because God means ISNESS. ISNESS means God. To say 'God is' is to repeat the same thing. Just GOD will do, or ISNESS will do. This boggles the mind, because then the mind feels uneasy. It cannot categorize. It cannot categorize that which is impossible to categorize.

God cannot be defined in any way. All definitions are false. So whatsoever is said about God is bound to be wrong, God can only be showed in deep silence; it cannot be said through words.

So please don't use 'up' and don't use 'there' because He is always here. 'There' is just a fantasy. 'There' does not exist. Everything is here. This moment, here-now, the whole culminates, joins together. And it never moves from here, remember. And it never moves from now. That's why I use 'here-now' as one word. I don't use them as two words. Here-now -- one word.

And that's what Einstein came to realize through his whole life's research work. He stopped using time and space as two words. He created a new word, 'spacio-time'. Time is now. Space is here. If 'spacio-time' is true, then 'here-now' should be one word. And I use it as one word. God is here-now.

I have heard a beautiful story -- Swami Ram used to tell it again and again. He used to say that he had a friend, a very famous lawyer, a supreme court advocate. But he was an atheist. He had written on his wall where he used to sit and work in his office: God is nowhere.

Then a child was born to him. And the child started growing and learning language. One day the child was trying to read the sentence: God is nowhere. But 'nowhere' was too big a word for him, so the child divided it in two. He said: 'God is now here.' Suddenly, the father heard it. He looked at the sentence: 'Yes, it can be that too.' 'God is nowhere' can be read as 'God is now here.'

And it is said that that disturbed the father too much. He pondered over it again and again, it became a constant meditation. And after that day he could not read the sentence in the old way: God is nowhere. It got stuck. The child opened a new door. And whenever the father looked, he read it just like the child: God is now here. And it became a mantra.

It is said that the father was transformed, because repeating that: God is now here, again and again, he started feeling a certain tranquility arising in his heart.

So he used that as a mantra, not saying it to anybody. He would just look again and again. And whenever he had time, he would repeat inside: God is now here.

He became a theist. The vision of a child transformed him, the innocence of a child transformed him.

So don't say 'there'. 'There' is non-existential. The 'there' does not exist, cannot exist. All that exists is here-now. That's all there is to life: now here.

Once you move from the now and the here, you are in misery. Once you move in your desire you move from now and here, and you create a thousand and one miseries for yourself.

Be here-now. And forget about God. If you are here-now, you are in God, and God will reveal Himself to you. There is no need to search Him, because the very search is basically unsound. You cannot search Him because He is all. He cannot be sought in any direction because all directions are His.

You will not find Him anywhere, because He is everywhere. So from the very beginning, all search is bound to fail.

Don't seek and search. Just be here-now and He will search you, He will seek you. That's what Hassids say.

One of the greatest contributions of Hassidism is that you cannot seek Him; He seeks you.

How can YOU seek Him? You don't know the address. You don't know the face. You will not be able to recognize him. If He suddenly meets you on the street, you will not even say: 'Hello.' You will not recognize Him. He will be so strange that you may get scared. Or, you may not be able to see Him at all, because we tend to see only that which we know. That which we don't know, we tend not to see.

Scientists say that only two percent of impressions are delivered to the mind through the eyes. Ninety-eight percent are not delivered. If all hundred percent of the impressions are delivered, you will be in a mess, you will go mad. That will be too much. You will not be able to cope with it. So only a few selected informations are given to the mind. Ninety-eight percent are dropped out.

And I know well: if God meets you -- and I know that He meets you every day, millions of times....

But the mind drops because it is known, strange; you cannot fit Him anywhere with your mind. He will be a disturbance. So you simply don't see Him. How can you seek Him? Where you will seek Him?

Hassidism says: 'You cannot seek Him. He seeks you. You just be available and ready.'

I was reading an anecdote yesterday: A medical student failed in his final examination. He was very much afraid of his father, so he sent a telegram to his sister at home: 'I have failed. Prepare father. It may be too shocking to him.' The sister tried, but the father became very angry. Then she telegrammed to the brother: 'Father is ready. You prepare yourself.'

And that is the case: father is always ready; you prepare.

God is always ready to meet you; you prepare, you be ready wherever you are. He will seek you. He will rush from everywhere, from all directions. He will penetrate you in a thousand and one ways and reach to your heart.

You do your level best, but I do not despair because I cannot. Despair exists with expectation. Nothing can despair meI am not expecting anything from you. If it happens, it is beautiful. If it doesn't happen, that too is beautiful. To me, it is not a desire for you to become enlightened. If it is a desire and you go on missing, then I will be in despair. But it is not a desire at all.

It is my happiness to share whatsoever I have attained. I share it because I have it. If you take it, good. If you don't take it, that too is good. Because basically enlightenment cannot be anything else than YOUR freedom. This is part of your freedom: if you want to take, you take; if you don't want to take, you don't take. Whatsoever I say, if you do it, that's your freedom. If you don't do it, that's your freedom. And I am here to free you. So how can I have any expectation? -- because any sort of expectation becomes a sort of slavery, a bondage.

If I expect you to become enlightened and you are not becoming, then there will be despair. And a man who is in despair himself -- how can he help you to become enlightened? No, that's not possible. I can help you only because you cannot force me into any sort of despair. I will remain happy whether you are in heaven or hell. I will remain happy whether you remain ignorant or whether you become enlightened. To me, your misery is your choice. It exists nowhere except in your choice. If you chose, good! If you love it, good! Who am I to distract you? It is your choice.

What am I doing here then? -- I am simply sharing my understanding. That is my happiness: to share it. It is your happiness whether you take it or not -- that is irrelevant to me. Even if you are not here, even if nobody is here, even if I am sitting alone, I will be still sharing my happiness with the trees and the rocks. In fact, to say that I am sharing it is not right. It IS BEING shared. To say that I am sharing it, makes it wrong -- as if I am doing something to share it. No, it is being shared.

A flower has bloomed and the perfume is spreading. Not that the flower is sharing it; the flower cannot help but share. The fragrance is on the wings, moving, going far away. Whether somebody will be able to fill his being with that fragrance or not is not a question for the flower. It has flowered, and that's all. The flower is happy that it has bloomed. The flower is happy because it is fulfilled, and fulfillment spreads a fragrance all around.

It is just like when you kindle a lamp and the light spreads. Not that the lamp is trying to share its light -- what else can it do? It has to be so. Not that the light is waiting for somebody to come and enjoy it. If nobody comes, it is all the same. If many come, that too is the same.

I am not sharing, in a way; rather, I am being shared.

Ordinarily you think you breathe. When you become awake someday, you will see: you are breathed, you are not breathing. Ordinarily, you think that you are. When you become aware, you will say: 'God is.'

And don't call it work. I'm not doing anything. At the most, you can call it play, but don't call it work. Playing.

If it is a work it will be serious. If it is a work there will be a desire to attain to certain results. If it is a work it will have a burdensome quality of a duty to be performed. If it is work there will be a reluctance. And if you don't follow me, there will be frustration.

It is just a play. I don't even call it a game, because a game starts moving in the direction of work. It is just like children playing. There is no end to it. It itself is the end.

I love to tell stories to you, I am a storyteller. And the result is not anywhere there in my consciousness. If I have told you a beautiful story -- finished. It was beautiful. I loved it. I enjoyed;t. Whether you enjoyed it or not is for you to decide.

One of my teachers was a very rare being. He was a little eccentric as philosophers tend to be. He was one of the greatest philosophers of this century in India. Very rare, not much known -- a real philosopher, not simply a professor of philosophy. He was very much eccentric.

Students had long dropped coming to his classes when I came across him. For many years nobody had entered into his class because sometimes he would talk continuously for three, four, five, six hours. And he used to say: 'The university can decide when the period starts, but the university cannot decide when it stops, because that depends on my flow. If something is incomplete, I cannot leave it. I have to complete it.'

So it was very disturbing. He would take the whole time sometimes. And sometimes he would not say a single thing for weeks. He would say: 'Nothing is coming. You go home.'

When I entered his class, he looked at me and he said: 'Yes. You may fit with me. You also look a little eccentric. But remember: when I start talking, whenever it stops, it stops. I never manipulate. Sometimes I will not be talking for weeks; you will have to come and go. Sometimes I will talk for hours. Then if you feel uneasy, if you want to go to the bathroom or something, you can go -- but don't disturb me. I will continue. You can come back. Silently, you can sit again. I will continue because I cannot break it in between.'

It was a rare experience to listen to him. He was completely oblivious of me, the only student. Rarely would he look at me. Sometimes he would look at the walls and talk. And he was saying profound things with such a deep heart that it was not a question of addressing someone; he was enjoying. Sometimes he would chuckle and enjoy, his own thing he would enjoy. And many times I would go out and talk to people. After minutes, after even hours sometimes, he was there. And he had been talking.

A play -- not even a game.

I am talking to you; it is not a work. It may be work for you; it is not work for me. That day will be a blissful day when it is not a work even for you, when it has become a play, when you delight with me, when whatsoever I have to share, you delight in, you participate in. In those rare moments of participation you become one with me. And the work is done. That is the way to do it.

Gurdjieff's people called their discipline 'the work'. I call my discipline 'the play'. Gurdjieff's disciples are very serious, doing great work. Please, don't be serious here around me. Seriousness is a disease, more dangerous than cancer. Someday cancer will be curable, but seriousness is incurable.

Be light, weightless, happy in this moment to be here with me. Participate. Enjoy. The work will take its own care. The work happens by the side; you play and the work happens by the side. My whole emphasis is to, be playful. If you can be playful, everything will come on its own accord.

So it is not a work to me. I love you. I enjoy you. I am simply delighted in your being. I am happy that you are here.

This moment is the end. In this moment everything is fulfilled.

I don't look beyond it, because to me, this moment is eternal; it always remains there, No other moment;s coming. This is the moment. It is eternity.

When you understand how to play, how to be playful with me, around me, you have opened the door. That door opens automatically -- you never open it. You simply play, and it opens. That is the secret formula to open it. Life's door, love's door, God's door -- they all open when you are playful. They all become closed when you become serious, when you become work-oriented. Then you miss God.

God is a love, a song, a dance. God is not a commodity; He is absolutely useless. What can you use? What use can you put God to? He is non-utilitarian.

I am here -- absolutely useless. To what use can you put me? You can enjoy me -- just like you enjoy flowers in the morning, or you enjoy clouds in the sky, or you enjoy the songs of the birds. These things cannot be sold in the market, they are not commodities, but they have a tremendous beauty in them.

Anything that you transform into a commodity becomes profane. Anything that you love for its own sake immediately becomes holy, sacred.

This is from Somendra. RECENTLY, SITTING BEFORE YOU, I HAVE BECOME BATHED IN SWEAT. WHAT IS HAPPENING?

By jove, Somendra, love is happening! And whenever love happens, you feel very nervous because you are moving in the unknown. You are moving into something which you cannot manipulate, something which is beyond you, in which you can be lost -- lost forever. It may be a point of no-return and you never come back. That's what is happening.

The whole personality: shivering, afraid, sweating, nervous. A death is happening. That's what I mean when I say love is happening.

Love and death are two names of the same phenomenon. On the edge of love one feels so scared that one can be absorbed into it and there may be no possibility to come back. It is death, dawning before you. Love is death, and;f you have known love as death you have opened a secret chamber of life. Then you will know death also as love. Then death becomes God.

Don't judge it. If your watcher becomes a judger, okay. Don't judge the judger -- watch it. If again the judger comes, watch it.

Always go on falling back on the watcher; don't be defeated by the judger. And don't be disturbed. It is not a question that you have to not judge. If you force it you will not be happy -- you will be suppressed. And whatsoever you will do, the judger will be there -- no matter how you force, suppress. No! Release it I

If a thought comes, and another thought follows and becomes a judgment, watch the judgment also. Always go on falling into the watcher -- that's the whole thing. If again the judger comes, let it come. Don't be afraid. You are always free to become a watcher again.

The whole method of watching is not to be deceived and not to be distracted by the judger. Let it be there, there is no condemnation about it. What can you do if the judger comes? What can you do? There is nothing to do.

You can again become a watcher. Let it go on and on. The judger is going to be lost somewhere, and then the watcher will be centered.

It is going to be a long process because you have always been helping the judger to come in. For many lives, for thousands of years, you have always been getting identified with the judger. So the judger does not know that you have changed your mind. It will still be coming for a few years. It depends on you.

If you go on falling to the watcher, sooner or later, the judger will understand that it is no more needed_an unwelcome guest. It will knock at your door a few times, but the knock will become feebler and feebler and feebler. One day, seeing that you are no more interested in it, the judger disappears. You cannot suppress it.

When I am talking, you are part of me. You are not just the audience, you are also talking through me to yourself. And I am also not only the talker, I am also part of the audience, I am also listening. It is a deep participation. That is what is the meaning of communion. It is not a communication only, it is a communion.

If you really listen to me, I am talking; -- and you are also talking through me. You create many things that I would not have spoken if you were not there.

Somebody enters, a stranger -- the audience changes. I will have to talk about something else. I may not know the man -- that is not the point. When the audience changes, the talker changes -- if it is a communion. If it is a ready-made talk, then nothing matters. Whoever you are doesn't matter.

I am not saying anything which is ready-made. I am just here-now, responding to you and your being. So if you have a certain thought, it is bound to be reflected in my talk. If you have a certain question, somehow or other, it will synchronize; it will bring its own answer. That's how it happened. There is no miracle. It is simply the miracle of communion.

If you are in deep love, then you reflect in me and I reflect in you. Then you are a mirror to me and I am a mirror to you. My mirror reflects in you; your mirror reflects in me. And this goes on and on. Two mirrors facing each other can reflect infinitely, again and again.

The more you come closer to me, the more there will be no need to ask. THERE the question arises, and HERE IS the answer.

Questions have to be asked because you are not yet certain of the communion.

So don't be puzzled! It is simply the miracle of communion, it has nothing to do with me. I am not trying to read your mind, remember; I am not a mind-reader. I never do such foolish things. I never read your mind. But I am here, just like a mirror -- and you are reflected.

If you love me, your questions will be answered. If you deeply participate with my being, you will hear your own being revealed through me. YOU are also talking through me, I am also listening through you. The talker and the listener disappear; a circle of energy is created. This is the difference between communication and communion.

In communication you may be a student, In communion I become the Master, you become the disciple.

One needs only a little trust and everything will be answered -- not only answered, eventually solved.

So ride on it. But still watch. You can ride on the wave. How does it come in the way of the watcher? In fact, when you are riding on the wave, you can perfectly watch the wave.

The only thing to remember: don't allow the wave to ride on you. Ride on the wave -- there is no problem. Ride on the wave of anger and watch it. The problem arises when anger rides on you and the watcher is lost. Then you get identified.

Nothing is wrong in anger. Just don't get identified; watch it. It is a beautiful experience, an energy experience. Anger is pure energy. I call it white petrol -- the purest form of energy. It becomes destructive because you get identified with it. It is inflammable because it is pure.

A man who cannot be angry will be impotent because he has no energy. A man who can be angry has a potentiality, a great energy in him. But it has to be used rightly, because the more energy you have, the more dangerous. With more energy, there is more possibility of exploding. So you need to be more alert and aware.

Once you are aware, the energy is there, but it never becomes destructive. And to have energy is to have a depth, to have energy is to have a height, to have energy is to have a reservoir.

You can see two types of people who are not angry. One: those who have no energy; they are empty shells. You can see: shrunken beings. They will not be angry, but they will not be able to love either -- because one who has no energy to be angry will not have energy to love. Shrunken beings, already dead. Only a part of them lives -- ninety percent gone. Only a little part still throbbing. Partially alive!

Then you will find another type of being who is so full of energy that he is a reservoir. He's also not angry because he knows how to be aware. His no-anger is not absence of the energy of anger; his no-anger is because of awareness. This man can love, and love tremendously. This man can become a great compassion. The whole world can be filled by one man's compassion. The world is not big enough: a single man's compassion, if it explodes, can fill the whole universe. When a Buddha moves on the earth, when a Jesus moves on the earth -- that's how it has happened. A single man's energy -- purified, absolutely purified, with no identification -- becomes a soothing shower on the whole of existence.

It is said about Buddha and Mahavir.... These stories are beautiful. A Buddha moved in a forest -- don't take it literally, these are beautiful stories -- and trees started flowering out of season. When he attained to enlightenment the whole forest surrounding the area bloomed in the morning. The trees completely forgot that it is not the season. Sometimes one has to forget when such a miracle happens. Buddha showered on those trees. They were happy. How else can a tree show its happiness?

It is said about Mahavir: whenever he would walk -- and he was a naked man, with no shoes, with no clothes -- thorns would be on the path but they would turn upside down. Thorns turning upside down so that Mahavir is not hurt. Beautiful stories, indicating great phenomena.

Yes, it should be so. I know thorns won't do that. I know;t well. But it should be so. When Mahavir passes by, even a thorn SHOULD become a flower.

Energy is good. Identification is bad.

Mahavir must have been potentially a very sexual man. Otherwise, from where does this non-violence and love come? The same energy;s released. In awareness;t becomes love;;n identification, unconsciousness, it becomes sexuality.

Buddha must have been a very very angry man -- very violent. I KNOW IT intrinsically. Whatsoever the scriptures say is irrelevant. He must have been intrinsically a very angry and violent man. Otherwise, from where does the compassion come?

And that;s the meaning of the historical fact that in India the twenty-four teerthankaras of the Jains, Buddha, Ram, Krishna -- they all were kshatriyas, warriors. All the Hindu avataras except one man, Parashuram, were kshatriyas, warriors: angry people, violent. The twenty-four teerthankaras of the Jains -- all kshatriyas.

Not a single brahmin. Buddha himself was a kshatriya. In India, the whole history indicates something. Why has it happened to kshatriyas? -- that they became the greatest openings of compassion in the world? -- they had anger, they were fighters. They could have been violent. Once the energy is released and awareness arises, the awareness rides on the energy and uses it.

Only one brahmin, Parashuram, was one of the avataras. But he was not a brahmin at all. It is said that you could not find a more violent man in the whole history of the world. He was so against the warriors, the race of kshatriyas, that it is said that thirty-six times he killed all the kshatriyas in the world. He wanted to uproot all the kshatriyas in the world. He was not a brahmin at all. The world has never known such a great warrior. Why?

The fact is simple and scientific. If love is released, sex must have been there. If compassion is released, anger, hatred, violence, must have been there. If non-attachment is released, greed must have been there, jealousy, possessiveness, must have been there.

You can know a tree by the fruit. And you can know a man: whatsoever happens in his enlightenment is his fruit. You can know from where that fruit comes.

A lotus flower comes from the ordinary mud. You cannot conceive by seeing the lotus flower that it comes from the ordinary mud.

They seem so contradictory. But life joins contradictions. The most beautiful flower in the world, the most delicate, comes out of ordinary mud, dirty mud.

Love comes out of the mud of sex. Compassion comes out of the mud of anger. And nirvana? -- comes out of the mud of this world.

I also wonder.