Perception

What is the difference between waiting for godot and waiting for god?

It is as if the sun has risen in the morning and you are sitting in your room with closed doors and windows, in darkness. Open the doors, you become available to the sun. The sun was already available -- just the meeting happens. You cannot wait for God. All waiting is for Godot. Godot means the one who never comes, who CANNOT come, whose arrival is impossible. And the only impossible thing is that which has already happened -- how can it happen again? You are alive, and you are waiting for life, Now, this is ridiculous. The real man of religion does not think in terms of God. He thinks in terms of life or, even better, of living -- because life can again become an abstract idea. Living, moment-to-moment living. In that very living, one knows what God is, because one knows who one is. Your idea…

Beloved master, do all ordinary people think that others have something more or better than they do?

That's the definition of ordinary people. They are continuously comparing themselves with others. Comparison is their whole life's work. Certainly people have... somebody has a better house, somebody has a better nose, somebody has a better body, somebody has a better mind. There are thousands of things. You can find in every person something better than you. Even a beggar may have something better than you. Just the way he walks may have a grandeur, a carelessness. He has no worries, he has nothing to worry about. He sleeps in the street better than you sleep on the best mattress in the best house. The better the mattress, the worse the sleep. It is very strange but that's how it is, because for sleep what is needed is at least eight hours of hard work. That's the way your physiology is built. It has a built-in program. If you don't…

Beloved master, the other night, I could have sworn I saw a man reading a newspaper in anando's room during the discourse. Was I just seeing things?

Milarepa, not only have you seen him; Kaveesha has seen the same man sitting on a chair reading the newspaper, and because of the newspaper nobody could see his face. People could see only the legs, the shoes, the socks, the hands and the newspaper; nobody has seen his upper body and his face -- and nobody has dared to go in there. When Kaveesha saw it she shrieked -- and Kaveesha is a great occultist, a hypnotist, a knower of witchcraft and black magic; and if she shrieks it means something really substantial! I have seen it too because when I passed after the discourse, the fellow was reading the newspaper. In fact I have suggested to Anando... because the ghost that lives in that room goes on knocking and disturbing Anando's sleep. Now she has got an air conditioner and she keeps it on full speed, so noisy…

I have been observing that whenever press people come to the ashram they are always looking for something negative -- sex, money, etcetera, etcetera. Can't they see what is happening here?

They can see. They see it but they can't report it. You have to understand. The people who read the newspapers and the magazines are constantly searching for the negative, they are looking for the negative. To them, good news is no news. Only the bad news is news, only the negative has appeal for them. If somebody murders it is news, if somebody rapes it is news. George Bernard Shaw used to say that when a dog bites a man it is not news, but when a man bites a dog it is news. Something unusual, something that should not be, has to be reported. Only then are people thrilled. People live on negativity. And the consumer decides; because he purchases, his needs have to be fulfilled. The people who read the newspapers are sexually repressed; they are hankering for something sexual. That is a vicarious satisfaction but they…