All writing in this blog are from the Masters who returned to THIS (this moment) after crossing THAT (enlightenment). Putting the names & images of the masters will change your perception about the content. That is against the teaching of the Masters. Unless all these images are dissolved, you cannot see yourself.
Millions of fingers can point to the same moon. Fingers are bound to be different -- but the moon is the same. By clinging to the fingers you will not see the moon. Forget the finger and look at where it is pointing. It is the very essence of all the teachings of all the buddhas of all the ages -- past, present, and future too.
The words of a Buddha may not be able to communicate the truth, but they can communicate the music, the music that exists in one who is enlightened.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Say to the world what you have known, without fear...



The positive person has to become assertive; he has to come into the light. Otherwise the world is left in the hands of the negative people, and these negative people are the cause of preventing others from seeking and searching.

I have always liked a story by Turgenev -- a Russian novelist, one of the best the world has ever known. If you are going to choose ten great books, you will have to give one place to Turgenev without fail. Out of all the literature in all the languages in the world, he may claim more, but one is absolutely certain. He has written a small story, THE FOOL.

In a small village there was a very simple man. His simplicity was such that he almost looked like a simpleton, and the whole village condemned him as the idiot. Out of his simplicity he used to do things, and the cunning people all around condemned him. He became so much afraid even to say a single word, because whatever he would say, he would be immediately criticized, condemned. He became afraid of acting, of doing anything; his life became a hell. And at that time, a mystic passed through the village. The idiot reached the mystic and told his tragic story, asking, "You help me do something ...."

The mystic said, "Who says you are an idiot? You are a very simple, innocent being. Out of your innocence you do things which are going to be against the ideas of the cunning and the clever.

"You do one thing -- I will be coming back on the same route within a month, so I can check whether it works or not -- I will tell you a simple secret. From tomorrow morning, you become assertive, aggressive: Somebody says, `What a beautiful sunrise' and you immediately jump in and tell him, `What is there? What beauty are you talking about? What is beauty? Define it! I have seen many sunrises like this; it is just a mediocre sunrise -- what is special in it? It happens every day.' And nobody can define beauty, nobody can prove that the sunrise is beautiful. There is no argument, there is no way.

"Somebody is saying, `Look at that woman, how beautiful she is!' Immediately jump in. You just watch, wherever anybody is making a positive statement about higher values which cannot be proved, you ask for proof: `What do you mean by calling that ordinary woman, who is not even homely ... what beauty is in her? Where is it? -- in her eyes, in her nose, in her hair? Where is the beauty? You have to clearly define it, and point to where it is!'" Now, beauty is not something that can be pinpointed.

After one month when the mystic returned, the idiot had become by that time the wisest man in the village. Somebody would say, "That is a holy book," and he would immediately ask, "What do you mean by holy, and what is holy in this book? The paper used is holy, or the ink used is holy, or the words used are holy? What is holy in it? These are the same words, the same ink, the same paper used in every book -- what makes this book holy?" And there was no way to prove ....

And people became absolutely afraid in his presence. They would tremble, they would not say anything; the situation was completely reversed.

Before, he used to be afraid; now he was never afraid. And nobody even asked a question of him ... because the mystic had said, "If somebody asks a question, never answer, but ask a counter-question -- because your answer can be criticized; don't be caught in that thing. Just ask a counter-question. Ask, `What do you mean by this question? Explain each single word and its meaning.' And harass him so much that even an ordinary sentence becomes a puzzle."

The mystic came; the idiot touched his feet and said, "Your strategy worked. Now I am the wisest man in this village."

He said, "Don't be worried -- continue. You will be the wisest man in the whole surrounding area, as far as your name can reach! People will start coming to you just to have your blessings."

A small story, but with great significance. It says how even an idiot, by using negativity, can become wise.

But that is not true wisdom. True wisdom is always positive. True wisdom is always arising out of a yes, out of love, out of gratitude towards existence. True wisdom knows no "no." It does not have any contact with negative attitudes and approaches.

Just don't remain silent. Bring your silence into songs, bring your experience into expressions. Say to the world what you have known, without fear.

Everybody has to be assertive, not aggressive.

Those two words are totally different. You can be assertive and very humble. You cannot be humble and aggressive. Aggressive is trespassing somebody else's right. Assertion is simply making your right proclaimed, clear. These are totally different processes.

Assertion is everybody's fundamental right: "If you are not capable of understanding then I have to shout, but I am not interfering in any way in your life. I am simply saying, please keep away from my territorial prerogative. I will never trespass your territory, but the same I expect from you."

That's what I would like our small children to be from the very beginning -- assertive, not aggressive; humble, but not ready to be enslaved by anybody.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

You will be surprised: you are that man...



There is a famous Tibetan parable:
A man served a master for many many years. The service was not pure; there was a motivation in it. He wanted some secret from the master. He had heard that the master has the secret -- the secret to do miracles. With this hidden desire he was serving the master day in, day out, but he was afraid to say anything. But the master was continuously watching his motivation.

One day the master asked, "It is better that you please speak your mind, because I am continuously seeing a motive in all your service that you do for me. It is not out of love, certainly not out of love. I don't see any love in it and I don't see any humility in it. It is a kind of bribery. So please, just tell me, what do you want?"

The man was waiting for this opportunity. He said, "I want the secret of doing miracles."

The master said, "Then why did you waste your time so long? You could have said it the very first day you had come. You tortured yourself and you tortured me too, because I don't like people around me who have motives. They are ugly to look at. They are basically greedy, and greed makes them ugly. The secret is simple -- why didn't you ask me the first day? This is the secret...."

He wrote down a small mantra on a piece of paper, just three lines maybe: "Buddham sharanam gachchhami, sangham sharanam gachchhami, dhammam sharanam gachchhami -- I go to the feet of the Buddha, I go to the feet of the Buddha's commune, I go to the feet of the dhamma, the ultimate law."

And the master told the man, "You take this small mantra with you, repeat it five times, just five times. It is a simple process. Just remember one condition: while you are repeating it, take a bath, close the door, sit silently -- and while you are repeating it, please don't remember monkeys."

The man said, "What nonsense are you talking about? Why should I remember monkeys in the first place? I have never remembered them my whole life!"

The master said, "That is up to you, but I have to tell you the condition. This is how the mantra was given to me, with this condition. If you have never remembered monkeys, so far so good. Now go home, and please never come back to me. You have the secret, you know the condition. Fulfill the condition and you will have miraculous powers, and whatsoever you want to do you can do: you can fly in the sky, you can read people's thoughts, you can materialize things, and so on and so forth."

The man rushed home; he even forgot to thank the master. That's how greed functions: it does not know thankfulness, it does not know gratitude. Greed is absolutely unaware of gratitude; it never comes across it. Greed is a thief and thieves don't thank.

The man rushed, but he was very much puzzled: even on the way to his home monkeys started appearing in his head. He saw many kinds of monkeys: small and big, and red-mouthed and black-mouthed, and he was very much puzzled -- "What is happening?" In fact he was not thinking of anything else but the monkeys. And they were becoming bigger and they were crowding all around.

He went home, he took a bath, but the monkeys were not leaving him. Now he was becoming suspicious that they were not going to leave him while he would be chanting the mantra. He had not even chanted the mantra yet, he was simply preparing. And when he closed his doors the room was full of monkeys. It was so crowded that he had no space for himself! He closed his eyes and there were monkeys, and he opened his eyes and there were monkeys. He could not believe what was happening! The whole night he tried. Again and again he would take a bath, and again and again he would try and fail, and fail utterly.

In the morning he went to the master, returned the mantra and said, "Keep this mantra with you. This is driving me mad! I don't want to do any miracles, but please help me to get rid of these monkeys!"

It is so impossible to get rid of a single thought! And if you want to get rid of it, it becomes even more difficult, because when you want to get rid of a thought it is a question -- a very decisive moment -- of who is the master: the mind or you? The mind will try in every possible way to prove that he is the master and not you.

The master has been a slave for centuries, and the slave has been the master for millions of lives. Now the slave cannot leave all his privileges, priorities, so easily. He is going to give you great resistance.

You try it! Today take a bath, close your doors, repeat this simple mantra: Buddham sharanam gachchhami, sangham sharanam gachchhami, dhammam sharanam gachchhami -- and don't let the monkeys come to you....

You are laughing at the poor man. You will be surprised: you are that man.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Mind is not a good master...



Psychoanalysis and Psychosynthesis both are mind processes. The mind is a good mechanism, but not a good master. It can serve you if you are the master and the mind is the servant. But if the servant becomes the master and starts ruling over you, that is the state of insanity.

What can help is witnessing -- witnessing the mind and its activities. And witnessing is the real miracle. The more you witness, the less thoughts are there in the mind -- in exact proportion. If your witnessing is only ten percent, then there are ninety percent thoughts. If your witnessing is ninety percent, there are only ten percent thoughts. If your witnessing is one hundred percent, then there is no mind, there are no thoughts at all.

So Sigmund Freud, who talks about psychoanalysis, and Assagioli, who talks about psychosynthesis, are in the same boat. They are both talking about mind; neither of them is talking of going beyond mind.

In the East, nothing like psychotherapy or Psychosynthesis has happened. You will be surprised that in the East, for ten thousand years, no enlightened person has even paid any attention to the mind. If they have ever talked about the mind, they have talked in reference to meditation. And what they have talked about is how to make the mind silent, empty, a total nothingness, a no-mind.

The state of no-mind is unknown to the West, and it is only in the state of no-mind that one becomes aware of that which is beyond mind.... Because when all the chattering of the mind stops and there is no more noise, the still small voice of the being is heard. For the first time one becomes aware, "I am here. I was not there in that crowded place, I was always out of it."

Witnessing simply takes you beyond mind. And to be beyond mind is the whole of religion, the true religion. I call it pure religiousness.

Monday, October 20, 2008

First empty your head...



A professor of philosophy went to see a great Master, and he asked about God, and he asked about karma, and he asked about the theory of reincarnation, and he asked many things... questions and questions and questions. And the Master said, "You are tired, the journey has been long, and I can see you are perspiring, coming uphill on such a hot summer afternoon. It must have been tiring. You wait; there is no hurry. These questions can wait a little. Let me prepare a cup of tea for you. And who knows? -- while drinking the tea you may get the answer."

Now the professor was a little puzzled and became a little suspicious whether it was right to come to this madman. "How can the questions be answered just by drinking tea?" But now there was no way of going; he had to rest a little. "And the tea is not going to hurt in any way, so why not drink it and then escape from here?"

The Master brought the tea, started pouring from his kettle into the cup, and went on pouring. The cup was full, and the tea started overflowing into the saucer, and the saucer was full. Then the professor said, "Stop! What are you doing? The tea will start overflowing on the floor. Now the cup has not even space for a single drop more. Are you mad or something?"

The Master had a hearty laugh, and he said, "So, you ARE intelligent! You can understand. If there is no space in the cup then we cannot pour any more tea into it. Is there space in your head? I would like to pour all that I am, but is there space in your head? Is it not overfull, too much stuffed?

"This is my answer," the Master said. "Come again. First empty your head. Come in a state of not knowing. You are too knowledgeable. I can hear all the noise that is going on inside you. Come a little more in silence. And you have not come to learn -- you have come to argue."

Knowledge always hankers to argue. It is not interested in learning. In learning it feels humiliated. That's why it becomes more and more difficult: the more grown up you are, the less is the possibility of your learning anything. Children can learn because they don't have any ego, and they learn fast, and they learn very easily. If you have to learn the same thing when you are thirty-five or forty or fifty, it is very difficult, almost impossible sometimes. What happens to your intelligence?

After fifty years of experience your intelligence should be more than it was before, but it is not. You have gathered much junk on the way. The functioning of the intellect is no longer free; it is too much burdened -- and burdened with crap! And you feel humiliated in learning anything. You cannot bow down. You cannot say, "I do not know." And the disciple is one who can say, "I do not know -- teach me. I am ready to learn. I have not come with any conclusions to you. I have not brought any knowledge. I come empty! Fill me!"

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

At least in meditation, put aside your personalities...



When someone is sad. or someone is in misery, or someone has lost a friend, a beloved, a husband, a wife, you go to him. Your face looks sad and sorrowful. Remember. and consider deep within, whether this sadness is real or whether you are just displaying it and deep down you are simply bored, deep down you are trying to figure out how to leave, deep down you are thinking of other things, not at all interested in the person: his misery, his suffering. Go on considering this and you will come to know two different layers within you. The false one is the personality.

The word 'personality' is very significant. It comes from a Greek word persona. Persona means 'the mask'. In Greek drama the actors used masks, false faces. Those false faces were called personae. And from that, the word 'personality' comes. It is beautiful. It means that you are acting with a false face. It is not you. You are hiding behind the false face, because you cannot reveal your real face.

I am not saying to necessarily go on revealing your real face everywhere. There is no need. Somewhere, the persona is needed. But be clear that this is the persona; this is not you. Inside, you must know when you are acting and when you are real. You must not be deceived by your acting! You must not become identified with your acting! I know that faces are needed. Otherwise it will be difficult to live in society, very difficult. Faces are good in a way. They facilitate, they work as lubricants. And in a big society with so many people, you need not reveal your reality everywhere.

Someone meets you in the morning. You feel disturbed by it. You think, "Why have I seen this man's face this morning? His face may destroy my whole day." But, outwardly, you smile and say, "Good morning. How happy I am to see you." Inwardly, you are not happy at all!

But this is okay as far as manners are concerned. It will not be good to say to the man, "I am feeling very unhappy. You have destroyed my morning. Your face is dangerous. I am afraid that seeing you will ruin my whole day." This will not be good. Unnecessary. Unnecessarily disturbing to the other man. There is no need.

But you must know what is a mask and what is real. You must be aware of what is going on within. What is within is your real being and what is going on on the surface is just a social utility. If you can make a clear-cut distinction between you and your personality, then personality becomes just like clothing. You can drop it at any moment and become naked.

If you cannot drop it, it means that you are so attached to it that the distinction is not there, the separation is not there; there is no gap. A gap is needed so that at least in your room, in your bathroom, you can put your personality away and become real. At least in meditation, you can throw the personality and become real. There, it is not needed.

Meditation is nonsocial. It is not concerned with anyone else; it is concerned only with yourself. So no mask is needed; you can be authentic. But you cannot be authentic because you don't know the distinction. Even in meditation I feel that you are doing many false things.

Freud became aware -- when he first started psychoanalysis he was not aware of it, but by and by he became aware that patients would say things that were not real just to make Freud happy, to confirm his theories -- because when Freud was happy, they also felt happy. Only after twenty years of psychoanalysis.did he become aware that what they were saying was not real.

For example, Freud says that sex is the root of every mental disturbance. Patients would come to him and tell him about their disturbances. Then they would reveal that sex was the root of their disturbances. Freud thought that his theories were confirmed by thousands and thousands of examples. Only later on did.he become aware that many of them were Lying just to make him happy, to confirm his theory.

Tillich has said somewhere that religion is the concern of the individual, a totally personal concern with oneself. It is not concerned with anyone else. Religion is individual, so you need not think of anyone else while meditating, not even of me. Be real. Throw your masks. Anything authentic will help you to move inward, anything unreal will help you to move outward.

That is the reason why Shankara calls the world illusion. The more you move away from yourself, the more you are moving into illusion; and the more you go inward, the more you are moving into reality. Your personality is the gateway toward illusion, toward an unreal dream world. Throw that gate, throw that bridge completely. At least in meditation.

I am not saying for you to go and move in society and be authentic. You will be in difficulty. If you feel happy to do it you can do it, but I'm not saying that; don't put the blame on me. The society will create troubles for you. It doesn't want your real faces, it wants your unreal faces.

And it is okay as far as the society is concerned. Use an unreal face when you go out, but when you go within, throw that face completely. Don't get identified with it, don't carry it inward. A day may come when you will become so strong that even in society you would like to move with a real face, but that depends on you. First, look inward and, at least momentarily, put aside your personalities.

Monday, October 13, 2008

People are being diverted from the present to the past or future...



THE OLD RELIGIONS ALL OVER THE WORLD have been consoling the poor in different ways. The same is being done by Jesus Christ too. Calling the poor the children of God is nothing but poison. Then Karl Marx is right -- that religion is the opium of the people.

If it is true that the poor are the children of God, then we should not try to destroy poverty -- otherwise we will be destroying the children of God. That will be very irreligious, unspiritual! In fact, we should destroy all richness in the world so everybody becomes a child of God. If spirituality is so simple, then why bother about improving the lot of the people, trying to make them richer, trying to make them more comfortable, giving them better technology, industry, food? This is all against religion! This is all against Jesus Christ!

Mahatma Gandhi used to call the poor DARIDRA NARAYAN; he went even one step further than Jesus Christ: the poor are not only the children of God, they are gods. This is a strategy: because your so-called religious people have not been able to find a way to solve the problem of poverty, they try to rationalize it. And the best way to console people is to tell them, "The rich are lower than you -- you are higher!" This satisfies the ego.

Jesus says: Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God. This is also one of the tricks of all the religions in the world: promise the poor a beautiful future -- AFTER death. Nobody ever returns, nobody ever tells what actually is the case after death, so it cannot be refuted at all. You will be received, welcomed in the kingdom of God, and the rich, they will suffer in hell.

It satisfies the poor tremendously, the very idea of the rich suffering in hellfire and the poor being welcomed by St. Peter at the pearly gates of heaven. So this life is not such a big problem, a question of only a few years. One can manage, one can tolerate, one can remain satisfied. One can hope that "Sooner or later, on the Judgement Day, everything will be settled. And because we are poor, ours is going to be the kingdom of God."

This is sheer nonsense. Who has said it makes no difference. Jesus may have said it, Mahatma Gandhi may have said it -- I don't care a bit! My whole concern is with the truth, and this is untrue.

Poverty is not something to be praised; it is something to be condemned, totally condemned. It is like cancer: it has to be destroyed; no respect should be given to it, because that is nourishment. It should not be praised in any direct or indirect way, because that is how it has been prolonged in the past.

And you can't see the contradiction: on the one hand these people go on saying that poverty is something beautiful; on the other hand they are all trying to make people richer. the contradiction is in THEM. Why try to make these poor people more rich? Make them more poor so they will be closer to God. Take even what they have got! Deprive them of everything! Then their welcome will be far greater, they will be received more joyously.

And what is the implication of it all? It means God enjoys poverty, it means he wants people to be poor. It simply means that he is against riches, comforts, luxuries. Then why this paradise? -- because paradise is nothing but comforts, riches, luxuries. A strange logic! On the earth people should suffer so that in heaven they can be rewarded. First make people ill so that they can be hospitalized and served; first wound them and then help to heal their wounds. This is ridiculous!

In India it has been a long tradition; different ways have been discovered to rationalize poverty. The first was: the poor person is suffering because in the past he has committed some wrong actions. The past is made responsible -- not the society, not the present, not the structure of the society, not the lack of technology, not the stupidity of the people, but the past. Nothing can be done about the past, you cannot undo it; it has to be accepted. And great hope is given with it: "If you accept it, if you are totally satisfied with it, you will be immensely rewarded in the future life."

Do you see the trick? The past and the future are made important. Nothing can be done about the past life and you don't know anything about the future life. The past is no more, the future is not yet, and people are being diverted from the present to the past which is no more and to the future which is not yet. These are very cunning tricks. And the problem is in the present -- it has to be solved herenow.

There are people all around who will make you jealous...



Any love which has some conscious or unconscious conditions is bound to bring frustration, because those conditions cannot be fulfilled. The very nature of conditions is such.

Every girl hates her mother; she may not be conscious of it at all. But the thing becomes more complicated because she hates the mother and she imitates her too, because there is no other woman whom she can imitate and learn from. So she learns all those ugly ways that she hates! Every young girl loves the father, just as the boy loves the mother. It is very natural, because the first experience of the other polarity for the girl is the father, and for the boy is the mother. That is their first experience of the other sex, and naturally there is a tremendous attraction.

But there is also a big, wide barrier. The boy hates the father, just as the girl hates the mother. The reason is the same: the boy hates the father because he is possessing his love-object -- the mother. And the girl is jealous because the mother is possessing the father whom she would have liked to possess. These things go into the unconscious realms of your being, and they remain with you for your whole life unless you become enlightened. This makes your love strangely conditional, which cannot be fulfilled.

Every man unknowingly is expecting his wife to be his mother; that is the image of the woman that he is carrying. Now no other woman can fulfill that image, and anyway the girl has not married him to become his mother! And things become more and more complicated because the girl is carrying the image of her father; she wants her husband exactly to be like her father, and certainly no man marries a woman to become her father.

And the complexities go on becoming more and more difficult: the husband wants the wife to be like the mother, but she hates the mother. The girl wants the husband to fulfill the condition of being the father, but the poor husband in the first place has no idea what is expected of him and in the second place the husband also hates the father. Now things become so complex and complicated....

When I say love has to be unconditional it means you are not expecting from the other anything. You are not expecting the other to be someone else. You are simply loving to the other, as he or she is. And your unconditional love will make you unattached to individuals; it will be just an aroma around you. You will be a loving person. You will love the trees, you will love the sunset, you will love a woman, you will love all that this universe provides you.

Right now, the conditional love is like an imprisonment. Two persons who don't like each other are holding each other in imprisonment. It is a strange thing. If you don't like the other, say good-bye. But you cannot say good-bye because you are afraid he may enjoy himself somewhere else. It does not fit with your jealousy, he has to be happy with you. A husband does not like his wife to be laughing, to be happy with another man. Neither does the wife like such a situation.

This whole society is boiling with jealousy. Nobody says it, everybody hides it. But the more you hide it, the more it goes on like a cancerous growth, expanding in your interior being. Just look how many things you are jealous of: somebody has a beautiful house and somebody has a beautiful physique, and somebody has a beautiful strong body. Somebody is an intellectual giant and somebody has the most wealth that one could ever think of. So on, so forth, there are people all around who will make you jealous.

Instead of your life being in an oceanic love, it is suffering in a gutter of dirty jealousy. But unless you start looking inwards and finding the roots, you will not be able to transform it.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Your enlightenment is perfect only when silence has come to be a celebration...



To me, if all the scriptures of Buddha disappear nothing is lost. Only this anecdote should not disappear. This is the most precious, and scholars have dropped it from Buddha's biography. They say, "This is irrelevant; it doesn't fit with Buddha." But I say to you, "All that Buddha did was just ordinary -- anybody could do that -- but this is extraordinary, this is exceptional. Only a buddha can do this."

This story is one of the most significant ones, because from this was passed the tradition of Zen. Buddha was the source, and Mahakashyap was the first, the original master of Zen. Buddha was the source, Mahakashyap was the first master, and this story is the source from where the whole tradition -- one of the most beautiful and alive that exists on earth, the tradition of Zen -- started.

Try to understand this story. Buddha came one morning, and as usual a crowd had gathered, many people were waiting to listen to him. But one thing was unusual -- he was carrying a flower in his hand. Never before had he carried anything in his hand. People thought that someone must have presented it to him. Buddha came, he sat under the tree. The crowd waited and waited and he would not speak. He wouldn't even look at them, he just went on looking at the flower. Minutes passed, then hours, and the people became very much restless.

It is said that Mahakashyap couldn't contain himself. He laughed loudly. Buddha called him, gave him the flower and said to the gathered crowd, "Whatsoever can be said through words I have said to you, and that which cannot be said through words I give to Mahakashyap. The key cannot be communicated verbally. I hand over the key to Mahakashyap."

This is what Zen masters call transference of the key without scripture -- beyond scripture, beyond words, beyond mind. He gave the flower to Mahakashyap, and nobody could understand what happened. Neither Mahakashyap nor Buddha ever commented upon it again. The whole chapter was closed. Since then, in China, in Tibet, in Thailand, in Burma, in Japan, in Ceylon -- everywhere Buddhists have been asking for these twenty-five centuries, "What was given to Mahakashyap? What was the key?"

Mahakashyap laughed at the foolishness of man. They were restless and thinking, "When will Buddha stand up and drop this whole silence so that we can go home?" He laughed. Laughter started with Mahakashyap and has been going on and on in the Zen tradition.

Mahakashyap laughed, and this laughter carried many dimensions in it. One dimension was at the foolishness of the whole situation, at a buddha silent and nobody understanding him, everybody expecting him to speak. His whole life Buddha had been saying that the truth cannot be spoken, and still everybody expected him to speak. The second dimension -- he laughed at Buddha also, at the whole dramatic situation he had created, sitting there with a flower in his hand, looking at the flower, creating so much uneasiness, restlessness in everybody. At this dramatic gesture of buddha he laughed and he laughed.

The third dimension -- he laughed at his own self. Why couldn't he understand up to now? The whole thing was easy and simple. And the day you understand, you will laugh, because there is nothing to be understood. There is no difficulty to be solved. Everything has always been simple and clear. How could you miss it?

Two ignorant persons can talk. They talk much; they do nothing except talk. Two enlightened persons cannot talk -- it would be absurd. Two ignorant persons talking is meaningless because there is nothing to convey. They don't know anything that can be said, that should be said, but they go on talking. They are chattering. They cannot help it; it's just a mad catharsis, a release.

Two enlightened persons cannot talk because they know the same. Nothing is to be said. Only one enlightened person and one unenlightened person can have a meaningful communication, because one knows and the other is yet in ignorance. A meaningful communication, I said. I don't say that the truth can be conveyed, but some hints, some indications, some gestures can, so that the other becomes ready to take the jump. The truth cannot be conveyed, but the thirst can be given. No teaching worth the name can give the key through words.

Buddha must have known Mahakashyap. He must have known when he was looking at the flower silently and everybody was restless, he must have known only one being was there, Mahakashyap, who was not restless. Buddha must have felt the silence coming from Mahakashyap, but he would not call. When he laughed, then he called him and gave him the flower. Why? Silence is only the half of it. Mahakashyap would have missed if he had been innocently silent and didn't laugh. Then the key would not have been given to him. He was only half grown, not yet a fully grown tree, not blossoming. The tree was there, but flowers had not yet come. Buddha waited.

Now, I will tell you why Buddha waited for so many minutes, why for one or two or three hours he waited. Mahakashyap was silent but he was trying to contain laughter, he was trying to control laughter. He was trying not to laugh because it would be so unmannerly: What would Buddha think? What would the others think? But then, the story says, he couldn't contain himself any more. It had to come out as a laugh. The flood became too much, and he couldn't contain it any more. When silence is too much it becomes laughter; it becomes so overflooded that it starts overflowing in all directions. He laughed. It must have been a mad laughter, and in that laughter there was no Mahakashyap. Silence was laughing, silence had come to a blossoming.

Then immediately Buddha called Mahakashyap: "Take this flower -- this is the key. I have given to all others what can be given in words, but to you I give that which cannot be given in words. The message beyond words, the most essential, I give to you." Buddha waited for those hours so that Mahakashyap's silence became overflooded, it became laughter.

Your enlightenment is perfect only when silence has come to be a celebration. Hence my insistence that after you meditate you must celebrate. After you have been silent you must enjoy it, you must have a thanksgiving. A deep gratitude must be shown towards the whole just for the opportunity that you are, that you can meditate, that you can be silent, that you can laugh.

Friday, October 3, 2008

When no one can become one, how can you become one?



If Jesus meets you, you will not recognize him. If Buddha meets you somewhere suddenly and no one introduces you to him, you will not recognize him -- because this inner flowering is such a subtle, hidden force, that unless you are a fellow traveller, unless you are also moving in the same dimension, you cannot recognize him.

So when you ask whether it is possible now, in this age, for a Buddha to be or a Christ to be,, you again ask a meaningless question. Anywhere, in any time, Christ is possible, Buddha is possible, because the possibility belongs to the innermost realm of your being, not to the procession of events which we call history. It doesn't belong to history, it doesn't belong to time. It belongs to the innermost realm of Being which is in eternity, not time. You can be a Buddha. Take the jump and you will be! And time will not hinder you so that you cannot take the jump. This factor about time is irrelevant.

It must be understood deeply and pondered over because we are very cunning and very self-deceiving. If someone says that in this age to become a Buddha is not possible, then you begin to feel, "It is not my responsibility to transform." And there are religions which say that in this age becoming a Buddha is not possible, and in a way every religion says it. Any organized religion will say that a Jesus is born only once: "He is the only begotten son of God, and now no one can be a Jesus again. You can only be a Christian, not a Christ."

Why? Why do they say this? For two reasons: deep down you like it very much, and the responsibility is not upon you to transform yourself. The time is bad, so you are not a Jesus. k is not your responsibility. Religions will say, "In this kaliyuga, in this age of sin, no one can be a Christ, so, therefore, you are not one." Then it is not your responsibility. "It is the very times which hinder you; otherwise you could flower like a Jesus at any moment. You are ready, but the time is not helpful."

Everyone likes this deep down, appreciates it. Then you can be whatsoever you are. There is no burden on you to flower into a Buddha. Because of this deep satisfaction and deep, cunning deception, we are happy. We think that we can only be criminals, we can only be weak human beings. "That is all that the age allows!"

And, secondly, every religion thinks that if a Buddha is going to be born again and again, then you cannot have an organized church for Buddha because every other Buddha will disturb the whole thing. Christians cannot allow anyone to be a Christ again. Another Christ will disturb the whole Christian kingdom, because such persons are bound to be non-traditional, such persons are bound to be non-sectarian, such persons are bound to be absolutely free, independent. They will destroy any organization if they are born.

So no religion would like or appreciate a Jesus to be again in any form. The Pope is the representative and he is enough; Jesus is no more needed. So every religion goes on insisting that nothing can be done at this moment. All that you can do is to follow, worship and follow: "Just be a follower in the crowd; do not try to be an individual."

Buddha was an individual: he was not a Buddhist. He was born a Hindu, and then the organization could not contain him. No organization could. Jesus was born a Jew, he died a Jew. He was not a Christian. But because the Jews could not contain such a seed, because he could not be contained, they threw him out. And because he was thrown, the seed sprouted into Christianity.

Buddha was a Hindu. He lived as a Hindu and he died as a Hindu: he was not a Buddhist. But Hindus could not absorb him, because if you want to absorb a Buddha you will have to transform the whole society. He could not be absorbed so he was thrown out.

If a Buddha is born now into a Buddhist society he will also be thrown out. If Jesus is born now into a Christian society, he will be thrown out. It is not that Jews or Hindus are against Buddhas and Christs: any organization will be against them -- even their own organizations -- because organizations live in tradition. They exist because of tradition, and these persons are absolutely anti-tradition; rather, they are "traditionless". They move every moment in freedom; you cannot say what they will do.

That is why it is very difficult to create a sect with a living Enlightened person. It is very difficult! You are never at ease with what he is going to do, what he is going to say. When the Teacher is dead, a sect can be created. Now you know what the Teacher wants, how he behaves. Now you can categorize everything. Now you can separate, divide, analyze; now you can make a doctrine and principle out of it. Now a creed is possible.

Only a dead Teacher will allow a creed to be there. With a living Teacher, the seed is every day growing, changing, transforming, moving into the unknown. You are never certain with him. So only with a dead Teacher are creeds born. And when creeds are born, you begin to think in high terms about Jesus and Buddha. They were not thought of so highly in their own day.

So remember these two things: one, religion is a continuous process; it never stops in any age. And, secondly, spirituality is an individual phenomenon. If you choose it, it will happen to you. But no one can buy it. It needs a total decision.

Buddhas and Christs are not bound to any age. At this very moment there are persons who are Enlightened -- but you cannot recognize them. It will take hundreds of years for society to recognize them. When they are long dead then the society will come to feel that they were rare, that something unique had happened in the past.

It takes time to recognize that a Buddha is a Buddha. It takes time! And it takes so much time that when Buddha is no more you recognize him, when Jesus is no more you recognize him. And when he is, you not only do not recognize him, but if someone says that he is, you will deny it. It takes time! This is one of the most unfortunate tendencies of the human mind. Because of this we miss much.

There are stories. People have come to ask Buddha, "Someone said you are an Enlightened One. Are you really? Have you attained the unattainable?" If Buddha says, "Yes, I have attained," then they will go and say that he is an egoist. If he says, "I have not attained," they will say, "We knew it already." If he remains silent, they will say that he knows nothing.

When a Buddha is present amongst you, he looks just like you. He lives like you, he eats like you, he falls ill like you, he dies like you, so how can you think: "A person just like me is Enlightened and I am not"? It is humiliating. It is deep down a hurt to the ego. Because it hurts the ego, because you feel humiliation, you deny. When you deny, you feel good.

So I will say to you that whenever you are in contact with someone who may be an Enlightened One, if you feel the tendency of the mind to deny, remember this: because of this tendency you have missed many Buddhas, and because of this tendency you will never be able to recognize one. And unless you recognize this something which has happened in someone, it is not going to happen to you. When you go on denying, and thinking that no one is a Buddha, ultimately you will come to believe that you cannot become one yourself. When no one can become one, how can you become one?

When you recognize Buddhahood in someone else, deep down you have recognized your own Buddhahood in the future. To recognize a Buddha in the present is to recognize your own future, your own future possibility, your own destiny.

When a rich man creates a religion...



Gautam Buddha does not promise you any paradise where beautiful women will be available to you, where rivers of wine will be flowing -- strange, but not inexplicable. He is fed up with women, he is fed up with wine, he is fed up with everything that money can purchase. All that he can promise to his disciples is a pure silence.

But Mohammed cannot do that, Jesus cannot do that. Jesus has to provide in his paradise all those beautiful things which poor people are missing on the earth. Mohammed provides rivers of wine, beautiful women. And you will be shocked to know, because homosexuality was very much prevalent in Saudi Arabia, in paradise beautiful boys are also provided for the sages.

Jesus provides everything that a poor man can dream of and can hope for. Mahavira provides only absolute aloneness. This will not appeal to a poor man. He is already very lonely, and you have come... and to attain to that aloneness he has to go through all these disciplines. Are you mad? He wants things -- he wants beautiful women, he wants beautiful men, he wants beautiful houses -- and you have come here saying, "You have to fast, you have to train yourself in yoga, you have to meditate. And finally you will get a pure nothingness."

This can appeal only to the very rich. They are tired of things, they want just silence; they are tired of people, they want pure aloneness. The poor man is not tired... he has not even had the chance to be tired of money. He is hoping some day he will have money, have a beautiful house.

When a poor man creates a religion it is bound to be full of your desires, your greed, your lust, and a promise that everything will be fulfilled. When a rich man creates a religion his religion is going to be a purity, a silence, a beautiful space. But you are one with that beautiful space, not separate.

Looking at the religions, their holy books, you can decide whether those holy books came from poor people or from people who have known riches. And remember one thing, the poor man's paradise is just a projection. That's why all the religions that have been created outside India -- just by coincidence -- don't have the quality, the superiority, the grandeur that Indian religions have.

But India is no longer rich. Those religions were created some seven thousand years ago, some five thousand years ago, some twenty-five centuries ago. Today even the Indian masses have turned to Christianity -- Christianity is now the third greatest religion in India. They have turned to Mohammedanism, which is now the second greatest religion in India. Hinduism goes on shrinking, and more and more people go on turning towards Christianity, Mohammedanism, because more and more people are poor. And Hinduism has nothing to offer to the poor people.

They are not interested in nirvana, they are not interested in meditation, they are not interested in their inner being.

Zen is not for those who are seeking employment, not for those who are hungry, starving. It needs intelligence to understand Zen. It needs a kind of frustration with the world -- the kind of experience where you feel that all that this world provides is meaningless, that it leads nowhere, that it is sheer wastage of life. Something more is needed -- something that money cannot purchase, something that science cannot produce, something that is not available in the market, something that you have to find within yourself.

But why are people not interested in themselves? Perhaps in their past lives at some moment they had reached the house of God, and ever since they have been running away from it. Although they give good names for their running -- they are running in search of God, they are running in search of self-realization, they are running for enlightenment -- in fact they are running away from exactly these things, as far away as possible.

But you cannot run because your enlightenment is your very being, whether you like it or not. Existence has not asked you whether you want to be born or not; neither has existence asked you whether you want enlightenment in your innermost core or not. Existence does not treat you as separate; hence there is no question of asking you, you are part and parcel of this beautiful universe. And this universe goes on moving into different forms, but the innermost core remains the same: the same light, the same joy, the same celebration.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Your silence should not be a repressed stillness...



Silence is blissfulness, not in the dictionaries, but in actual experience. And I don't see that in actual experience it can be different to different people. As you become silent, you cannot be worried, you cannot be tense; you cannot be miserable, you cannot be noisy, you cannot be chattering continuously. Otherwise, how can you be silent?

And when all these stupid activities are gone, silence simply clears the ground for blissfulness to be discovered. They are almost the same phenomenon because they happen simultaneously. As you become silent, a certain sweetness, a certain fragrance, a certain beatitude spontaneously arises in you.

But your silence should not be a repressed stillness; you should not be silent by force. If you are silent by force, if you have repressed your mind then rather than doing meditation you are doing gymnastics, fighting with the mind. It is possible you can force the mind to be silent, but then there will be no blissfulness. There will be just emptiness and a silence of the graveyard, not the silence of the garden; something empty, not something overflowing.

The silence that comes out of meditation is not an empty experience, it is very positive -- it is overflowingly positive. And what is there to overflow in silence except blissfulness? So, please check. If your silence is not bringing blissfulness then you are trying to have a wrong kind of silence -- blissfulness is the criterion -- then stop doing what you are trying to do.

In meditation, silence comes on its own accord. You simply go on watching the mind without any control, without any repression, and silence comes suddenly just like a breeze, and with the silence, the fragrance of the flowers -- that is your blissfulness; it is your own fragrance which you were not capable of knowing because there was so much noise.

The mind was creating so much fuss, thoughts were creating so many dark clouds, emotions and moods, it had become a thick barrier between you and your real self. When the barrier is removed, it is as if you have removed a rock which was preventing a stream, a fountain.

And the moment you remove the rock, suddenly the fountain bursts forth in a great dance of joy. Your blissfulness is not something that comes from outside, it springs from within you. Just the rock of your mind -- thoughts, miseries -- has to be removed. It is not that you have to repress it, because by repressing it you will be repressing the fountain behind it too.

Silence is all that is needed, and everything else follows on its own accord.

Buddha is unique not because he is the great saint...


You can be unique only when you are nothing. If you are something, you are comparable. If you are somebody you can be compared with others, and that which can be compared cannot be unique. Unique means incomparable. Unique means you are alone, there is nobody like you. So if you are somebody.... If you are a man there are millions of men; you are comparable. If you are rich, then there are millions of rich people; you are comparable. If you are good you are comparable. If you are bad you are comparable. If you are a painter you are comparable. If you are a singer you are comparable. If you are somebody you are comparable, and by being comparable you cease to be unique.

The moment you attain to a nothingness, when the "I" disappears.... The "I" is comparable; the "no-I" is incomparable. That's why I say if you become nothing you become unique. If you become nothing you become uncorruptible; the nothing cannot be corrupted.

You have heard Lord Acton's saying, "Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Why does power corrupt? Because power makes you somebody. It gives you a definition. It says who you are -- you are a prime minister of a country or a president of a country. Power gives you a definition; it demarks who you are. If you have money, it demarks you. If you don't have money, it demarks you. If you are a musician or a poet or a singer, it shows who you are. The moment you know who you are, you are limited, you are finite -- and you are comparable.

But if you are nobody -- just a pure nothingness, pure sky with not even a particle of dust -- then how can you be compared.?

God is unique because God is nothing. You cannot find God anywhere. Either you can find him everywhere or nowhere, but you cannot find him somewhere. Either he is the whole or he is nothing.

When you are nothing you also become the whole. When you are nothing you also become divine. By being somebody you remain human. By being nobody you attain to divinity, you become divine. Hence I have said that the moment nothingness arises in you, you have become unique.

Buddha is unique not because he is the great saint, because there are millions of saints. Jesus is unique not because he is the most virtuous man. That's all nonsense. He is unique because he is nothing. He is unique because he is ready to crucify his ego. And the moment his ego is crucified, he resurrects -- he resurrects as the whole. He dies as the part and resurrects as the whole. He dies in time and is resurrected in eternity.