The wheel that goes on moving, on and on...

Life is only a school and unless you learn enlightenment, you will go on moving into the circle of life and death. This is something very essential.

If there is only one life of seventy years on average, then you don't have much time left for meditation, for exploration of your being -- searching for the path. Seventy years is such a small span that one-third of it is wasted in sleep; one-third of it is wasted in educating you to earn your livelihood. And the remaining one-third, you waste in many ways because you don't know what to do with it.

I have seen people playing cards or chess and I have asked them, "Can't you find anything better to do?" And their answer has consistently been the same ...they are killing time. Such is the unawareness of man.

You don't have much time.
You cannot afford to kill time.

Moreover time is killing you; you cannot kill time. Each moment, time is bringing your death closer and closer.

If you count all your activities .... Shaving your beard twice a day -- how much time you put into it! Listening to the radio or watching the television -- how much time you waste on it. An American survey shows that each American wastes seven and a half hours every day watching television. That is one third of his life he is just sitting, glued to his chair, watching all kinds of nonsense.

How much time do you waste smoking cigarettes, cigars? There are people who are chain smokers .... How much time you waste in reading newspapers which never bring any news! All that they bring is simply sick -- murders, rapes, suicides, wars. They make you believe that this is the world and this is our life. They relieve you from your responsibility. They convince you that the whole world is like this. Nothing is wrong, everybody is doing it ....

They never bring you any news of somebody becoming enlightened. Perhaps that is not news. Somebody is entering deeper realms of meditation -- perhaps that is not news. Somebody has become calm and quiet and gone beyond anger, greed, agony. That is not news!

Once Bernard Shaw was asked, "What is news?" He said, "When a dog bites a man, it is not news. When a man bites a dog, it is news."

How much time you are wasting in reading about how many men are biting dogs! If you count carefully, you will be surprised that you don't have, in your seventy years of life, even seven minutes for yourself. This is such an idiotic situation.

And then because there is only one life, there is great speed. Why has the West become so addicted to speed? The idea of one life given by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, has made people speedy. They are always running -- on the run -- because time is short and there are so many ambitions to be fulfilled. They have to become the richest man, they have to attain great power, they have to become a celebrity. They have to do a thousand and one things and life is so short. The only way is to do everything as quickly as possible.

Most of the housewives in the West don't know what cooking is. The best housewife is the one who knows how to open cans. Everything has to be done quickly and fast. Why bother about cooking?

Nobody is in a state of stillness; they cannot be. That seems to be a waste of time. Sitting silently, doing nothing is the foundation of meditation. In the West, meditation is not possible for the simple reason that one life span is too short. And death comes too quickly. It does not give you enough time.

The Eastern concept takes care of your spiritual growth. The hypothesis of reincarnation, a continuous eternal cycle of birth and re-birth, gives you enough time. You can sit silently for hours; there is no hurry. There is no need to be speedy. There is an eternity available to you -- not only seventy years.

The West is very poor. They have only seventy years for each person. The East may look poor from the outside, but its inner arrangement is very rich. Eternity behind -- eternity ahead.

Secondly, just one life is not enough to make you bored. Seventy years goes so fast that boredom is not possible. But life after life, running after money. Life after life, running after power. Life after life, running after men or women. As you become aware of this long series of the same stupidities -- in which you have succeeded many times, but you have not gained anything ....

Each life you have to begin again from A,B,C. Just visualize millions of lives behind you .... You have loved so many women and you have told every woman, "I will love you forever and forever." And you have told every woman, "You are the most beautiful woman in the world." And you have been saying that for millions of lives to millions of women, to millions of men. It is tiring -- just the very idea.

It brings a certain maturity to you that now it is time to stop being childish. You have been playing these games so long that it is time to grow up; to do something else that you have never done before.

Meditation fits perfectly well in the Eastern vision of life. That is the only thing you have never done before. You have earned money, you have become rich, you have been in politics, you have become ministers and prime ministers and presidents. You have become great celebrities. You have done everything, because in so many lives there was so much opportunity -- so much time.

And once you understand it ...that you are still doing the same things, again and again and again. It is good to commit a mistake once, but to go on committing the same mistake again and again proves your stupidity.

And there is a great and urgent need to do something that you have never done before -- a search for your own self. You have run after everything in the world and it has not led anywhere. All roads in the world go round and round; they never reach any goal. They don't have any goal.

Visualizing this long perspective, one suddenly becomes sick of the whole action; love affairs, fights, anger, greed, jealousy. And one starts thinking for the first time, "Now I should find a new dimension in which I will not be running after anybody; in which I will be coming back home. I have gone too far away in these millions of lives."

This is the foundation of the Eastern wisdom. It creates a great boredom with life, death and the continuous vicious circle. That is the original meaning of the word, SAMSARA; it means the wheel that goes on moving, on and on; it knows no stopping. You can jump out of it, but you are clinging to it.

This is the basic device to bring you to your senses.

You have fooled around enough.

Now stop it, and do something that you have been avoiding for centuries, that you have been postponing for tomorrow.