YOU and ME

TO COMMUNICATE with one another, even if we know each other very well, is extremely difficult. I may use words that may have to you a significance different from mine. Understanding comes when we, you and I, meet on the same level at the same time. That happens only when there is real affection between people, between husband and wife, between intimate friends. That is real communion. Instantaneous understanding comes when we meet on the same level at the same time.

It is very difficult to commune with one another easily, effectively and with definitive action. I am  using words which are simple, which are not technical, because I do not think that any technical type of expression is going to help us solve our difficult problems; so I am not going to use any technical terms. Fortunately. I would like to convey, by the very  simple words which we use in our daily life, a deeper significance; but that is very difficult if you do not know how to listen.

There is an art of listening. To be able really to listen, one should abandon or put aside all prejudices, pre-formulations and daily activities. When you are in a receptive state of mind, things can be easily understood; you are listening when your real attention is given to something. But unfortunately most of us listen through a screen of resistance. We are screened with prejudices, whether religious or spiritual, psychological or scientific; or with our daily worries, desires and fears. And with these for a screen, we listen. Therefore, we listen really to our own noise, to our own sound, not to what is being said. It is extremely difficult to put aside our training, our prejudices, our inclination, our resistance, and, reaching beyond the verbal expression, to listen so that we understand instantaneously. That is going to be one of our difficulties.

Inside this blog, if anything is said which is opposed to your way of thinking and belief just listen; do not resist. You  may be right, and I may be wrong; but by listening and considering together we are going to find out what is the truth. Truth cannot be given to you by somebody. You have to discover it; and to discover, there must be a state of mind in which there is direct  perception. There is no direct perception when there is a resistance, a safeguard, a protection. Understanding comes through being  aware of what is. To know exactly what is, the real, the actual, without interpreting it, without condemning or justifying it, is, surely,  the beginning of wisdom.

Narada's Bhakti Sutras

1. Bhakti is intense love for God.

2. It is the nectar of love;

3. Getting which man becomes perfect, immortal, and satisfied for ever;

4. Getting which man desires no more, does not become jealous of anything, does not take pleasure in vanities;

5. Knowing which man becomes filled with spirituality, becomes calm, and finds pleasure only in God.

6. It cannot be used to fill any desire, itself being the check to all desires.

7. Sannyasa is giving up both the popular and the scriptural forms of worship.

8. The Bhakti-Sannyasin is the one whose whole soul goes unto God, and whatever militates against love to God, he rejects.

9. Giving up all other refuge, he takes refuge in God.

10. Scriptures are to be followed as long as one's life has not become firm;

11. Or else there is danger of doing evil in the name of liberty.

12. When love becomes established, even social forms are given up, except those which are necessary for the preservation of life.

13. There have been many definitions of love, but Narada gives these as the signs of love: When all thoughts, all words, and all deeds are given up unto the Lord, and the least forgetfulness of God makes one intensely miserable, then love has begun.

14. As the Gopis had it --

15. Because, although worshipping God as their lover, they never forget his God-nature;

16. Otherwise they would have committed the sin of unchastity.

17. This is the highest form of love, because there is no desire of reciprocity, which is in all human love.


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1. Bhakti is greater than Karma, greater than Jnana, greater than Yoga (Raja Yoga), because Bhakti itself is its result, because Bhakti is both the means and the end (fruit).

2. As a man cannot satisfy his hunger by simple knowledge or sight of food, so a man cannot be satisfied by the knowledge or even the perception of God until love comes; therefore love is the highest.



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1. These, however, the Masters have said about Bhakti:

2. One who wants this Bhakti must give up sense-enjoyments and even the company of people.

3. Day and night he must think about Bhakti and nothing else.

4. (He must) go where they sing or talk of God.

5. The principal cause of Bhakti is the mercy of a great (or free) soul.

6. Meeting with a great soul is hard to obtain, and never fails to save the soul.

7. Through the mercy of God we get such Gurus.

8. There is no difference between Him and His (own) ones.

9. Seek, therefore, for this.

10. Evil company is always to be shunned;

11. Because it leads to lust and anger, illusion, forgetfulness of the goal, destruction of the will (lack of perseverence), and destruction of everything.

12. These disturbances may at first be like ripples, but evil company at last makes them like the sea.

13. He gets across Maya who gives up all attachment, serves the great ones, lives alone, cuts the bondages of the world, goes beyond the qualities of nature, and depends upon the Lord even for his living.

14. He who gives up the fruits of work, he who gives up all work and the dualism of joy and misery, who gives up even the scriptures, gets that unbroken love for God;

15. He crosses this river and helps others to cross it.


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1. The nature of love is inexpressible.

2. As the dumb man cannot express what he tastes, but his actions betray his feelings, so man cannot express this love in words, but his actions betray it.

3. In some rare persons it is expressed.

4. Beyond all qualities, all desires, ever increasing, unbroken, the finest perception is love.

5. When a man gets this love, he sees love everywhere, he hears love everywhere, he talks love everywhere, he thiks love everywhere.

6. According to the qualities or conditions, this love manifests itself differently.

7. The qualities are: Tamas (dullness, heaviness), Rajas (restlessness, activity), Sattva (serenity, purity); and the conditions are: Aarta (afflicted), Arthaarthi (wanting something), Jijnaasu (searching truth), Jnaani (knower).

8. Of these the latter are higher than the preceding ones.

9. Bhakti is the easiest way of worship.

10. It is its own proof and does not require any other.

11. Its nature is peace and perfect bliss.

12. Bhakti never seeks to injure anyone or anything, not even the popular modes of worship.

13. Conversation about lust, or doubt of God, or about one's enemies must not be listened to.

14. Egotism, pride, etc must be given up.

15. If those passions cannot be controlled, place them upon God, and place all your actions on Him.

16. Merging the trinity of Love, Lover, and Beloved, worship God as His eternal servant, His eternal bride -- thus love is to be made unto God.

  
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1. That love is highest which is concentrated upon God.

2. When such speak of God, their voices stick in their throats, they cry and weep; and it is they who give holy places their holiness; they make good works, good books better, because they are permeated with God.

3. When a man loves God so much, his forefathers rejoice, the gods dance, and the earth gets a Master !

4. To such lovers there is no difference of caste, sex, knowledge, form, birth or wealth;

5. Because they are all God's.

6. Arguments are to be avoided;

7. Because there is no end to them, and they lead to no satisfactory result.

8. Read books treating of this love, and do deeds which increase it.

9. Giving up all desires of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, worship God day and night. Not a moment is to be spent in vain.

10. Ahimsa (non-killing), truthfulness, purity, mercy and godliness are always to be kept.

11. Giving up all other thoughts, the whole mind should day and night worship God. Thus being worshipped day and night, He reveals Himself and makes His worshippers feel Him.

12. In past, present and future, Love is greatest!

Friendship VS Friendliness

What is real, authentic friendliness?
   
The question you have asked is very complex. You will have to understand a few other things before you can understand what real authentic friendliness is.

The first is friendship. Friendship is love without any biological tones to it. It is not the friendship that you understand ordinarily — the boyfriend, the girlfriend. To use the word friend in any way associated with biology is sheer stupidity. It is infatuation and madness. You are being used by biology for reproduction purposes.

If you think you are in love, you are wrong; it is just hormonal attraction. Your chemistry can be changed and your love will disappear. Just an injection of hormones and a man can become a woman and a woman can become a man.

Friendship is love without any biological tones. It has become a rare phenomenon. It used to be a great thing in the past, but a few great things in the past have completely disappeared. It is a very strange thing that ugly things are stubborn, they don’t die easily; and beautiful things are very fragile, they die and disappear very easily.

Today friendship is understood either in biological terms or in economic terms, or in sociological terms — in terms of acquaintance, a kind of acquaintance. But friendship means that if the need arises you will be ready even to sacrifice yourself. Friendship means that you have made somebody else more important than yourself; somebody else has become more precious than you yourself. It is not a business. It is love in its purity.

This friendship is possible even the way you are now. Even unconscious people can have such a friendship. But if you start becoming more conscious of your being, then friendship starts turning into friendliness. Friendliness has a wider connotation, a far bigger sky.

Friendship is a small thing compared to friendliness. Friendship can be broken, the friend can turn into an enemy. That possibility remains intrinsic in the very fact of friendship.

I am reminded of Machiavelli (Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian historian, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and writer)giving guidance to the princes of the world in his great work, The Prince. One of his guidelines is, Never tell anything to your friend which you would not be able to say to your enemy, because the person who is a friend today may turn into an enemy tomorrow.

And the suggestion following that is, Never say anything against the enemy, because the enemy can turn into a friend tomorrow. Then you will be very embarrassed. Machiavelli is giving a very clear insight: that our ordinary love can change into hate, our friendship can become enmity any moment. This is the unconscious state of man — where love is hiding hate just behind it, where you hate the same person you love but you are not aware of it.

Friendliness becomes possible only when you are real, you are authentic, and you are absolutely aware of your being. And out of this awareness, if love arises it will be friendliness. Friendliness can never change into its opposite. Remember this as a criterion, that the greatest values of life are only those which cannot change into their opposite; in fact there is no opposite.

You are asking, “What is real authentic friendliness?”

It will need a great transformation in you to have a taste of friendliness. As you are, friendliness is a faraway star. You can have a look at the faraway star, you can have a certain intellectual understanding, but it will remain only an intellectual understanding, not an existential taste.

Unless you have an existential taste of friendliness, it will be very difficult, almost impossible to make a distinction between friendship and friendliness. Friendliness is the purest thing you can conceive about love. It is so pure that you cannot even call it a flower, you can only call it a fragrance which you can feel and experience, but you cannot catch hold of. It is there, your nostrils are full of it, your being is surrounded by it. You feel the vibe, but there is no way to catch hold of it; the experience is so big and so vast and our hands are too small.

I said to you that your question is very complex, not because of the question, but because of you. You are not yet at the point from where friendliness can become an experience. Be real, be authentic and you will know the purest quality of love — just a fragrance of love surrounding you always. And that quality of the purest love is friendliness. Friendship is addressed to someone, somebody is your friend.

Once Gautam Buddha was asked, “Does the enlightened man have friends?” and he said, “No.” The questioner was shocked because he was thinking the man who is enlightened must have the whole world as his friend.

But Gautam Buddha is right, whether you are shocked or not. When he says, “The enlightened man has no friends,” he is saying he cannot have friends because he cannot have enemies. They both come together. Friendliness he can have, but not friendship.

That does not mean that nobody will be your enemy. As far as you are concerned, you will not be an enemy of anyone, because you are no more a friend to anyone. But your height, your consciousness, your blissfulness, your silence, your peace will annoy many, will irritate many, will make many, without understanding you, your enemies.

Friendliness is unfocused, unaddressed love. It is not any contract, spoken or unspoken. It is not from one individual to another individual; it is from one individual to the whole existence, of which man is only a small part, because trees are included, animals are included, rivers are included, mountains are included, stars are included. Everything is included in friendliness.

Friendliness is just the way of your being real and authentic; you start radiating it. It comes on its own accord, you don’t have to bring it. Whoever comes close to you will feel the friendliness.

chain-smoking Is it a sin?

I cannot drop the habit of chain-smoking. I have tried hard but I have always failed. Is it a sin to smoke?

Now, what are you really doing when you are smoking? Just taking some smoke inside your lungs and letting it out. It is a kind of pranayama...filthy, dirty, but still a pranayama! You are doing yoga, in a stupid way. It is not sin. It may be foolish but it is not a sin, certainly.

There is only one sin and that is unawareness, and only one virtue and that is awareness.

Do whatsoever you are doing, but remain a witness to it, and immediately the quality of your doing is transformed.

I will not tell you not to smoke; that you have tried. You must have been told by many so-called saints not to smoke: “Because if you smoke you will fall into hell.” God is not so stupid as your saints are. Throwing somebody into hell just because he was smoking cigarettes will be absolutely unnecessary.

Smoking is unhealthy, unhygienic, but not a sin. It becomes a sin only if you are doing it unconsciously. It is not smoking that makes it a sin but unconsciousness.

Let me emphasize the fact. You can do your prayer every day unconsciously; then your prayer is a sin. You can become addicted to your prayer. If you miss the prayer one day, the whole day you will feel something is wrong, something is missing...some gap. It is the same with smoking or with drinking; there is no difference in it. Your prayer has become a mechanical habit; it has become a master over you. It bosses you; you are just a servant, a slave to it. If you don’t do it, it forces you to do it.

So it is not a question of smoking. You may be doing your Transcendental Meditation every day regularly, and it may be just the same. If the quality of unconsciousness is there, if mechanicalness is there, if it has become a fixed routine, if it has become a habit and you are a victim of the habit and you cannot put it aside, you are no longer a master of yourself, then it is a sin. But its being a sin comes out of your unconsciousness, not out of the act itself.

No act is virtuous, no act is a sin. What consciousness is behind the act — everything depends on that.

You say: “I cannot drop the habit of chain-smoking.” I am less interested in your chain-smoking; I am more interested in your habit. Any habit that becomes a force, a dominating force over you, is a sin. One should live more in freedom. One should be able to do things not according to habits but according to the situations.

Life is continuously changing — it is a flux — and habits are stagnant. The more you are surrounded by habits, the more you are closed to life. You are not open, you don’t have windows. You don’t have any communication with life; you go on repeating your habits. They don’t fit; they are not the right response to the situation, to the moment. They are always lagging behind, they are always falling short. That’s the failure of your life.

So remember: I am against all kinds of habits. Good or bad is not the point. There is no good habit as such, there is no bad habit as such. Habits are all bad because habit means something unconscious has become a dominating factor in your life, has become decisive. You are no longer the deciding factor. The response is not coming out of awareness but out of a pattern, structure, that you have learned in the past.

I have seen many rich people living very poor lives. Before they became rich their habits became settled — and their habits became settled when they were poor. That’s why you find so much miserliness in rich people; it comes from the habits that became ingrained in them when they were poor.

One of the richest men in the world — not one of the richest but the richest man in the world, it is thought — was the Nizam of Hyderabad. His collection of diamonds was the greatest in the world because he owned the diamond mines of Golconda, which have provided the greatest diamonds to the world. The Kohinoor comes from Golconda. It was once in the Nizam’s possession. He had so many diamonds that it is said that no one has ever been able to calculate exactly the price of his collection. Thousands and thousands of diamonds — they were not counted, they were weighed!

But he was one of the most miserly men in the world. He used a single cap for thirty years. It was stinking but he wouldn’t change it. He continued to wear the same coat for almost his whole life and he would not give it to be washed because they might destroy it. He was so miserly — you cannot imagine — that he would collect half-smoked cigarettes from the guests’ ashtrays and then smoke them. The richest man in the world smoking cigarette butts smoked by others! The first thing he would do whenever a guest left was to search in the ashtrays and collect the ends of the cigarettes.

When he died, his greatest diamond was found in his dirty shoes. He was hiding it in his shoe! Maybe he had some idea behind it — that maybe he would be able to take it with him to the other world. Maybe he was afraid: “When I am dead, people may steal it.” It was the greatest diamond; he used that diamond as a paper-weight on his table. Before he died he must have put it inside his shoe.

Even when one is dying one is moving in old habits, following old patterns. I have heard:

The old Mulla Nasruddin had become a very rich man. When he felt death approaching he decided to make some arrangements for his funeral, so he ordered a beautiful coffin made of ebony wood with satin pillows inside. He also had a beautiful silk caftan made for his dead body to be dressed in.

The day the tailor delivered the caftan, Mulla Nasruddin tried it on to see how it would look, but suddenly he exclaimed, “What is this! Where are the pockets?”

Smoking or no smoking, that is not important. Maybe if you continue to smoke you will die a little earlier. So what? The world is so overpopulated, you will do some good by dying a little earlier. Maybe you will have tuberculosis. So what? Tuberculosis is now almost like the common cold. In fact, there is no cure for the common cold but there is a cure for tuberculosis I know it because I suffer from a common cold. To have tuberculosis is to be very fortunate.

So it is possible that you may die two years earlier, you may get tuberculosis — but it is not a sin. Don’t be worried about that. If you really want to do something about your life, dropping smoking is not going to help — because I know people who drop smoking; then they start chewing gum. The same old stupidity! Or if they are Indians they start chewing pan; it is the same. You will do something or other. Your unconsciousness will demand some activity, some occupation. It is an occupation. And it is only a symptom; it is not really the problem. It is not the root of the problem.

Have you not observed? Whenever you feel emotionally disturbed you immediately start smoking. It gives you a kind of relief; you become occupied. Your mind is distracted from the emotional problem. Whenever people feel tense they start smoking. The problem is tension, the problem is emotional disturbance — the problem is somewhere else; smoking is just an occupation. So you become engaged in taking the smoke in and out and you forget for the time being...because mind cannot think of two things together, remember it. One of the fundamentals of mind is: it can think only of one thing at one time; it is one-dimensional. So if you are smoking and thinking of smoking, then from all other anxieties you are distracted.

That’s the whole secret of the so-called spiritual mantras: they are nothing but distractions, like smoking. You repeat “Om, Om, Om,” or “Ram, Ram, Ram,” or “Allah, Allah, Allah” — that is just giving mind an occupation. And all these people who teach mantras say, “Repeat it as quickly as possible, so that between two repetitions there is not even a small gap. Let them overlap — so ‘Ram Ram Ram’ — don’t leave a gap between two Rams, otherwise some thought may enter. Repeat it like crazy!”

Yes, it will give you a certain relief — the same relief that comes from smoking, because your mind will be distracted from the anxieties and the world. You will forget about the world; you have created a trick. All mantras are tricks, but they are spiritual. Chain-smoking is also a mantra. It is a worldly mantra; non-religious you can call it, secular.

The real problem is the habit.

You say: “I have tried hard to drop it....”

You have not tried to be conscious of it; without trying to be conscious you have tried to drop it. It is not possible. It will come back, because your mind is the same; its needs are the same, its problems are the same, its anxieties, tensions are the same, its anguish is the same. And when those anxieties arise, what will you do? Immediately, mechanically, you will start searching for the cigarettes.

You may have decided again and again, and again and again you have failed — not because smoking is such a great phenomenon that you cannot get out of it, but because you are trying from the wrong end. Rather than becoming aware of the whole situation — why you smoke in the first place — rather than becoming aware of the process of smoking, you are simply trying to drop it. It is like pruning the leaves of a tree without cutting the roots. And my whole concern here is to cut the roots, not to prune the tree.

By pruning the leaves and the branches the tree will become thicker, the foliage will become thicker. You will not destroy the tree; you will be helping it, in fact. If you really want to get out of it you will have to look deeper, not into the symptoms but the roots. Where are the roots?

You must be a deeply anxiety-ridden person, otherwise chain-smoking is not possible; chain-smoking is a by-product. You must be so concerned about a thousand and one disturbances inside, you must be carrying such a big load of worries on your heart, on your chest, that you don’t even know how to forget them. You don’t know how to drop them; smoking at least helps you to forget about them.

You say: “I have tried hard....”

Now one thing has to be understood. The hypnotists have discovered a fundamental law; they call it the Law of Reverse Effect. If you try hard to do something without understanding the fundamentals, just the opposite will be the result.

It is like when you are learning how to ride on a bicycle. You are on a silent road, no traffic, early in the morning, and you see a red milestone just standing there by the side of the road like Hanuman. A sixty-foot-wide road and just a small milestone, and you become afraid: you may get to the milestone, you may hit the milestone. Now you forget about the sixty-foot-wide road. In fact, even if you go blindfolded there is not much chance of your encountering the milestone, crashing into the milestone, but with open eyes now the whole road is forgotten; you have become focused. In the first place, that redness is very focusing. And you are so afraid, you want to avoid it. You have forgotten that you are on a bicycle; you have forgotten everything. Now the only problem for you is how to avoid this stone; otherwise you may harm yourself, you may crash into it.

Now the crash is absolutely inevitable; you are bound to crash with the stone. And then you will be surprised: “1 tried hard.” In fact it is because you tried hard that you reached the stone. And the closer you come, the harder you try to avoid it; but the harder you try to avoid it, the more focused you become on it. It becomes a hypnotic force, it hypnotizes you. It becomes like a magnet.

It is a very fundamental law in life. Many people try avoiding many things and they fall into the same things. Try to avoid anything with great effort and you are bound to fall into the same pit. You cannot avoid it; that is not the way to avoid it.

Be relaxed. Don’t try hard, because it is through relaxation that you can become aware, not by trying hard. Be calm, quiet, silent.

I will suggest: smoke as much as you want to smoke. It is not a sin in the first place. I give you the guarantee — I will be responsible. I take the sin on myself, so if you meet God on Judgment Day you can just tell him that this fellow is responsible. And I will stand there as a witness for you that you are not responsible. So don’t be worried about its being a sin. Relax and don’t try to drop it with effort. No, that is not going to help.

Zen believes in effortless understanding. So this is my suggestion: smoke as much as you want to smoke — just smoke meditatively. If Zen people can drink tea meditatively, why can’t you smoke meditatively? In fact, tea contains the same stimulant as the cigarettes contain; it is the same stimulant, there is not much difference. Smoke meditatively, very religiously. Make it a ceremony. Try it my way.

Make a small corner in your house just for smoking: a small temple devoted, dedicated to the god of smoking. First bow down to your cigarette packet. Have a little chit-chat, talk to the cigarettes. Inquire, “How are you?” And then very slowly take a cigarette out — very slowly, as slowly as you can, because only if you take it very slowly will you be aware. Don’t do it in a mechanical way, as you always do. Then tap the cigarette on the packet very slowly and for as long as you want. There is no hurry either. Then take the lighter, bow down to the lighter. These are great gods, deities! Light is God, so why not the lighter?

Then start smoking very slowly, just like Vipassana. Don’t do it like a pranayama — quick and fast and deep — but very slowly. Buddha says: Breathe naturally. So you smoke naturally: very slow, no hurry. If it is a sin you are in a hurry. If it is a sin you want to finish it as soon as possible. If it is a sin you don’t want to look at it. You go on reading the newspaper and you go on smoking. Who wants to look at a sin? But it is not a sin, so watch it — watch each of your acts.

Divide your acts into small fragments so you can move very slowly. And you will be surprised: by watching your smoking, slowly slowly smoking will become less and less. And one day suddenly...it is gone. You have not made any effort to drop it; it has dropped of its own accord, because by becoming aware of a dead pattern, a routine, a mechanical habit, you have created, you have released, a new energy of consciousness in you. Only that energy can help you; nothing else will ever help.

It is not only so with smoking, it is so with everything else in life: don’t try too hard to change yourself. That leaves scars. Even if you change, your change will remain superficial. And you will find a substitute somewhere; you will have to find a substitute, otherwise you will feel empty.

When something withers away of its own accord because you have become so silently aware of the stupidity of it that no effort is needed, when it simply falls, just like a dead leaf falling from a tree, it leaves no scar behind and it leaves no ego behind.

If you drop something by effort, it creates great ego. You start thinking, “Now I am a very virtuous man because I don’t smoke.” If you think that smoking is a sin, naturally, obviously, if you drop it you will think you are a very virtuous man.

That’s how your virtuous men are. Somebody does not smoke, somebody does not drink, somebody eats only once a day, somebody does not eat in the night, somebody has even stopped drinking water in the night...and they are all great saints! These are saintly qualities, great virtues! We have made religion so silly. It has lost all glory. It has become as stupid as people are. But the whole thing depends on your attitude: if you think something is a sin, then your virtue will be just the opposite of it.

I emphasize: not-smoking is not virtue, smoking is not sin; awareness is virtue, unawareness is sin. And then the same law is applicable to your whole life. 

 

Mystery will possess you, You cannot possess the mysterious

Don’t become more of an expert in the spiritual search, because the experts are the losers. Don’t become more knowledgeable, become more innocent. Drop all that you know, forget all that you know. Remain wondering, but don’t transform your wondering into questions, because once the wonder is changed into a question, sooner or later the question will bring knowledge. And knowledge is a false coin.

From the state of wonder, there are two paths. One is of questioning — the wrong path — it leads you into more and more knowledge. The other is not of questioning but enjoying. Enjoy the wonder, the wonder that life is, the wonder that existence is, the wonder of the sun and the sunlight and the trees bathed in its golden rays. Experience it. Don’t put in a question mark, let it be as it is.

Remain ignorant if you ever want to become enlightened. Remain innocent, childlike, if you ever want a communion with existence and reality. Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. Questioners sooner or later end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers.

And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder. They are dangerous because they give you the feeling that you know, although you know not. They give you this misconception about yourself that now questions have been solved. “I know what The Bible says, I know what the Koran says, I know what the Gita says. I have arrived.” You will become a parrot; you will repeat things but you will not know anything. This is not the way to know — knowledge is not the way to know.

Then what is the way to know? Wonder. Let your heart dance with wonder. Be full of wonder: throb with it, breathe it in, breathe it out. Why be in such a hurry for the answer? Can’t you allow a mystery to remain a mystery? I know there is a great temptation not to allow it to remain a mystery, to reduce it to knowledge. Why is this temptation there? –
because only if you are full of knowledge will you be in control.

Mystery will control you, knowledge will make you the controller. Mystery will possess you. You cannot possess the mysterious; it is so vast and your hands are so small. It is so infinite, you cannot possess it, you will have to be possessed by it — and that is the fear. Knowledge you can possess, it is so trivial; knowledge you can control.

This temptation of the mind to reduce every wonder, every mystery, to a question, is basically fear-oriented. We are afraid, afraid of the tremendousness of life, of this incredible existence. We are afraid. Out of fear we create some small knowledge around ourselves as a protection, as an armor, as a defense.

It is only cowards who reduce the tremendously valuable capacity of wondering to questions. The really brave, the courageous person, leaves it as it is. Rather than changing it into a question, he jumps into the mystery. Rather than trying to control it, he allows the mystery to possess him. And the joy of being possessed, and the benediction of being possessed, is invaluable. You cannot imagine what it is, you have never dreamt about it — because to be possessed by the mystery is to be possessed by God.

I feel so Frustrated! WHY?

I feel so Frustrated! WHY?

If you expect too much, you will be frustrated. If you don’t want to be frustrated, don’t expect. Live without expectations and there will be no frustration. But people go on expecting; they know no ends to their expectation. Then frustration comes in — frustration is the shadow of expectation. Frustration is never the problem, the problem is with expectation. When you feel frustrated you think that existence is doing something wrong to you. No — you were asking too much. In fact, ask and you will be frustrated. Any asking is asking too much. Don’t ask, be. And then you will be surprised — whatsoever happens is good; you have no way to judge it.

When you expect ten lakh rupees and you get five lakhs you feel frustrated. If you are not expecting and you get five lakh rupees you are full of joy, thankfulness, gratitude. Don’t expect, and you see your whole life becomes a joy. Expect, and your whole life becomes a hell. Expectation is the cause. If you want to change, never start by the effect, start by the cause. Frustration is the effect. You can go on fighting with frustration — nothing will happen, you will become more and more frustrated. Start by the cause, always look for the cause. Whenever you are feeling miserable, go into it and find out where the cause is. and then it is up to you. If you want to drop the effect then avoid the cause; then become aware, more and more aware.

Whenever you are happy nobody shows any sympathy — in fact, people become jealous. when you are unhappy everybody is a friend, everybody sympathizes with you — even your enemy will sympathize with you. When you are happy even your friend will become jealous and inimical.

When you are happy nobody pays any attention to you. People avoid you. In fact, they start thinking you must be mad: Happy? — who has ever heard of anybody being happy?… must have gone crazy or something, or must be pretending. When you are unhappy they accept you. Then they think everything is okay, because this is how things have to be. And people enjoy your unhappiness, that’s why they pay attention — because whenever you are unhappy they can compare themselves, and deep down they can feel good — “So I am in a better position. People are so unhappy! — at least I am not that much unhappy. I am unhappy, but not so much.” He can compare. When you are happy, you bring the man down; he becomes unhappy looking at your happiness — “So you are happy? So you have attained?” He will deny, he will create trouble for you. This world consists of miserable people, unhappy people. They don’t allow any happy person to live or to exist.

The life should be a life of no expectations. And then every moment is such a bliss, such a benediction, because whatsoever God gives is so much. Then you always feel grateful. But your desires are so much that whatsoever God gives always looks so little; and you feel frustrated, and you feel complaints, and you cannot feel grateful. And without gratitude, there is no possibility of prayer arising in your heart.
Gratitude is prayer.

KARMA YOGA - DEFINED

"Man neither attains to the state of non-action by not doing work, nor does he come to realize god by merely renouncing action".

These are very rebellious, revolutionary words.

Krishna says: simply by dropping the work and escaping, one does not attain the state of non-action; because, the state of non-action is a much bigger thing than just not being active.

Simply absence of action is not non-action. Non-action is a much greater phenomenon. For example, not being sick is not the same as being healthy. Being healthy is ka much greater phenomenon. It is possible that a man may not be sick at all, and yet he may not be absolutely healthy. All kinds of tests may show the man has no signs of illness, and yet he may not be really healthy.

So, not being sick does not mean one is healthy. And merely by giving up work and running away one does not attain the state of non-action. Why?

First we will have to understand what Krishna means by non-action.

Ordinarily, by non-action we mean not doing any work. We have taken idleness as non-action. Non-action is seen as being idle. If that were the case, a lazy man too would attain the state of non-action! Then even the dead people would also attain it! One can imagine that even the rocks etc. must also be always in the state of god-realization!

So, not idleness, but an act when committed without the sense of  the doer, ceases to be an act and turns into the state of non-action. An act in which the ‘I’ is not present becomes non-action. Thus, non-action is not the absence of doing, but absence of the doer. 

Krishna is saying to Arjuna: if you drop the idea that you are the doer, then none of what you do is an act -- then all acts turn into non-action. If, however, you continue to hold the belief that you are the doer, then even if you were to escape from doing, that very escaping itself would become karma, an act on your part. Escaping is also an ac, one will have to do the escaping. 

Renouncing is also an act; one will have to do the renouncing.

Wherever the doer is present, whenever one feels ‘I am doing’, the action is there -- regardless whether one is simply being idle, whether one may just be ‘not-doing’. But, when one feels that it is not a question of my doing, only god is doing; when one feels: whatever is happening, ‘he’ is doing it, life is flowing, ‘I’ am merely like a leaf floating in the wind where ‘I’ am not moving, only the wind is; when one feels ‘I’ am just like a wave in the ocean, ‘I’ am not waving, only the ocean is. Where one’s ‘I’ is no more, the act in that moment is a non-action -- it is not inaction.  

In a state of non-action, obviously, the act will be there, but there won’t be an agitation, any fuss caused by an action. The act will be there, but the worry and the anxiety, which accompany an action will not be there. The act will be there, but the dis-ease caused by the feeling of success and failure, the feverish energy of ambition will be absent. The act will be there, but it will not be driven by madness for passionately wanting the desired end.  

Non-action is a state where an act feels light and enjoyable like a flower does. The act does not feel heavy; it simply blossoms like a flower. When the doer is no longer present, the joy of doing becomes extraordinary -- then it is an offering to the Divine.

Krishna is saying to Arjuna: if you were to run away from action, then that would not mean you have attained to non-action. Because, one who has attained to non-action, why would he run away from the act? He would simply accept whatever is destined. Whatever may be happening, he would willingly accept it.

Action and Activity.

Remember two words; one is "action", another is "activity".

Action is not activity; activity is not action.

Their natures are diametrically opposite.

Action is when the situation demands it , you act , you respond.

Activity is when the situation does not matter, it is not a response; you are so restless;

within that the situation is just an excuse to be active.

Action  come out of a silent mind – it is the most beautiful thing in the world.

Activity comes out of a restless mind- it is the ugliest.

NOT TEN COMMANDMENTS BUT REQUESTS

MY TEN REQUESTS

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1) My first request or invitation is: Don’t let your doubt die.

That is the most precious thing you have got, because it is doubt that one day is going to help you discover the truth.

And all these people say, ”Believe!” Their first effort is to destroy your doubt. Start with faith, because if you don’t start with faith on each step you will raise questions. Hence I would like it to be my first request to you: doubt until you discover. Do not believe until you come to know yourself. Once you believe, you will never be able to know on your own. Belief is poison, the most dangerous poison there is; because it kills your doubt. It kills your inquiry. It takes away from you your most precious instrument.

Whatsoever science has achieved in three hundred years is through doubt. And in ten thousand years, religion has achieved nothing because of its belief. You can see, anybody who has eyes can see, that in three hundred years science has achieved so much, in spite of all the hindrances created by the religious people. What has been the basic power of science?  It was doubt.

Doubt, and go on doubting until you come to a point that you cannot doubt anymore. And you cannot doubt anymore only when you come to know something on your own. Then there is no question of doubt, there is no way to doubt. So this is my first request.

2) My second request: Never imitate.

You cannot change the universal laws.

You can only be yourself, and nothing else.

And it is beautiful to be yourself.

Anything original has beauty, freshness, fragrance, aliveness. Anything that is imitated is dead, dull, phony, plastic. You can pretend, but whom are you deceiving? Except yourself you are not deceiving anybody. And what is the point of deceiving? What are you going to gain?

When I say this to people, Don't Imitate, it hurts. But I cannot do it in any other way. It is going to hurt. You have gone miles away pretending to be someone else; you have to come back miles, and it is going to be a hard task.

And unless you come back to the point from where you deviated, you will never be able to discover yourself – and there is all that has to be discovered.

3) My third request is: Beware of knowledge

It is so cheap to become knowledgeable. Scriptures are there, libraries are there, universities are there; it is so easy to become knowledgeable. And once you become knowledgeable you are in a very sensitive space, because the ego would like to believe that this is your knowledge – not only knowledgeability, it is your wisdom. The ego would like to change knowledge into wisdom. You will start believing that you know.

So the third thing is to beware of knowledge, to be so alert that whenever you want, you can put your knowledge aside and it will not block your vision. It will not come between you and reality. You have to go to reality utterly naked. But if there are so many books between you and reality, then whatsoever you see will not be the real. It will be distorted by your books in so many ways, by the time it reaches you it may have no connection at all with the reality.

4) The fourth request : Forget the word prayer, replace it with love.

I will not say ”pray” because there is no God to pray to. I cannot say, like all the religions, that prayer will make you religious; it will give you a bogus religiousness. So in my religion the word prayer has to be completely dropped. God is not there, hence talking to the empty sky is utterly foolish. The danger is, you may start hearing voices from the sky; then you have gone beyond the limit of normality. Then you are abnormal. Then you are no more capable of doing something, you will need psychiatric treatment. So before that happens – before God answers you – please don’t ask. That is within your power, not to ask, not to pray. God cannot force you to pray and to ask. If you pray and ask and you insist, he may answer – that is the danger. And once you hear the answer, then you are not going to listen to anybody. Then you have to be forced to go for psychiatric treatment, otherwise you are going insane.

My word for prayer is love. Forget the word prayer, replace it with love.

If you live your real life authentically, sincerely, totally, prayers are finished. If you love, you will never think of prayer because you know the real thing – so why should you go after the pseudo?

5) The fifth thing I would like to say to you: Live moment to moment.

Go on dying every moment to the past. It is finished. There is no need even to label it good or bad. The only thing to know is: it is finished, it is no more. It is going to be no more... gone and gone forever; now why waste time about it?

Never think of the past, because you are wasting the present, which is the only real thing in your hand. And never think of the future, because nobody knows how tomorrow is going to be, what tomorrow is going to be, how it is going to turn out, where you are going to land – you cannot imagine.

Remain in the moment, true to the moment, utterly herenow, as if there has been no yesterday and there is going to be no tomorrow – only then can you be herenow totally. And that totality of being in the present joins you with existence, because existence knows no past, no future. It is always herenow.

Existence knows only one tense, that is the present tense. It is language which creates three tenses, and creates three thousand tensions in your mind. Existence knows only one tense, and that is present: and it is not a tension at all, it is utterly relaxing. When you are totally here, no yesterdays pulling you back and no tomorrows pulling you somewhere else, you are relaxed.

To me, to be in the moment is meditation, to be utterly in the moment. And then it is so beautiful, so fragrant, so fresh. It never gets old. It never goes anywhere.

It is we who come and pass; existence remains as it is. It is not time that passes, it is we who come and pass. But it is a fallacy: rather than seeing that we are passing, we have created a great invention, the clock – time passes.

6) The sixth request. Don't try to become a Superhuman.

All the religions of the world, without exception, have given man ideals which are superhuman. They satisfy the ego. You would like to be a superhuman being, but you are meant only to be a human being. Even if the rose wants to become a lotus, the desire is going to be a tremendous frustration, because the potential of the rose is to be a rose. How can it be a lotus?

But all the religions, in every possible way, have been giving you ideals far above humanity. The only result is that trying to be superhuman, you miss being human. Rather than reaching the superhuman level, making that stupid effort you fall below the human level itself – you become subhuman.

The superman is never going to arrive, it is a fiction. It is a fiction created by the priest who wants to condemn you.

A comparison is needed, otherwise condemnation is impossible. Something higher, superior, has to be invented, so that you can be compared against it – and reduced to ashes.

Accept with great joy your being human.

Destroy all the ideals that have been created to condemn you. Before they destroy you, you destroy them. They have already done enough harm to humanity. Millions of people have lived under the burden of those ideals, crushed, feeling guilty, like worms.

In existence there is no hierarchy. The smallest blade of grass has an equal value to the greatest star in the sky.

In existence there is no hierarchy, nobody is lower, nobody is higher. Everybody is just himself. Some tree is tall, some tree is not tall. That does not mean that the tall tree is greater, superior, and the small tree is not greater, not superior. No, in nature there is no hierarchy. The small tree has the potential of being a small tree. It has brought its potential to its completion; it is happy, blissful. It is not comparing itself with the tall tree. And the tall tree is not looking downwards with the eyes of a president looking at the ordinary people or a prime minister looking at the ordinary people. The tall tree is just a tall tree. It has fulfilled its potential. Both have done exactly the same; whatsoever was their potential, they have brought it to fulfillment... and fulfillment is bliss. What you fulfill does not matter.

Fulfillment of your potential is bliss.

So remember, there is no hierarchy; there is nobody above you, there is nobody below you.

7) My Seventh request to you is: Do not fight with your body.

All the religions have been teaching you to fight against nature. Whatsoever is natural is condemned. The religions say that you have to manage to do something unnatural, only then can you get out of the imprisonment of biology, physiology, psychology, all the walls that surround you. But if you go on in harmony with your body, with your mind, with your heart, then the religions say you will never be able to go beyond you. That’s where I oppose all the religions. They have put a poisonous seed in your being, so you live in the body, but you don’t love your body.

The body serves you for seventy, eighty, ninety, even a hundred years, and there is no other mechanism that science has been able to invent which can be compared to the body. You treat your body as your enemy, and your body is your friend. It takes care of you in every possible way, while you are awake, while you are asleep. Even in sleep it goes on taking care of you.

It is not your foe, it is your friend. It is a gift of nature to you. It is part of nature. It is joined with nature in every possible way. You are part and parcel of existence, yet you have an individuality. Existence has done a miracle, has made possible something impossible.

So being in harmony with your body, you will be in harmony with nature, with existence. So instead of going against the current, go with the current. Be in a letgo. Allow life to happen. Don’t force anything, in any good name. For the sake of some holy book, for the sake of some holy ideal, don’t disturb your harmony.

Nothing is more valuable than to be harmonious, in accord with the whole.

8) My Eighth request : Live, and try to know what life is

All the religions are agreed upon one point – that real life begins after death. This life is only a rehearsal, not the real drama. The real drama will happen after death. Here, you are only preparing for the drama. So sacrifice everything to get ready for the drama that is going to happen after death.

They teach sacrifice. Sacrifice love, sacrifice life, sacrifice joy, sacrifice everything. The more you sacrifice, the more you will be capable of participating in the drama, the great drama, after death.

They have tried to focus your mind on life after death.

I would like you to remember: Live, and try to know what life is.

Don’t be bothered about death, heaven and hell, and this goddammed God. You simply remain with the life that is dancing in you, breathing in you, alive in you. You have to come closer to yourself to know it. Perhaps you are standing too far away from yourself. Your concerns have taken you far away. You have to come back home.

So remember that while you are alive it is so precious – don’t miss a single moment. Squeeze the whole juice of it, and that juice will give you the taste of the existential, and that will be a revelation of all that is hidden from you and will remain hidden from you.

Respect life, revere life. There is nothing more holy than life, nothing more divine than life. And life does not consist of big things. Those religious fools have been telling you, ”Do big things,” and life consists of small things. The strategy is clear. They tell you, ”Do big things, something great, something that your name will be remembered for afterwards. Do something great.” And of course it appeals to the ego. The ego is the agent of the priest. All the churches and all the temples have only one agent, and that is the ego. They don’t use different agencies.

There are not other agencies. There is only one agency, and that is the ego – do something great, something big.

I want to tell you, there is nothing big, nothing great. Life consists of very small things. So if you become interested in so-called big things, you will be missing life.

Life consists of sipping a cup of tea, of gossiping with a friend; going for a morning walk, not going anywhere in particular, just for a walk, no goal, no end, from any point you can turn back; cooking food for someone you love; cooking food for yourself, because you love your body too; washing your clothes, cleaning the floor, watering the garden... these small things, very small things...

Respect your life. Out of that respect you will start respecting life in others.

9) Ninth: Be creative.

Only a creative person can know what bliss is. Do anything, not for any other purpose, just for your joy, for no other reason.

If you can do something just for your own joy, or a few friends may share it; if you can make a beautiful garden, just for the sheer joy of making it, and anybody who passes by may stand for a while and have a look – that’s enough reward.

But this is my experience, that only creative people know what bliss is. Those who are not creative cannot know bliss.

They can know happiness, and I will have to make the difference clear to you. Happiness is always caused by something: you get a Nobel prize, you are happy; you are rewarded, you are happy; you become the champion of something and you are happy. Something causes it, but it depends on others. The Nobel prize will be decided by the Nobel committee. The gold medal will be decided by the gold medal committee, the university. It depends on others. And if you have been working for this motive – that you want to attain the Nobel prize and you are writing poetry, novels, just in order to get the Nobel prize – while you are working, it will be just a drag. There will be no bliss, because your happiness is there, far away, in the hands of the Nobel prize committee. And even if you get the Nobel prize, it is going to be just a momentary thing. How long can you go on bragging about it?

Bliss is something totally different. It is not dependent on anybody. It is the joy of creating something; whether anybody appreciates it or not is irrelevant. You enjoyed it while you were making it – that’s enough, more than enough.

10) The last the Tenth, is my most precious request to you, and that is: In existence the most extraordinary thing is to be ordinary.

Everybody wants to be extraordinary, that is very ordinary. But to be ordinary and just relax in being ordinary, that is superbly extraordinary. One who can accept his ordinariness without any grudge, any grumbling – with joy, because this is how the whole existence is – then nobody can destroy his bliss. Nobody can steal it, nobody can take it away. Then wherever you are you will be in bliss.

"To me, the ordinary is the most extraordinary phenomenon in existence."

What is Greed?

Greed is the fear of inner emptiness

GREED is an effort to stuff yourself with something – it may be sex, it may be food, it may be money, it may be power. Greed is the fear of inner emptiness. One is afraid of being empty and one wants somehow to possess more and more things. One wants to go on stuffing things inside so one can forget one’s emptiness. But to forget one’s emptiness is to forget one’s real self. To forget one’s emptiness is to forget the way to God. To forget one’s emptiness is the most stupid act in the world that a man is capable of.

But why do people want to forget? We are carrying an idea given to us by others that emptiness is death. It is not! It is a false notion perpetuated by the society. Society has a deep investment in the idea, because if people are not greedy THIS society cannot exist. If people are not greedy then who is going to be mad after money, after power? Then the whole structure of this power-oriented society will collapse. If people are not greedy, who is going to call Alexander ’the Great’? Alexander will be called ’the ridiculous’ not ’the Great’, ’the stupid’ not ’the Great’. Then who is going to call the people who go on and on possessing things respectable? Who is going to give them respect? They will be the laughing-stock! They are mad, they are wasting their lives. Then who is going to pay respects to the prime ministers and the presidents of the countries? Then people will think that they are neurotic.

People will be fulfilling their needs, but needs are not desires; desires are unnecessary, needs are necessary. And desires never end. Needs are simple and can be fulfilled, but desires go on asking for more and more. They-go on desiring for even more of the same thing that you have. You have one car, the desire says have two; unless you have a two-car garage you are nobody. You have one house, desire says have two – at least one in the hills. And when you have two the desire says have three, one in the hills, one on the seashore, and so on, so forth.

But basically greed is a spiritual problem. You have been taught that if you don’t have many things you are nobody, and you are also afraid. So people go on stuffing themselves. It does not help; at the most it gives you a temporary relief, but sooner or later you start feeling the emptiness again. Then you fill it again. And the inner emptiness is the door to God.

But you have been told that the empty mind is the devil’s mind or the devil’s workshop; that is absolute nonsense that has been told to people.

The empty mind is the door to God. How can the empty mind be the devil’s workshop? It is in the empty mind that the devil dies completely. The devil means the mind, the empty mind means no-mind. And greed is one of the most fundamental problems to be encountered. You have to see why you are greedy: because you want to keep yourself occupied with things. Possessing more and more you remain occupied, engaged. You can forget all about your inner world, you can go on saying to it, ”Wait! Let me have this much more, and then I am going to turn towards you.” And it is always death that comes before your desires are fulfilled. Even if you live for a thousand years your desires are not going to be fulfilled.

If you are intelligent you will see the futility of greed. If you are intelligent you will start living rather than preparing to live. Greed is preparing to live. And you can go on preparing, and the time to live will never come. If you are intelligent you will not miss today for tomorrow. You will not sacrifice this moment for another moment, you will live this moment in its totality. You will squeeze the whole juice out of this moment.

Jesus says to his disciples, ”Think not of the morrow.” He is simply saying, ”Don’t be greedy” – because whenever you think of the morrow you become greedy. It is greed that thinks of the morrow. The secret is simple: think not of the morrow, live in the moment. This moment is all and all. There is nothing behind, nothing ahead. Enjoy this moment with their total being. Greed means postponing your life for tomorrow.

Try to see your greed. It can take so many forms: it can be worldly, it can be other-worldly. Beware! It may take the form of: ”This life is not worth living so I will prepare for another life. This earth is not worth living on, I will prepare for paradise.” But this is greed!

See the stupidity of greed. I am not saying ”Renounce” – watch my words – I am saying see the stupidity of greed. In that very seeing it disappears, and your energy is free. Your consciousness is no longer entangled, entrapped, by things – money, power, prestige. Your consciousness is free. And the freedom of consciousness is the greatest rejoicing.