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."
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