And then suddenly it is there

I feel that whatever I do, even in beautiful things, there is always something missing, something that is somewhere out of tune. Even in my relationship - I have been now one year with my boyfriend - and still even in the beautiful moments I feel that something is tense somewhere, something is fighting somewhere....

You can make a problem out of it, and then there will be no solution. In the first place don't make a problem out of it. It is not a problem. If you understand it well you will feel it to be a blessing.

Every lover feels that something is missing, because love is unfinished. It is a process, not a thing. Every lover is bound to feel that something is missing - but don't interpret it wrongly. It simply shows that love in itself is a dynamic thing. It is just like a river, always moving, always moving. In the very movement is the life of the river. once it stops it becomes a stagnant thing; then it is no longer a river. The very word river shows a process, the very sound of it gives you the feeling of movement.

Love is a river, it is not a thing, a commodity. So don’t think that something is missing; it is part of love's process. And it is good that it is not completed. When something is missing you have to do something. That is a call from higher and higher peaks. Not that when you reach them you will feel fulfilled; love never feels fulfilled. It knows no fulfillment, but it is beautiful because then it is alive forever and ever.

And you will always feel that something is not in tune. That too is natural, because when two persons are meeting, two different worlds are meeting. To expect that they will fit perfectly is to expect too much, is to expect the impossible, and that will create frustration. Something will always be out of tune. If you fit completely and there is nothing out of tune, the relationship will become stagnant. At the most there are a few moments when everything is in tune. Rare moments. Even when they come you may not be able to catch them they are so swift, so rare. They have not come and they are already gone - just a glimpse. And that glimpse will make you more frustrated, because then you will see more and more that things are out of tune.

This is how it has to be.

Make all efforts to make that in-tuneness, but always be ready if it doesn’t happen perfectly. And don’t be worried about it, otherwise you will fall more and more out of tune.

It comes only when you are not worried about it. It happens only when you are not tense about it. When you are not even expecting it - just out of the blue. It is a grace, a gift of existence.

Love is not a thing you can do. But by doing other things, love will happen. There are small things you can do - sitting together, looking at the moon, listening to music - nothing directly to do with love.

Love is very delicate, fragile. If you look at it, gaze at it directly, it will disappear. It comes only when you are unaware, doing something else. You cannot go directly, arrow-like. Love is not a target. It is a very subtle phenomenon... it is very shy. If you go direct, it will hide. If you do something direct, you will miss.

The world has become very stupid about love. They want it immediately. They want it like instant coffee - whenever you want, order, and it is there. Love is a delicate art; it is nothing you can do rally.

Sometimes those rare blissful moments come... then something of the unknown descends. You are no longer on the earth, you are in paradise. Reading a book with your lover, both deeply absorbed in it, suddenly you find that a different quality of being has arisen around you both; something surrounds you both like an aura, and everything is peaceful.

But you were not doing anything directly. You were just reading a book, or just going for a long walk, hand in hand against the strong wind - suddenly it is there. It always takes you unawares. So learn to do things together.

I have watched so many people, thousands of couples. People have completely forgotten the language of doing things together, or not doing anything, just being together, just being. People have forgotten that. If they have nothing to do they make love. Then nothing happens, and by and by they are frustrated by love itself. and then the whole of life loses meaning, because if love loses meaning, life loses meaning.

Man and woman are different - not only different, they are opposite; they cannot fit together. And that s the beauty - when they fit together it is a miracle, a magic moment. Otherwise they conflict and fight. That is natural and can be understood, because they have different minds. Their outlooks are polar opposites. They cannot agree on anything, because their ways are different their logic is different.

To fit in a deep tune, to fall in deep harmony, is almost miraculous. It is like a Kohinoor and one should not ask for it every day. One should not ask for it as part of a routine. One should wait for it. Months, sometimes years pass, and then suddenly it is there. And it is always out of the blue, uncaused,mm? Do you follow me? Don’t be worried - it will take care of itself. And don’t become a seeker after love; otherwise you will miss it completely.

Osho

Above All Don't Wobble

He sat down near the well

He was tired from walking, so He sat down near the well. The time was noon.

A woman from Samaria came to get water. He asked her, “Will you give me a drink?”

The woman said, “You are a Jew, I am a Samaritan. Why ask me for a drink?”

“If you knew God’s gift and if you knew who I am, then you would ask Me and I would give you living water.”

She said, “Sir, the well is deep, and you don’t have anything to get the water. Our father Jacob gave us this well and he and his sons and animals drank from it. Are You better than Jacob?”

He answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will become thirsty again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never become thirsty again. The water I give him will become a spring of

water, springing up to eternal life.”

The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t become thirsty. Then I won’t need to continue coming here for water.”

So, is it possible for man to be totally free of fear?

So, is it possible for man to be totally free of fear? And what is fear? Does fear exist in the past, the present or the future? Do I know I was afraid or do I know I am afraid or that I shall be afraid? Is there such a thing as immediate fear or when you know you are afraid, is it not already over?

Please follow this carefully step by step because to understand clearly time is involved, and without understanding the whole structure of time we will not be able to understand fear. Now how do I know that I am afraid? When I am face to face with danger, at the very moment of confrontation, am I conscious of fear or is the response to danger so immediate that fear does not exist at all? The response is immediate. When you know the danger of nationalism which is spreading more and more throughout the world, when you know it, not theoretically but actually, then there is an immediate response to that danger and therefore you are free from nationalism because you see very clearly it is a threat to the security of man.

So fear is the product of thought. Right? Otherwise there is no fear. Fear is related to pleasure and pleasure is the product of thought as fear. I wonder if you are following this? You know, this is not an analytical talk. Analysis, however deep or clever, however true does not solve any problems. Analysis is merely a description of what is, and we are not analysing but just observing. It is very important to understand this, the art of looking, the art of seeing. We are seeing fear, listening to fear, to all its murmurs, not theoretically but actually. If we could see fear with eyes that are very clear then fear would completely come to an end. And that's what we are doing.

Fear, as we said, is the result of thought. Yesterday I was healthy and enjoyed walking through the woods, but today or tomorrow I am afraid that I may fall ill. Do go into this with me! Please, if I may suggest, don't just listen but observe this thing operating in yourself. Yesterday there was a beautiful sunset and I enjoyed it tremendously. There is the memory of it and I want that pleasure repeated and when it is not repeated then I am afraid, which is all part of thinking. I am afraid of death, the tomorrow and the many tomorrows; thought is observing the fact of living - what it calls living - and also the fact that it is going to end, so thought is afraid of the thing it calls death. Therefore it puts death far away in the distance. This is very clear isn't it? Thought creates distance as well as time, so thought breeds fear.

After all, there is in the Christian world original sin, whatever that may mean, and Christians everywhere have been conditioned through propaganda to believe in this original sin. And, of course, that has bred a great deal of fear. That original sin is the invention of thought, so thought is responsible for fear. The ending of fear therefore is the understanding of the whole structure and mechanism of thought. No doubt you will say that if fear is to end, thought must also stop; we are not saying thought must stop, but that thought is responsible for fear. That is obvious.

Then one begins to enquire what is the nature of thought. To understand the structure of thought, not intellectually, you must see it as you would see a sensuous thing, feel it and then you will realize - if you go into it very deeply - that thought begins to understand itself as the origin of fear and it will act upon itself. You will see this for yourself if you go into it very deeply with the speaker.

Thought is the product of time, time being memory, the accumulated knowledge of the many days, the many yesterdays, the many experiences. From that accumulated knowledge, experience, memory, there is a response which is thought and thought is matter. A mind that is concerned with going beyond the sensual, beyond matter, must understand thought; thought breeds sorrow as well as fear and pleasure. Yesterday you had an experience - sensual, sexual, or otherwise - and that experience leaves an imprint on the mind, on the brain. We mean by that word 'mind' not only the whole nervous organism, the brain cells, but the totality of all human intelligence, its activity, fears, thoughts, despairs and anxieties. All that is included when we use the word 'mind'.

As long as thought is seeking pleasure, there must be fear because pleasure means pain. We will go into that a little bit and you will see it for yourself. Please follow this carefully because it is your life, not mine! You and I together are making this terrible world; we are causing so much destruction, so much misery and we are responsible. And without understanding the nature of this thought with its pleasure and pain, its fear and its sorrow, we shall continue to bring about tremendous chaos in the world through our actions, our selfishness and our violence. As we said, thought breeds pleasure.

Yesterday you had an experience which gave you pleasure and thought wants that pleasure repeated, so it thinks about it. The more it thinks about it, the greater the pleasure it derives from that experience. Thought also thinks about pain and it doesn't want that pain; so thought creates both pleasure and pain and gives them continuity. Right? And fear is also bred by thought. I am afraid of tomorrow; I don't know what is going to happen, I may lose my job, I may fall ill and I haven't fulfilled myself and I may die. I haven't understood this monstrous life and there's nobody to tell me; I am lost and afraid, I seek somebody, an authority to tell me what to do.

So thought creates fear of tomorrow, tomorrow being death. Actually if you observe, there is no tomorrow at all; if you really faced that fact psychologically you would no doubt be terribly afraid because tomorrow matters very much - psychologically. Tomorrow is going to give you a great deal of pleasure, you are going to paint a better picture or compose with greater feeling, you'll make it up with your wife or husband. So for you tomorrow is extraordinarily important. And is there tomorrow psychologically or has thought invented it? And if there is no fear, there is no tomorrow; then one lives with that complete sense of wholeness, always in the present.

To understand the present you have to understand the nature of time which is yesterday with all its memories, the culture and the tradition, today and tomorrow. You cannot live totally, completely in the present when there is the image of the past or the concept of the future. To live in the present is only possible when there is love, and love has no tomorrow. But love is not pleasure nor desire; pleasure and desire have a tomorrow, have a future - I am going to be happy tomorrow.

So thought creates fear, thought gives continuity to desire as pleasure. Thought puts together yesterday, today and tomorrow as time; that's how we live. And beyond this we are seeking immortality through the son, through the family, through ideas. Fear breeds authority and obedience; and that obedience - whether of the son to the father or the wife to the husband - is violence because in it fear and dependence are involved.

One of the major factors of fear is death; the older one grows, the more one is afraid of death. You know what is happening in the world; the older people are pretending to be very young because they are afraid of old age, disease and death, so to be free of fear one must understand death. And if you don't understand death, you can't possibly know what love and beauty are. We don't know love; we only know jealousy and pleasure and the beauty that's put together by man.

We are talking of beauty in a totally different sense of that word. And therefore we must understand, not intellectually but actually, what it means to die. You know, it's only when a thing ends that there is a new beginning; whatever has continuity, goes on day after day, week after week, the same old repetition becomes tiresome and rather boring. It's only the thing which comes to an end that has a possibility of newness. After all, innocency is not a symbol - it is a fact.

It is only the innocent mind that can see clearly, that can see something new. You may have looked at that flower by the roadside a hundred times, but if the mind and the eye of the mind are not innocent, you can't see the total beauty and the newness of that flower. That which has continuity cannot possibly be innocent.

Therefore belief - please follow this - destroys innocency. Belief is the result of fear. Whether you believe in God or don't believe in God, there's very little difference; they are both the result of your conditioning. You are conditioned to believe in God and the Communist is conditioned not to believe. But the believer and the non-believer has his own continuity and therefore there is no innocency to find what truth is. There is only innocency when every psychological memory comes to an end and out of that comes a totally new dimension. Death is after all a fact; we are all going to die whether we like it or not, through disease, through an accident or naturally, that is inevitable.

Some scientist perhaps may discover a drug that will keep us alive fifty years longer, but it will be the same chaos. Death then is inevitable; through usage, through conflict, through constant struggle the physical organism wears itself out. Emotional stress and strain wear out the heart more quickly than actual physical activity. So there is physical death.

And is there any other form of death? We shall see. You are brought up, as most of the world, to believe in a soul, in a spiritual entity which is constant; that is, you will be resurrected. And in Asia they believe in reincarnation; that is, the believer is born over and over again until in time he becomes perfect. And when he has reached perfection - through being born over and over again and passing through these thousands of experiences - he is at one with whatever it is. That's the whole concept of reincarnation; you also have a similar concept only you put it a different way.

Now fear is at the bottom of these concepts otherwise how do you know that there is anything permanent, like a soul or the atman, as the Hindus call it, within you? How do you know there's anything permanent in you? Is there anything permanent?

Do please examine it, forgetting your belief! Is your relationship with anybody permanent? Aren't your thoughts changing every day, either being modified or added to? And isn't your physical organism undergoing tremendous changes all the time? So one has to ask if there is anything permanent at all? And yet that's what the mind is seeking because it says: 'If I die tomorrow what have I lived for? There must he something permanent, lasting, enduring!' But if you observe very deeply, psychologically you will find there is nothing permanent, nothing! Whatever it is - your thoughts, your relationships, your ideas and ideals, your gods - nothing is permanent.

We know this very deeply and we are frightened of it, so we invent another god and say I cannot live without hope, but actually all we know is despair. Out of that despair we become cynical, bitter, hard, brutal and violent. Then one sees that the thing one imagined to be permanent is thought itself. It is thought which has said there is a permanent soul, a permanent entity that eventually will evolve, become more beautiful till it reaches perfection.

So the soul, the atman is the result of thought but the fact is, there is nothing permanent. When you face it as a fact it doesn't create despair; on the contrary, it is only when you do not face the fact that there is hope, fear and despair. So thought creates the fear of death because you think the little property in your name is permanent. You are afraid to let go and die every day to your house, your home, your wife, your children, your relationship with your husband, everything that thought clings to as me and mine. And to die to all that every day is a total renewal.

Last time we met we were saying that the relationship of human beings is based on images; the husband has an image about the wife and the wife has an image about the husband. These two images - which are memories and have no reality whatsoever except as memories - are related, they have a relationship, but if one dies to all images then relationship has quite a different meaning, then there is a direct, living relationship which is constantly changing. It does not mean that I pursue another man or a woman. Relationship means movement; it is not a static state as my wife, my husband, my family which is all based on an image. When the relationship is between two images then it becomes destructive and full of conflict.

So we have an image about death; the thing known and the thing not known. We are really afraid of letting go of the known, not of facing the unknown; you cannot be afraid of the unknown because you don't know what it is.

You can only know the unknown when there is freedom from the known, so you have to die to everything you have built up psychologically, inwardly, inside the skin as it were, this whole structure of experience to which the mind desperately clings. That is real death not the physical organism coming to an end, but to die psychologically to everything you have known. I wonder if you have ever tried it? Of course not.

To die to a single pleasure, an enchanting remembrance, without argument, without a motive, just to drop it. Do it some time and you will see what is involved, how frightened you are to have a mind that is constantly renewing itself. What is this thing called life to which you cling so desperately? Look at it factually, not imaginatively or intellectually, this thing you call living!

Have you ever examined it? If you have, you will see that from the moment you are born until you die life is a battlefield with the occasional joy and flutter of happiness. It is a long battle full of ambition, competition, comparison, envy and jealousy, the struggle for power, prestige, position, making a name for oneself; and that's what you call living. And you are afraid to let all that go; you would rather cling to this ugly, violent, confusing existence instead of trying to find out for yourself whether it is possible to be free from the known.

You know, it is only the innocent mind, the new mind that can be free from the known, not the old mind with its thousands of experiences which are pouring in consciously or unconsciously all the time. When you are outside, waiting for a bus, seeing people, looking at the sky or a beautiful sunset, or when you see a bird on the wing, a passing cloud, all these leave an imprint on the mind. And only a mind that is free from experience can be innocent.

We think experience is necessary. I wonder if it is. As human beings we have had twenty-five or thirty million years of experience. Historically during the last five thousand years there have been twelve thousand wars; that means two and a half wars every year. We have experienced sorrow, disease, confusion, misery, aching loneliness, separation, guilt and agony. After so many experiences, have we learnt anything? Is the mind chaste, virgin? Technologically, scientifically, we may learn from experience, but psychologically it doesn't teach us a thing.

So only a mind which is free from the known, dying every day and therefore renewing itself, can possibly understand this whole business of time, fear, pleasure and sorrow. And it is only such a mind that can see what is truth.

Truth is not a word, it is not a concept; it isn't your truth and my truth, the Christian truth and the Muslim truth. Truth, like love,has no nationality, but to love and to see truth there must be no hate, no jealousy, no division and no anger. So one has to die to all that, to all the things which we call living and only then is there a possibility of that dimension in which time does not exist.

J. Krishnamurti Talks in Europe 1968 Rome 3rd Public Talk 17th March 1968

Come come yet again come

Come come

Whoever you are

Wanderer

Worshiper

Lover of leaving

Even if you have

Broken your vows

A thousand times

Ours is not

A caravan of despair

Come

Yet again come

Though I think not

Though I think not

To think about it,

I do think about it

And shed tears

Thinking about it.

- Ryokan

And even I in this

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--

Thy adverse party is thy advocate--

And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate

That I an accessary needs must be

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

The Gift of love

I will meet you there

No, my lad, that's not the way to look at it

Dear Vincent,

Last spring Weehuizen died. I thought you knew. He died very suddenly after a few days' illness. He died in hospital with nobody present. I greatly regretted that I was not with him. I had been on familiar terms with him of late. He had read Michelet's L'Amour and often talked about it to me, and he loved nature so much and sought the still sadness in it. Last Sunday I heard a beautiful sermon. Jesus wept.

Thank you for the lithographs and the book by Michel you promised me; I am very curious to see them.

I have taken your letter to the Borchers. They seem to be good people, and I hope to see more of them. Today we received the novelties, including that engraving after Rembrandt. It looks fine, the figure of Jesus especially is beautiful, and the whole is noble. Adieu, good luck.

Yours affectionately, Theo

The frames for the engravings for Mother's birthday cost 4 guilders apiece.

[Reply]

Paris, 8 September 1875

Dear Theo,

You didn't expect to get this letter back, did you?

No, my lad, that's not the way to look at it. Certainly Weehuizen's death is sad, but sad in another way than you say.

Keep your eyes open, and try to be strong and brave. Are you sure that Michelet's book was the right one for him?

Theo, I want to make a suggestion that may perhaps surprise you. Do not read Michelet any longer or any other book but the Bible till we meet again at Christmas, and do as I told you: go out in the evening often, dropping in on Van Stockum, Borchers and the like. I don't think you will regret it; you will feel much freer once you start this regimen.

Beware of the words I underlined in your letter. There is still a sadness, certainly, thank God, but I do not know whether we are entitled to it yet. You notice I say we: I, no more than you.

The other day Pa wrote me, “Sadness does no harm, but makes us see things with a holier eye.” This is the true “still sadness,” the pure gold, but we have not got as far as that, not by a long shot. Let us hope and pray we may get there, and believe me always

Your loving brother, Vincent

I have got a little bit further than you, and I see already that, alas, the maxim “La jeunesse et l'adolescence ne sont que vanité” [Youth and adolescence are nothing but vanity] is nearly all true. So keep heart, old fellow, I shake your hand warmly.

If you want to test the genuineness of your friendship

How do you choose your friends? If you are like most others, you'd probably be making friends with those who support your way of thinking, feeling, understanding, likes and dislikes. So, in effect, all that you're looking for is someone who supports and approves of the mess that you have made out of yourself.

This is where a Guru differs. He is your friend, but he's also somebody who constantly pulls your ego down and tramples it under his feet. Normally if anybody touches your ego, even if he is your closest friend, he becomes your enemy. The guru has the special privilege to destroy your ego and still be your friend.

If you are someone's friend, you don't necessarily nag them constantly with all the things that are wrong with them. But at the same time, you must also have the nerve to point out the flaws in your friend, even if it is going to make you unpopular with him. In our quest to be liked by everyone, we end up doing a lot of stupid things. Look at all the unpleasantness that you have been constantly building up within yourself in order to maintain pleasantness around you! The mind is a fertile ground. So, you need to pay attention to the kind of emotions that you plant in it. The more unpleasantness you bury inside you, the bitterer the fruits.

If you want to test the genuineness of your friendship, try being unpopular with your friend. Do you have the courage to be that and still know that you like him and he likes you just the same? Right now, your friendships are made on agreements, likes and dislikes. A true friend is somebody who has the courage to point your stupidities out to you and still be as loving and nice to you as he/she had always been.

I'll explain: Three Generals of the US Army met one day. They decided to go on a tour of the Grand Canyon along with their troops, for some exercise and recreation. Very soon, the Generals began to brag about themselves. The first wanted to show how obedient his battalion was. "There is no other battalion like mine when it comes to courage and obeying my commands," he said. "Let me show you." He boomed, "Private Peter!" A young soldier came running and saluted the General, "Do you see the Canyon behind you? I want you to leap across it. Now!"

The man ran with all the speed that he could muster and leapt. Obviously, he couldn’t cross the canyon. He fell on the rocks and died a miserable death.

It was now the turn of the second General. He laughed and said, "Watch me now."

"Trooper Higgens," he called. The soldier arrived. "There is an emergency. I want you to fly across the canyon and inform this to my officer on the other side. "

The man flapped his hands and before you know, he was falling deep into the canyon.

The third General became very quiet, but the other Generals wouldn't give up. He stepped out of his camp and called out one of his men. "Listen, can you see the stream beneath?" The man nodded. The stream was only about 200 meters away from the steep waterfall. He handed over an envelope to the soldier and said, "I want you to jump into the stream, swim across it and take this message to the headquarters."

The soldier looked bewilderedly at the General and replied, "Sir, it looks like you've had a drink too much. I'm not going to do such an utterly stupid thing"

The third General turned to his shocked brother officers and said, "This is real courage!"

Be courageous in your friendships. If speaking your mind results in your losing a friend or two, be ready to part ways with them.

- Jaggi Vasudev

www.ishafoundation.org

Solomon Grundy

Solomon Grundy,

Born on a Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Took ill on Thursday,

Grew worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday.

This is the end

Of Solomon Grundy

Unveiled Mysteries

"If human beings could see their own thoughts, feelings, and words go out into the atmosphere, upon the ethers, gather and gather more of their kind and return, they would not only be amazed at what they give birth to but would scream for deliverance and if for no other reason than to blot such creation out of mind they would with full determination face their own Divinity and enter into it. Thoughts and feelings are living pulsating things. The individual who knows that will use his wisdom and control himself accordingly.

"The person who seeks to contact an Arisen Master in the visible, tangible, living, breathing body without the preparation needed to gradually attune his own outer structure and mind is in the same position a child in kindergarten would be were he to see a college professor and insist on learning the A. B. C's under him.

"The Ascended Masters are Really Great Batteries of Tremendous Power and Energy and whatever touches their Radiance becomes highly charged with their 'Light Essence' through the same activity that makes a needle kept in contact with a magnet take on its qualities and become a magnet also. All their help and Radiation is forever a free gift of Love. This is the reason they never use any of their force to compel.

"The Law of Love the Law of the Universe and the Law of the individual does not permit the Ascended Master to interfere with the free will of the individual except at those periods of Cosmic Activity in which the Cosmic Cycle supersedes that of the individual. It is during these times the Ascended Master may give more than ordinary assistance. The earth has entered such a Cycle now, and the greatest Outpouring of the 'Light' the earth has ever known is being and will continue to be shed upon humanity to purify it and re-establish the Order and Love that is imperative for the future maintenance of our planet and the system of worlds to which we belong. All that does not or will not come into the action of Order Balance Peace must of necessity pass into some other school-room of the universe and work out its own understanding of this Law in some other way than is to be the expression of the future Life upon our earth.

"There is only one passport into the 'Presence,' of these Great Ones and that is Enough Love poured out to one's own God Self and to Them united with the determination to root out of the human all discord and selfishness. When an individual becomes determined enough to serve only the Constructive Plan of Life, he disciplines perfectly his human nature, no matter how unpleasant the task. Then he will automatically draw to himself the attention of an Ascended Master who will take note of his struggles and pour out courage, strength, and Love sustaining him until he maintains permanent contact with the Inner God Self.

"The Ascended Master knows and sees all concerning the student for he reads clearly the record which the student has made in his own aura. This reveals the state of the disciple's development his strength as well as his weakness. The Ascended Master is the All-Knowing Mind and the All-Seeing Eye of God for from him nothing can be hidden. The one who wishes to come into the visible, tangible 'Presence' of the Ascended Host should understand that unless he makes himself a Radiating Sun of Love, Light, and Perfection which the Master can expand, and use as a part of Himself that he can direct to any place consciously at will he would be useless merely a barnacle and drain upon the Master's work and world.

"If the student has not, be not willing to, or does not discipline the personal self so it is calm in mind peaceful and loving in feeling and strong in body he is not material that the Ascended Master can use in the more-than-human work that he does. When the student has not a strong, controlled, well developed vehicle he is unable to co-operate with an Ascended Master, and thus do work of a kind which is beyond that of the ordinary human experience.

"Were one of these Perfected Beings to take a student without such qualities into his field of work he would be making the same mistake one does in building a machine or home, if he constructs it of imperfect material.

"That kind of material naturally could not stand unusual strain, under sudden need, or prolonged service. Thus, it would not be the part of either wisdom, love, nor mercy to subject anyone to an experience for which he has neither the training nor is strong enough to bear. As the Ascended Masters are the Acme of Perfection they naturally would not do anything except that which is just, loving and wise.

"The attitude of one who wishes to work in conscious co-operation with the Ascended Host should not be 'I wish I could go to them for instruction' but rather 'I will so purify, discipline, and perfect myself, become such expression of Divine Love, wisdom, and power that I can assist in their work then I will automatically be drawn unto them. I will love so constantly, so infinitely, so divinely, that the very intensity of my own "Light" will open the way for them to accept me.'

"My son, self-correction and control of the forces within the use of human consciousness is not the work of a moment nor a path of ease, lethargy, and self-gratification for the senses riot within the average human being and he rebels furiously against the restraint of his lower nature which is imperative if he is to govern these forces properly within himself especially in his feelings so they may be used and act only under the conscious Dominion of his God-Mind.

"The saying that 'Many are called but few are chosen,' is very true. All are constantly being called but few are awake enough to realize the Ecstatic Joy and Perfection within the God-Self and to hear Its Voice in the 'Light' forever and forever calling everyone back into the Father's House.

"Every individual on earth is free each moment to 'Arise and go unto the Father' his God Self if he will but turn his back upon the creation of the human senses and hold his attention on the Only Source in the Universe from which peace, happiness, abundance, and Perfection can come.

"There is a way for all to come into contact with the Ascended Masters, and that is to think upon them call unto them and they will answer every call with their own 'Presence' of Love but the motive for the call must be Love of the One Source Love of the Light, Love of Perfection.

"If this be real, determined, and steadfast, the student will receive greater and greater Light for the 'Light' knows Its own and gives of Itself, unceasingly, unconditionally, every moment. Ask and ye shall receive knock and it shall be opened unto you seek and ye shall find call unto the 'Light' and the Ascended Masters will answer you for they are the 'Light' of this world.

Excerpts from Unveiled Mysteries, by Godfre Ray King

I shall be that

I died from minerality and became vegetable;

And From vegetativeness I died and became animal.

I died from animality and became man.

Then why fear disappearance through death?

Next time I shall die

Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels;

After that, soaring higher than angels -

What you cannot imagine,

I shall be that.

- Rumi

Oho, this man is very dangerous

The next day we had a meeting with Bhagavan. This was about the time he arrived at the present site of Sri Ramanasramam (1922). There were no buildings at all, except for a Small shed covering the samadhi of the mother.

Bhagavan was seated on a bench under the shade of a tree, and with him, lying on the same bench was the dog named Rose. Bhagvan was simply stroking the dog. I wondered, among us Brahmins the dog was such an animal that it would defile all purity. A good part of my respect for the Maharishi left me when I saw him touching that unclean animal - for all its apparent cleanliness and neatness it was unclean from the Brahmin point of view.

I had a question for the Maharishi. At that time I was an agnostic. I thought nature could take care of itself, so where is the need for a Creator? What is the use of writing all these religious books telling 'cock and bull' stories, which do not change the situation.

I wanted to put to him straight questions: is here a soul? Is there a God? Is there salvation? Al these three questions were condensed into one:

"Well sir, you are sitting here like this - I can see your present condition - but what will be your future sthiti?"

The word sthiti in Sanskrit means 'state' or 'condition'. The Maharishi did not answer the question. "Oho," I thought, "you are taking shelter under the guise of indifferent silence for not answering an inconvenient question!" As soon as I thought this the Maharishi replied and I felt as if a bomb had exploded under my seat.

"Sthiti, what do you mean by the word sthiti!" he exclaimed.

I was not prepared for that question. "Oho, this man is very dangerous, very dangerously alive. I will have to answer with proper care," I thought. So I said to myself, "If I ask him about the sthiti or 'state' of the body it is useless: the body will be burned or buried. What I should ask him was about the condition of something within the body. Of course, I can recognize a mind inside of me." Then I was about to answer "By sthiti, I mean mind," when it struck me what if he counter-questions with "What is mind?" This I am not prepared to answer.

As all this was passing through my mind he was sitting there staring at me with a fierce look. I then questioned within me, "What is mind? Mind is made up of thoughts. Now, what are thoughts?" I landed in a void. No answer. I then realised that I could not present a question about a mind which did not exist! Up to that point, the mind was the greatest thing that existed for me. Now I discovered it did not exist! I was bewildered. I simply sat like a statue.

Two pairs of eyes were then gripping each other: the eyes of the Maharishi and my eyes were locked together in a tight embrace. I lost all sense of body. Nothing existed except the eyes of the Maharishi. I don't know how long I remained like that, but when I returned to my senses, I was terribly afraid of the man. "This is a dangerous man," I thought. In spite of myself, I prostrated and got away from his company.

"Does not your mind remain formless when you do not perceive or think, say, in deep sleep, in samadhi, or in a swoon? And does it not create space and relationship when it thinks and impels your body to act? Just as your mind devises and your body executes in one homogeneous, automatic, in fact, that most people are not aware of the process, so does the Divine Intelligence devise and plan and His energy automatically and spontaneously acts - the thought and the act are one integral whole. This Creative Energy which is implicit in Pure Intelligence is called by various names, one of which is Maya or Shakti, the Creator of forms or images."

-Sri Ramana Maharishi.

Blasted out of Materialism

Professor N.R. Krishnamoorthy Aiyer - Part 1

But because it comes absolutely suddenly

The way I talk is a little strange. No speaker in the world talks like me. Technically it is wrong; it takes almost double the time! But those speakers have a different purpose – my purpose is absolutely different from theirs. They speak because they are prepared for it; they are simply repeating something that they have rehearsed. Secondly, they are speaking to impose a certain ideology, a certain idea on you. Thirdly, to them speaking is an art; they go on refining it.

As far as I am concerned, I am not what they call a speaker or an orator. It is not an art to me or a technique; technically I go on becoming worse every day! But our purposes are totally different. I don´t want to impress you in order to manipulate you. I don´t speak for any goal to be achieved through convincing you. I don´t speak to convert you into a Christian, into a Hindu or a Mohammedan, into a theist or an atheist. These are not my concerns.

My speaking is really one of my devices for meditation. Speaking has never been used this way: I speak not to give you a message, but to stop your mind functioning.

I speak nothing prepared. I don´t know myself what is going to be the next word; hence I never make any mistake. One makes a mistake if one is prepared. I never forget anything, because one forgets if one has been remembering it. So I speak with a freedom that perhaps nobody has ever spoken with.

I am not concerned whether I am consistent, because that is not the purpose. A man who wants to convince you and manipulate you through his speaking has to be consistent, has to be logical, has to be rational, to overpower your reason. He wants to dominate through words.

My purpose is so unique: I am using words just to create silent gaps. The words are not important so I can say anything contradictory, anything absurd, anything unrelated, because my purpose is just to create gaps. The words are secondary; the silences between those words are primary. This is simply a device to give you a glimpse of meditation. And once you know that it is possible for you, you have traveled far in the direction of your own being.

Most of the people in the world don´t think that it is possible for mind to be silent. Because they don´t think it is possible, they don´t try. How to give people a taste of meditation was my basic reason to speak, so I can go on speaking eternally; it does not matter what I am saying. All that matters is that I give you a few chances to be silent, which you find difficult on your own in the beginning.

I cannot force you to be silent, but I can create a device in which spontaneously you are bound to be silent. I am speaking, and in the middle of a sentence, when you were expecting another word to follow, nothing follows but a silent gap. Your mind was looking to listen, and waiting for something to follow, and does not want to miss it – naturally it becomes silent. What can the poor mind do? If it was well known at what points I will be silent, if it was declared to you that on such and such points I will be silent, then you could manage to think; you would not be silent. Then you know: ‘This is the point where he is going to be silent; now I can have a little chit-chat with myself.’ But because it comes absolutely suddenly.... I don´t know myself why at certain points I stop.

Anything like this, in any orator in the world, will be condemned, because an orator stopping again and again means he is not well prepared, he has not done the homework. It means that his memory is not reliable, that he cannot find, sometimes, what word to use. But because it is not oratory, I am not concerned about the people who will be condemning me – I am concerned with you.

It is not only here, but far away...anywhere in the world where people will be listening to the video or to the audio, they will come to the same silence. My success is not to convince you, my success is to give you a real taste so that you can become confident that meditation is not a fiction, that the state of no-mind is not just a philosophical idea, that it is a reality; that you are capable of it, and that it does not need any special qualifications.

With me, to be silent is easier because of one other reason. I am silent; even while I am speaking I am silent. My innermost being is not involved at all. What I am saying to you is not a disturbance or a burden or a tension to me; I am as relaxed as one can be. Speaking or not speaking does not make any difference to me.

Naturally, this kind of state is infectious.

Because I cannot go on speaking the whole day to keep you in meditative moments, I want you to become responsible. Accepting that you are capable of being silent will help you when you are meditating alone. Knowing your capacity...and one comes to know one´s capacity only when one experiences it. There is no other way.

Don´t make me wholly responsible for your silence, because that will create a difficulty for you. Alone, what are you going to do? Then it becomes a kind of addiction, and I don´t want you to be addicted to me. I don´t want to be a drug to you.

I want you to be independent and confident that you can attain these precious moments on your own.

If you can attain them with me, there is no reason why you cannot attain them without me, because I am not the cause. You have to understand what is happening: listening to me, you put your mind aside.

Listening to the ocean, or listening to the thundering of the clouds, or listening to the rain falling heavily, just put your ego aside, because there is no need... The ocean is not going to attack you, the rain is not going to attack you, the trees are not going to attack you – there is no need of any defense. To be vulnerable to life as such, to existence as such, you will be getting these moments continuously. Soon it will become your very life.

Wherever you are – at home, at work, or on the way between the two – you can use the presence of any sound, any noise, as an opportunity to move inside to a space of inner silence and stillness.

Osho

Sannyas is trust in existence

Beloved Osho, why is it so difficult for me to take Sannyas?

Ever since I saw you in an interview on TV one year ago, I've never been so nervous before in my whole life. Sometimes I wish I'd never heard of you, and, on the other hand, I'm happy that there is someone like you to show me the way. But to take sannyas... I feel such an egoist - jealous, lazy - that maybe I shall never be a good sannyasin. Can you please give me a hint to find a way out of this dilemma?

Sannyas is always difficult. But only the first step, because it is a transformation from one style of life to a totally different style of life. Mind always finds it difficult to adjust to new ways of life. The old way you seem to be well-acquainted with; you can walk on it with closed eyes, almost asleep, like a robot. But the new way will need alertness, awareness; the new way will need learning life from scratch.

Sannyas is simply an initiation into new spaces within you, a change from the head to the heart, from logic to love, from your ordinary conditioning, to an unconditioned mind, to a freedom which you are not even aware that you are capable of.

Sannyas is something like a bird which has remained in a cage - the cage is golden, very artistic, very valuable, but to the bird it is nothing other than an imprisonment. But the bird has lived long in the cage, although it is taking away its freedom, its whole sky, its flights across the sun, its joy; it has almost destroyed the bird's capacity to be on the wing. Perhaps the bird has already forgotten that it has wings. But the cage has security, safety from the unknown. The bird needs not to be worried for the coming days - it need not worry about its food.

Even if you open the door of the cage, the bird will hesitate to get out of it. So much is involved - the security, the safety. And who knows about this vast sky, and where he will land? And he has forgotten completely that he has wings. You know something only if you use it. If a bird has never used its wings, how can it remember them?

The English word sin is very beautiful. It means "forgetfulness." There is only one sin, and that is forgetfulness.

The doors are open, the sky is inviting, the other birds are flying, it is only a question of a little courage. That's why I say that only the first step is difficult. If the bird can gather courage and take a jump into the air, the wings that he has no awareness of, suddenly open.

He's on the wing.

The whole sky is his.

Now the faraway stars can be his pilgrimage.

Sannyas is initiation into freedom, making you aware about your wings, making you also aware that the whole sky, with all its stars is yours. You need not worry about security and safety; existence is taking care of so many birds, so many trees, so many stars - it can take care of you too.

Sannyas is trust in existence. And the moment you trust, there is no fear, there is no worry, and there is no difficulty. Life becomes the most enjoyable, relaxed phenomenon.

You are asking, "Why is it so difficult for me to take sannyas?" My suggestion is that you cannot deliberately take sannyas; it is something like love that happens, it is something like sleep that comes. You cannot make any effort for the sleep to come, nor can you make any effort for love to happen - these are not part of the world of doings. Your first difficulty is that you are thinking of taking sannyas. Drop that idea, and sannyas will take you. Suddenly you will realize, "My God, I am a sannyasin."

It simply comes - and it comes so silently, so gracefully. But the idea of taking sannyas is basically wrong; hence it becomes difficult. Even if you take it, it will be false, it won't be the true sannyas; you will be simply dreaming that you have taken sannyas. The authentic sannyas simply comes one moment and possesses you - it springs up from your very heart, and there is no way to avoid it. It is your very heartbeat.

So the first thing you have to drop is the idea of taking. Just be here, enjoy for a few days. Just watch other birds opening their wings in the sky. Participate in their songs, in their dances, without bothering about sannyas. And if you start feeling that it is already happening, in a moment when you are lost in singing and dancing, when you are not there... it occupies your innermost being.

It is not something that you have to do, it is something that simply grows in you. It is not a commodity that you have to purchase, it is a quality, a grace, a search which starts growing inside you - just like a seed disappears into the soil and in its place a plant starts growing. That plant was asleep in the seed; now it has awakened.

Sannyas is asleep in you, just asleep. So dance madly, sing madly, meditate, enjoy all these people, this crazy communion, and the moment will come on its own. When you are ripe you will find that there is nothing more easy than sannyas.

You are saying, "Ever since I saw you in an interview on TV one year ago, I've never been so nervous before in my whole life." It is a good sign. I touched your heart. Your nervousness, that you have never felt before, is simply an indication that something new has started happening in you. You don't know what it is, you don't know where it is going to lead you; hence the nervousness.

People always feel good walking on the superhighway where the whole crowd of millions of people are walking. They may be going nowhere, but just because so many people are going, you feel a certain confidence that so many people cannot be wrong. But my whole teaching is that unless you start moving alone, dropping the crowd... because the crowd has never reached anywhere, and one has never heard of a crowd becoming enlightened. A crowd always remains a crowd - blind, deaf, without direction. It just goes on because it always finds somebody ahead of it is continuing on.

One scientist was trying to experiment in South Africa on a very rare species of insect which always follows the leader; they always move in a long line. If you pull one out of the line it becomes nervous, it starts feeling that it has lost its moorings, its roots. Put back in the line it is perfectly at ease. Somebody is ahead, somebody is behind, they must be going somewhere, and so many cannot be wrong.

The scientist tried one experiment and captured almost a dozen insects of that species. He put them into a big plate, a round plate, and they started moving round, and round, and round. Somebody was always ahead, somebody was always behind, and out of their conditioning of centuries, unless the leader stops.... And there was no leader because it was a circle. They are very obedient people - unless the leader stops, nobody is going to stop. They went on and on for sixty hours, until they all fell dead.

Where is the crowd going?... but it is cozy to be part of it. People are very nervous in being alone, and sannyas is the art of being aloneness. Unless you learn to be alone, you will never be an individual in your own right; and unless you learn to be alone you will never be able to enter within yourself, because the crowd cannot go there. Even your most intimate friend, your lover, your beloved, cannot go with you inside you; there you have to go alone. That path is absolutely private. That is your privilege, nobody can interfere there, and that is where your source of life is. You can call it life, you can call it God, you can call it truth - names don't matter.

You became nervous - it is a good sign. From that very moment I have been haunting you, and unless sannyas happens I am going to haunt you your whole life. You can go anywhere, you can escape to the moon, but it won't help.

You say, "Sometimes I wish I'd never heard of you." Nobody desires disasters, but they happen. And it has happened already; now there is no point in crying for the spilled milk. "And, on the other hand, I'm happy that there is someone like you to show me the way." You will remain in a dilemma: half of you is already ready to take the jump, and the other half is clinging to your past.

One thing has to be remembered, that the past is no more, and clinging to the past is clinging to the dead. It is very dangerous, because it hampers and hinders your life, in the present and for the future. One should always go on freeing himself of the dead past. That is one of the fundamentals of sannyas, to go on renewing yourself every moment, to die to the past and be born anew. That which is gone is gone - don't even look back. Looking back is not a good sign.

Small children never look back, they always look ahead. They don't have anything in the past to look back on - there is no past, they have only the future. Old men never look at the future, because in the future there is only death, and they want to avoid it, they don't want to talk about it. They always look back. They decorate their memories; they make them look very beautiful. All that they have is a collection of memories, and they go on improving on those memories, but when they were actually living them, they had not enjoyed them. But now the future is darkness; one needs some consolation. They can find consolation only in the past.

A person who lives in the present - neither bothering about the past, nor bothering about the future - is fresh, young; he is neither a child nor an old man. And one can remain young to the very last breath. The body may be old, but the consciousness remains fresh, just like a fresh breeze, cool, fragrant, in the early morning sun. The whole problem is that we are caught up with our past. It is holding us back, it does not allow us to go against it. And if you don't go against it, your whole life will be simply boredom, because you will be repeating and repeating the same past, the same routine.

The most important philosophical school of our age is existentialism, and they have brought a few new problems for the philosophers to think about. One of their problems is boredom. If you look into an existentialist treatise you will be surprised: God is not talked about at all; there is nobody concerned about the soul, about heaven and hell, and angels and the devil. The things that they are talking about are boredom, anguish, meaninglessness, society - strange subjects, but in fact far more significant than God, the devil, heaven and hell, because they were all fictions, and these are realities.

A man who lives according to the past remains in the grip of the past. He is bound to feel boredom, meaninglessness, and a kind of anguish, "What am I doing here? Why am I continuing to live? What is there in tomorrow - another repetition of today? And what was in today was a repetition of yesterday." So what is the point? Why go dragging yourself from the cradle to the grave, in the same routine?

It is perfectly good for buffaloes and donkeys because they don't think, they don't have the memory of the past, they don't have any idea of the future. So they are doing the same thing every day, the buffaloes go on chewing the same grass their whole life; they don't change even the grass - but they are not bored, because for boredom a certain consciousness is needed. This consciousness is aware that you have done it before, you are doing it again, and you will be doing it tomorrow also - because you don't move from the past, you don't let it die, you keep it alive.

This is the dilemma that everybody faces in life, and the only solution is to let the past die. There is a beautiful story in the life of Jesus. He comes to a lake; it is early morning, the sun has yet not risen, and one fisherman is just going to throw his net into the lake to catch fish. Jesus puts his hand on his shoulder and says: "How long are you going to do this thing, every day - morning, afternoon, evening - just catching fish? Do you think this is all life is meant for?"

The fisherman had never thought about it - a simple, poor fellow. He said: "I have never thought about it, but because you have raised the question, I can see the point, that life must be something more."

Jesus said, "If you come with me I will teach you how to catch men, rather than catching fish."

The man looked into Jesus' eyes... such depth, such sincerity, so much love that you cannot doubt this man, such a great silence surrounding him that you cannot say no to this man. The fisherman threw his net into the water and followed Jesus.

As they were getting out of the town a man came running and told the fisherman, "Where are you going with this stranger? Your father who was ill for many days has died. Come home!"

The fisherman asked Jesus, "Just give me three days so that I can do the last rituals which a son is expected to do when his father dies."

And this is the statement that I want you to remember: Jesus said to that fisherman, "Let the dead bury their dead, you come with me." What does he mean, "Let the dead bury their dead, you come with me.... The whole city is full of dead people; they will manage to dispose of your dead father. You are not an absolute necessity to them. You just come with me." People like Jesus have such a certain authority in their very presence - the fisherman followed him.

Every moment something is becoming dead. Don't be antique collectors; that which is dead, leave it. You go with the life, you flow with life, with your totality and intensity, and you will never face any dilemma, any problem.

Sannyas is such a simple happening, but it is a simple happening only to the intelligent, not to the retarded. It is not for idiots... at least, I have never seen any idiot even thinking about sannyas. The idiots belong to the world of the buffaloes. They are perfectly at ease, although their life has no meaning, no flowers, no fragrance. No song ever arises in their heart; they don't ever feel like dancing to abandon. Their life is very lukewarm. It never gets to such an intensity where one becomes almost a flame - a torch burning from both ends simultaneously. And only these few people have known the truth of life and the beauty of life and the ecstasy of life.

You are saying, "But to take sannyas... I feel such an egoist - jealous, lazy - that maybe I shall never be a good sannyasin."

Who told you that you have to be a good sannyasin? Here are only sannyasins; nobody is good, nobody is bad. We don't believe in those categories. Have you ever seen a deer which is beautiful or a deer which is ugly? Those categories don't exist - all deers are simply so alive.... Here nobody takes note whether you are a good sannyasin or a bad sannyasin. You can be a good Christian or a bad Christian, a good Hindu or a bad Hindu. But sannyas is not a religion; it is a search.

What do you mean when you say, "I cannot be a good sannyasin?" To be a sannyasin is to be good! It is its intrinsic quality. A person who is so courageous to take the jump and come out of the old bondage into the open sky... this love for freedom and this risk for freedom is what goodness is.

And as far as laziness is concerned, sannyas is exactly the art of how to be spiritually lazy. I call myself the lazy man's guide to enlightenment - because I teach nothing but sitting silently, doing nothing, and the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. You don't have to pull the grass, it grows by itself; you have just to wait.

Laziness is not a bad quality. I have always been condemned by my elders, by my teachers, by my professors, by my colleagues, friends, "You are good for nothing." And I said, "That's actually how I want to be: good for nothing" - because in this world you cannot find a lazy man becoming Adolf Hitler or Ronald Reagan or Alexander the Great or Nadir Shah or Tamerlane or Genghis Khan. The world has suffered from active people, not from lazy people!

If two dozen people in the world would have been lazy, just two dozen more - people like Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler... just two dozen people in the world, and the world would have been a paradise, because there would have been no wars. Lazy people cannot fight.

I am reminded of a small story. In India there is one state, Rajasthan, which is the most ancient place of warriors; it has created great warriors. In a small village there was a great warrior, and in India, to have your mustache pointing upwards is thought to be the sign of a great warrior. He was such an arrogant and stubborn fellow that he had told everybody in the town, "You can have your mustache, but they should be always pointing downwards. If I see anybody having his mustache pointing upwards, I will kill him!"

And he had killed at least two, three people. Then the whole village became afraid, "This is a strange man; we cannot even keep our mustaches upwards." But what to do? The man was dangerous and he was powerful.

And then came a new stranger to live in the village. He was a very lazy man. People told him, "You are a stranger, you don't know the law of this town. The great warrior... if he sees you, your head will be chopped off. You have to put your mustache downwards."

He said, "I am so lazy that I will prefer it if he chops off my head. But I am not going to make that much effort, because it will take hours... for my whole life my mustache has been trained to remain upwards; to change its direction is not easy. If he chops off my head, that finishes all my anxieties and problems."

People said, "Are you mad or something?"

As he was sitting outside his house, the warrior came and he said, "It seems you are a stranger in this town."

He said, "That's right."

The warrior said, "Stranger or no stranger, pull down your mustache!"

The lazy man said, "That is not possible. But if you are going to have a fight with me, then I will suggest one thing - because one never knows, I may be dead, you may be dead... because it is not going to be just that you chop off my head; I also have my sword, although I have never used it. But if that moment has come I will give it a try. There is no harm; anyway I am going to die.

"Before we enter into a fight to kill each other, my suggestion is that I should go inside my house and kill my wife and my children, because more or less I will be killed, and after me my children will be orphans, my wife will be a widow, and who will take care of them? And I suggest the same thing to you: that you go home, kill your wife, kill your children, so if you are killed there is no problem; there will be nobody left behind you in misery and pain."

The warrior said, "The idea is right." He went back and immediately cut off the heads of his wife and his six children and came back. Just on the way he met the man. He was coming without the sword and he had put his mustache downward. The warrior said, "What happened?"

He said, "I thought, I am a lazy man, it is more simple to put the mustache down than to kill the wife and the children. And I have never killed anybody. So I changed my mind." The warrior said, "You idiot! You changed your mind. And I have finished my family!"

He said, "That is not my responsibility. Just, I had to choose between two things, whichever was simpler. I thought, putting the mustache down is simpler."

Basically I am a lazy man. Lazy people have not done any harm in the world. It is the too active, the hyperactive, who have driven the whole world into misery, madness, slavery. So as far as laziness is concerned, it is very supportive to meditation because meditation needs a very quiet, calm, silent mind. A lazy man is so lazy that he cannot even be bothered to think. Thinking is also part of the active mind.

So, you don't be worried about your being a good sannyasin, because to be a sannyasin is to be good. You don't worry about being lazy - that is a great quality that has to be developed, and you already have it!

As far as your ego is concerned and your jealousy is concerned, my whole work here is to help you become so loving that the energy that becomes jealousy is transformed into love. And you know perfectly well that jealousy always follows your love. You are not jealous without love. A man who does not love is not jealous.

Jealousy is almost like a shadow of love. If we can grow our love, it takes over the whole energy of jealousy and transforms it into love. It is an alchemical change. And I can say it with guarantee, because it has happened in me, it has happened in my thousands of sannyasins who have forgotten what jealousy is. Their love is so much.

And as your silence, your peacefulness, your relaxedness, your love, deepen, your ego disappears. Ego is a false entity. One need not be worried about ego. Meditation is the medicine to kill the ego. So I accept all kinds of people: egoist, jealous, angry, violent, depressed, because I have seen that a simple meditation transforms all these baser metals into gold. This is the alchemy of sannyas.

So that should not be your worry. Once you are a sannyasin, that has to be my worry - your jealousy, your ego. I have to take care that they don't leave you too quickly, because then one starts feeling a gap. One starts feeling that something is missing. So my whole concern is that before you start missing your ego, I should provide at least a little glimpse to you of your real individuality, your self. Then you won't miss the ego. I have to provide you with a few new flowers in your loving energy, so that you won't miss your jealousy.

And these things are not alone - there are many, many things. Ego is surrounded with depression, with anxiety, with anguish, with all kinds of sick ideas. My problem is that your sick ideas should not disappear suddenly; otherwise you will start feeling yourself empty. They have been there for so long, and you have been feeling so full.

Before they disappear I have to give you new experiences, which are not difficult, which are lying dormant in you. Just a little push and your heart becomes so full of songs that, who cares about jealousy?

Your own life becomes so graceful that you forget all about somebody else being more beautiful, somebody else being more intelligent. All your competitiveness, all your jealousies simply disappear; otherwise, you go on accumulating more and more problems, and when death comes you are nothing but a huge collection of problems. You don't have anything to feel grateful for towards existence. You are angry because this existence has given you only problems and nothing else - and they go on growing.

It all depends on you, whether you want to grow roses or you want to let any weeds grow in your being. Ordinarily, people never bother: weeds go on growing, and they go on suffering.

A lady is sitting on the bus with her baby, when a drunk staggers over in front of the woman, looks down and says, "Lady, that is the ugliest baby I have ever seen!"

The woman starts crying and everyone on the bus kicks the drunk off. They are making such a big fuss that the bus driver pulls over and stops. He goes to the back of the bus and asks, "What is the matter?" The woman is inconsolable and can't even talk. She just keeps crying.

"Look, I don't know what he said to you", says the driver, "but to help calm you down I am going to go get you a cup of tea."

He gets off the bus, goes into a nearby hotel and comes back with the tea. "Calm down", says the driver. "Everything is okay now. See? I brought you this cup of tea and I also brought you a banana for your pet monkey!"

Things go on growing. Whatever you have is not going to remain the same, because everything in life is always growing. If you have thorns, then thorns will be growing; and if you have roses, then roses will be growing.

Sannyas is only the opening of a new door, dropping the past and starting your life from ABC. If your past life had jealousy, egoism and other problems, you can start a new life with roses. It is absolutely in your hands. You are what you have made yourself, and you will be what you are going to make yourself.