A Thousand and One Bifurcations

Question 1:

You told me that my mind is immature. What does it mean to
have a mind that is mature?

To think that you know is to be immature. To function from knowledge, from conclusion, is to be immature. To function from no-knowledge, from no conclusion, from no past, is maturity.

Maturity is deep trust in your own consciousness; immaturity is a distrust in your own consciousness. When you distrust your consciousness you trust your knowledge, but that is a substitute and a very poor substitute at that. Try to understand this - it is important.

You have been living, you have experienced many things; you have read, you have listened, you have thought. Now all those conclusions are there. When a certain situation arises. you can function in two ways. You can function through all the accumulated past, according to it - that's what I mean by functioning through a center. through conclusions, through experience, stale, dead - then whatsoever you do your response is not going to be a response, it will be a reaction. And to be reactionary is to be immature.

Or, if you can function right now, here in this moment, through your consciousness, through your being aware, putting aside all that you have known - this is what I call functioning through no-knowledge, this is functioning through innocence. And this is maturity.

I was reading one anecdote.

It seemed to Mr. Smith that now that his son had turned thirteen, it was important to discuss those matters which an adolescent ought to know about life. So he called the boy into the study one evening. shut the door carefully, and said with impressive dignity.

'Son, I would like to discuss the facts of life with you.'

'Sure thing, Dad.' said the boy. 'What do you want to know?'

The mind is immature when it is not ready to learn. The ego feels very fulfilled if it need not learn anything from anybody; the ego feels very enhanced if it feels that it already knows. But the problem is that life goes on changing, it is never the same; it goes on flowing, it is a flux. And your knowledge is always the same. Your knowledge is not evolving with life, it is stuck somewhere in the past, and whenever you react through it you will miss the point because it will not be exactly the right thing to do. Life has changed but your knowledge remains the same. and you act out of this knowledge. That means you face today with your yesterday's knowledge. You will never be able to be alive. The more you function through knowledge, the more immature you become.

Now let me tell you a paradox: every child who is innocent is mature.

Maturity has nothing to do with age because it has nothing to do with experience; maturity has something to do with responsiveness, freshness, virginity, innocence. So when I use the word 'mature' I don't mean that when you become more experienced you will be more mature. That's what people usually mean when they use the word - I don't mean that. The more you gather knowledge, the more your mind will become immature; and by the time you are seventy or eighty, you will be completely immature because you will have a stale past to function through. Watch a small child...knowing nothing, having no experience, he functions here and now.

That's why children can learn more than aged people. Psychologists say that if a child is not forced to learn, not forced to discipline himself, he can learn any foreign language in three months. Just left to himself with people who know the language he will catch it in three months. But if you force him to learn, it will take almost three years, because the more you force, the more he starts functioning through whatsoever he learns, through yesterday's knowledge. If he is left to himself he moves freely, spontaneously; learning comes easy, by itself, on its own accord.

By the time the child reaches the year eight he has learned almost seventy per cent of whatsoever he is going to learn in his whole life. He may live eighty years, but by the time he is eight he has learned seventy per cent - he will learn only thirty per cent more, and every day his capacity to learn will be less and less and less. The more he knows, the less he learns. When people use the word 'maturity' they mean more knowledge; when I use the word 'maturity' I mean the capacity to learn. Not to know but to learn - and they are different, totally different, diametrically opposite things. Knowledge is a dead thing; the capacity to learn is an alive process - you simply remain capable of learning, you simply remain available, you simply remain open, ready to receive. Learning is receptivity. Knowledge makes you less receptive because you go on thinking that if you already know, what is there to learn? When you already know. you miss much; when you don't know anything you cannot miss anything.

Socrates said in his old age, 'Now I know nothing!' That was maturity. At the very end he said, 'I know nothing.'

Life is so vast. How can this tiny mind know? At the most, glimpses are enough. Even they are too much. Existence is so tremendously vast and infinite, beginningless, endless... how can this tiny drop of consciousness know it? It is enough even that a few glimpses come, a few doors open, a few moments happen when you come in contact with existence. But those moments cannot be turned into knowledge.

And your mind tends to do it - then it becomes more and more immature.

So the first thing is that you should be capable of learning and your learning capacity should never be burdened by knowledge, never be covered by dust. The mirror of learning should remain clean and fresh so it can go on reflecting.

The mind can function in two ways. It can function like a camera: once exposed, finished - the film immediately becomes knowledgeable and it loses its learning capacity.

Exposed once and it already knows - now it is useless; now it is not capable of learning more. If you expose it again and again it will become more confused. That's why people who know too much are always afraid of learning... because they will become confused.

They are already exposed films. Then there is another type of learning - learning like a mirror. Expose the mirror for a thousand and one times, it makes no difference - if you come in front of the mirror, you are reflected: if you go, the reflection goes. The mirror never accumulates.

The film in the camera immediately accumulates - it catches hold, clings, but the mirror simply mirrors: you come in front, you are in it; you go, you are gone.

This is the way to remain mature. Every child is born mature and almost all people die immature. This will look very paradoxical but this is so. Remain innocent and you will remain mature.

The second thing is that the immature mind is always interested in trivia. The immature mind is always interested in things: money, houses, cars, power, prestige...all trivia, all rot. The mature mind is interested in existence, in being, in life itself. So when I say to you that you have an immature mind I mean you are still interested in things, not in persons; still interested in the outside, not in the inside; still interested in objects, not in subjectivity; still interested in the finite, not interested in the infinite.

Just watch your mind - where it moves, what its fantasies are. If you find a valuable diamond on the road and just there by its side a rose has flowered, in what will you be interested? In the rose or in the diamond? You will not be able to see the rose if you are interested in the diamond; you will simply miss the rose, it is valueless. Your eyes will be too clouded by the diamond, your whole mind will become focused on the diamond, and you will miss another diamond which was more alive - the rose.

In the Hindu paradise they say roses are not ordinary roses, they are made of diamonds. I don't know, but I have seen roses. If you can see roses here exactly on this earth, they are made of diamonds - so why go far away? Not in paradise but here now, once you know how to see a rose there is nothing comparable to it. And once you can see the rose you may forget completely about the diamond.

It happened that Mulla Nasruddin came to me one day. He was very much worried and he said, 'Ah, poor Mr. Jones. Did you hear, Osho, what happened to him? He tripped at the top of the stairs, fell down the whole flight, banged his head and died.'

Shocked, I said, 'Died?'

'Died,' he repeated with emphasis, 'and broke his glasses too!'

The immature mind is more interested in glasses than in life and death and love; more interested in things, like houses and cars. When I tell you that you have an immature mind, I mean you are still interested in that which is worthless, non-essential. At the most it can be used, at the most it can become a decoration in life, but it cannot replace life, it cannot substitute life, it cannot become life itself.

And there are many people who have made it a life. I know a few rich people who live such beggarly lives - one cannot imagine it.

I used to know a man in Delhi who had six bungalows, all out on rent. And he lived in a small dark cell with no children and no wife.

I asked him once, 'You have enough. Why do you go on living in this small dark cell?

Why have you imposed this imprisonment upon yourself? What penance are you doing?'

He said, 'None. I have always lived this way and it is perfectly beautiful. And people are living in those six bungalows.'

He goes to those bungalows only to collect rent.

I asked him, 'Why have you never married?'

'I am a poor man and women are very costly. I could not afford it,' he said.

If you meet that man you will not be able to recognize that he owns six big houses and earns a lot of money. What has happened to this man? He is more interested in money than he is in himself, he is more interested in money than he is in love, he is more interested in the power that money brings - but he has never shared anything with anybody.

These people are not rare, they are very common. Everybody has such a tendency inside.

And people go on rationalizing. Man is very clever - he says, 'This is not miserliness.

Don't misunderstand me. I am a simple man. I live a simple life. I am a religious man, and a simple life is beautiful.'

If you are too interested in things you are immature. Shift your attention. Become more and more interested in people rather than in yourself.

I have a SANNYASIN here, Nisha. She always falls in love with beggarly people and she is tremendously rich. Just a few days before, she came and asked 'Why, Osho, do I go on falling in love with beggarly people - people who are almost on the street?' I know the reason... with a beggarly man she need not be worried about her money. And she thinks that she helps these people - by food, by small things - in fact she has never fallen in love. She is so much in love with money that she cannot fall in love with persons. She purchases these people for money - they are without any cost, without any risk. And they feel obliged because she gives food, clothing, shelter - they feel obliged, so they pretend that they love her, and she goes on pretending that she has fallen in love. This is a way to protect the money and this is a way to remain closed, miserly.

And she is suffering, in pain, but she cannot see the point. She has to learn how to share.

If you know how to share, you are mature; if you don't know how to share, you are immature.

This sharing goes on on all levels, in all directions, in all dimensions. So one of the most basic things to understand is the more you share something, the more it grows in you.

Share whatsoever you have and it will grow; cling to it, become afraid of sharing, of friendship, of love, and it will shrink'. Life knows only one law and that law is of expansion and sharing.

Look at nature. Nature is such a spendthrift. When one flower is needed, a thousand and one flowers will bloom. When you make love to a woman or to a man, in each orgasm millions of cells are released. One would have been enough because at the most one child can be conceived, but millions of cells are released. One man can populate the whole earth - just one man! One ordinary man has at least four thousand intercourses in his life - one ordinary man - and in each intercourse millions of cells are released. The whole world, the whole population that exists right now, can be produced by one man.

And yet the man will become the father of only two or three, if in the West; or twelve, fourteen, fifteen, if in the East - that's all. For fifteen persons to be conceived, millions of cells are released.

Nature is a spendthrift. Where one flower is needed it produces millions. One tree will produce.... Look at the Gulmohr - millions of seeds are ready. They will all fall down and a few, one, two, four, five, ten, twenty, a hundred, may become trees. Why so many seeds? God is not a miser. If you ask for one he gives millions. Just ask! Jesus has said, 'Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you, ask and it shall be given.' Remember, if you ask for one, millions will be given.

The moment you become miserly you are closed to the basic phenomenon of life:

expansion, sharing. The moment you start clinging to things, you have missed the target - you have missed. Because things are not the target, you, your innermost being, is the target - not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you; not much money, but a rich you; not many things, but an open being, available to millions of things.

When I say you are immature, I mean you are too concerned with things and you have not yet learned that life consists of consciousness - of beings, not of things. Things are to be used, they are needed, but don't start living by them. Man cannot live by bread alone - once living by bread alone, things alone, you are already dead.

And the third thing: maturity is always spontaneous. It does not plan, it makes no rehearsals.

People come to me.... Just the other night somebody was there. He said, 'I prepare so many questions when I come to see you. but when I come here I forget. What do you do to me?' I am not doing anything at all. It is YOU. The moment you prepare something you are already saying that it is false. The real thing need not be prepared. In life.

rehearsals are not needed, they are needed in a drama. A drama is a false thing. If you prepare your questions it means that those questions are not yours. If you are thirsty and you come to me, will you forget that you are thirsty and you would like your thirst to be quenched? How can you forget? In fact, when you reach the side of a river thirst will burn more intensely. The moment you see water flowing, and hear the sound of gurgling, immediately all that you have been suppressing will bubble up, it will respond, your whole being will say, 'I am thirsty!' If you are thirsty you will not forget.

But you prepare questions. You prepare yourself to go to the river and say, 'I am very thirsty.' What is the point of preparing? If you are thirsty, you are; if you are not, by the time you reach to the river, you will forget about it.

When I say you are immature I mean that you prepare your questions, your inquiries.

They are mind things. they don't come from your heart, they are not related to you, they have no roots in you.

It is related in George Bernard Shaw's life that once, at the opening of one of his plays, he stepped forward at its conclusion with obvious complaisance, to accept the rousing plaudits of the crowd. There was one dissenter, however, who seized the occasion of a lull in the applause to call out in stentorian tones, 'Your play stinks!'

There was a momentary horrified silence, but Shaw, unperturbed, exclaimed from the stage, 'My friend, I agree with you completely, but what are we two' - here he waved his hand over the audience - 'against the great majority?'

And applause returned more loudly than ever.

You cannot prepare something like that, it is impossible It is a spontaneous response - hence the beauty of it. You cannot prepare for such things. And life is such a continuous thing: either you act or you miss. Later on, you will find a thousand and one answers - you could have said this, you could have said that - but they are of no use.

Mark Twain was coming back home with his wife from a lecture hall. He had just delivered a beautiful talk. His wife had not been present, she had just come to pick him up.

On the way she asked, 'How was the lecture?'

Mark Twain said, 'Which one? The one that I prepared, or the one that I delivered, or the one that I am thinking now that I should have delivered? Which one?'

If you prepare, this is going to be so. Remain conscious, alert, aware, and act out of your spontaneity. And not only will others see the alive response of it, you also will be thrilled by your own response. Not only will others be surprised, you will also be surprised yourself.

I call a mind mature which retains the capacity to be surprised. A mind is mature if it goes on continuously being surprised. by others, by himself, by everything. Life is a constant wonder: he has no ready-made plans or ready-made responses for it, he never knows what is going to happen, he moves into the unknown each moment. And he never jumps ahead of himself, he never lags behind himself, he remains simply himself, wherever he is.

And, the last and most basic thing: when I say that you have an immature mind, basically I mean that you have a mind. Mind as such is immature; only no-mind is mature.

Maturity has nothing to do with mind because mind means all that you know; mind means your experiences, mind means your past, your rehearsals, your preparations. All these things are implied in the word 'mind.' Mind is not something in particular, it is the whole accumulation, all the junk, the whole heap, of your dead past.

When I say, 'Be mature,' I mean become a no-mind. If you act spontaneously, you will act out of no-mind. If you remain capable of learning, you will remain capable of being a no-mind again and again and again - the mind will never be accumulated. If you are capable of remaining alert-and spontaneous, able to be surprised by life and by yourself, you will become by and by more and more interested in the interior-most life, in the core of life. When you see a person, you will not see just the body, your gaze will become penetrating, your gaze will become like an x-ray. It will catch hold of the person - of the consciousness there, of the inner light there in the other person. The body is just an abode - you will meet the person, you will shake hands, but not only hands, you will shake the person, you will meet the person. And in your own life, by and by, you will become aware that the body is just the outermost garment: you have to take care of it, it is not to be neglected, it is valuable, but it is not the end. You are the master, not the servant. And by and by, the more you penetrate withinwards, you will see that the mind also is an innermost garment - more valuable than the body but not more valuable than you. You remain the supreme value.

Once you know your supreme value, you have become mature; and once you know your supreme value, you know the supreme value of all: all beings are Buddhas - nobody is less than that; the whole of life is Divine; you are always walking on holy ground.

It is said that when Moses went to the hill to meet his God, the bush was afire and from behind the bush he heard, 'Stop! Take your shoes off. This is holy ground.' I have always liked it, loved it. But all ground is holy ground and all bushes are afire with God. If you have not seen this yet you have missed much. Look again. All bushes are afire with God and from every bush comes the commandment, 'Stop and take your shoes off. It is holy ground you are walking on. All ground, the whole earth, the whole existence is sacred.

Once you have that feeling entering you, I will call you mature - not before that. A mature mind is a religious mind.

Question 2:

Why do I make mountains out of molehills?

Because the ego does not feel good, at ease, with molehills - it wants mountains. Even if it is a misery, it should not be a molehill, it should be an Everest. Even if it is miserable, the ego doesn't want to be ordinarily miserable - it wants to be extraordinarily miserable!

Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, 'If I am not going to be the first in heaven, I would like to go to hell...but I would like to be the first.' In Christianity there is only one hell and Bernard Shaw never knew that in India we have a concept of seven hells. If he had heard about Hindu hells he would have chosen the seventh, because in the fifth he would have felt humiliated, others are still far ahead of him in the seventh - the real sinners, the great sinners, are in the seventh!

Either this way or that - but one wants to be the first. Hence one goes on making mountains out of molehills.

One woman hypochondriac died. The whole town felt relieved, the whole medical profession felt relieved, because she was a constant trouble to many people's heads, everywhere, all around. The family, the doctors, the physicians - she had troubled everybody and nobody was of any help. And she relished the idea that nobody knew anything about the sort of disease she was suffering from - it was an extraordinary disease. In fact there was no disease.

Then she died, and it was almost a celebration in the town. But when they opened the will, she had written in her will that her request had positively to be fulfilled. Her request was that a carved tombstone had to be put on her tomb with these words inscribed on it:

Now will you believe I was sick?

In this way she would haunt the whole town again.

People go on and on, creating big problems out of nothing. I have talked to thousands of people about their problems and I have not come across a real problem yet! All problems are bogus - you create them. Because without problems you feel empty... then there is nothing to do, nothing to fight with, nowhere to go. People go from one guru to another, from one master to another, from one psychoanalyst to another, from one encounter group to another, because if they don't go, they feel empty, and they suddenly feel life to be meaningless. You create problems so that you can feel that life is a great work, a growth, and you have to struggle hard.

The ego can exist only when it struggles, remember - when it fights. And if I tell you, 'Kill three flies and you will become enlightened, you will not believe me. You will say, 'Three flies? There doesn't seem to be much to that. And I will become enlightened? That doesn't seem to be likely. If I say you will have to kill seven hundred lions, of course that looks more like it!

The greater the problem, the greater the challenge - and with challenge your ego arises, soars high. You create problems. Problems don't exist.

And now if you allow me, there are not even molehills. That too is your trick. You say, 'Yes, there may not be mountains, but molehills?' No, not even molehills are there - those are your creations. First you create molehills out of nothing, then you create mountains out of molehills. And the priests and the psychoanalysts and the gurus, they are happy because their whole trade exists because of you. If you don't create molehills out of nothing and you don't make your molehills into mountains, what will be the point of gurus helping you? First you have to be in a shape to be helped.

The real masters have been saying something else. They have been saying, 'Please look what you are doing, what nonsense you are doing. First you create a problem, then you go in search of a solution. Just watch why you are creating the problem, just exactly in the beginning, when you are creating the problem, is the solution - don't create it!' But that won't appeal to you because then you are suddenly thrown flat upon yourself.

Nothing to do? No enlightenment? No satori? No samadhi? And you are deeply restless, empty, trying to stuff yourself with anything whatsoever.

You don't have any problems - only this much has to be understood.

This very moment you can drop all problems because they are your creations. Have another look at your problems: the deeper you look, the smaller they will appear. Go on looking at them and by and by they will start disappearing. Go on gazing and suddenly you will find there is emptiness - a beautiful emptiness surrounds you. Nothing to do, nothing to be, because you are already that.

Enlightenment is not something to be achieved, it is just to be lived. When I say that I achieved enlightenment, I simply mean that I decided to live it. Enough is enough! And since then I have lived it. It is a decision that now you are not interested in creating problems - that's all. It is a decision that now you are finished with all this nonsense of creating problems and finding solutions.

All this nonsense is a game you are playing with yourself: you yourself are hiding and you yourself are seeking, you are both the parties. And you know it! That's why when I say it you smile, you laugh. I am not talking about anything ridiculous - you understand it. You are laughing at yourself. Just watch yourself laughing, just look at your own smile - you understand it. It has to be so because it is your own game: you are hiding and waiting for yourself to be able to seek and find yourself.

You can find yourself right now because it is you that is hiding. That's why Zen masters go on hitting. Whenever somebody comes and says, 'l would like to be a Buddha, the master gets very angry. Because he is asking nonsense, he IS a Buddha. If Buddha comes to me and asks how to be a Buddha, what am I supposed to do? I will hit his head.

'Whom do you think you are befooling? You are a Buddha.'

Don't make unnecessary trouble for yourself. And understanding will dawn on you if you watch how you make a problem bigger and bigger and bigger, how you spin it, and how you help the wheel to move faster and faster and faster. Then suddenly you are at the top of your misery and you are in need of the whole world's sympathy.

One sannyasin, Marga, wrote me a letter. She said, 'Osho, I feel very sad because when you talk, you look at everyone except me.' Now, I am not looking at anybody, but I have got eyes, so they have to be somewhere. It is not that I am looking at somebody, I am not looking at anybody. And you can see in my eyes that they are empty, they are vacant. But if you are trying to find your reflection in them and you don't, great sadness comes to you. Now there is a new problem. Now the ego feels hurt - looking at everybody else except you! Just watch how you have made yourself an exception; extraordinary you have become. I look at everybody, the ordinary mass, except you. You have become unique. If I look at Marga - which I am not going to do! Since I received her letter, I am never going to look at her - if I look at her then the ego can have another trip: that I look only at her. Then that will create a problem!

You are a great problem-creator... just understand this and suddenly problems disappear.

You are perfectly in shape; you are born perfect, that is the whole message. You are born perfect; perfection is your innermost nature. You have just to live it. Decide, and live it.

But if you are not yet fed up with the game you can continue, but don't ask why. You know. The why is simple: the ego cannot exist in emptiness, it needs something to fight with. Even a ghost of your imagination will do, but you need to fight with someone. The ego exists only in conflict, the ego is not an entity, it is a tension. Whenever there is a conflict, the tension arises and the ego exists;' when there is no conflict the tension disappears and the ego disappears. Ego is not a thing - it is just a tension.

And of course nobody wants small tensions, everybody wants big tensions. If your own problems are not enough, you start thinking about humanity and the world and the future... socialism, communism, and all that rubbish. You start thinking about it as if the whole world depends on your advice. Then you think, 'What is going to happen in Israel?

What is going to happen in Africa?' And you go on advising, and you create problems.

People become very excited, they cannot sleep because there is some war going on. They become very excited. Their own life is so ordinary that they will have to reach extraordinariness from some other source. The nation is in difficulty so they become identified with the nation. The culture is in difficulty, the society is in difficulty - now there are big problems and you become identified. You are a Hindu and the Hindu culture is in difficulty; you are a Christian and the church is in difficulty. The whole world is at stake. Now you become big through your problem.

The ego needs some problems. If you understand this, in the very understanding the mountains become molehills again, and then the molehills also disappear. Suddenly there is emptiness, pure emptiness all around. This is what enlightenment is all about - a deep understanding that there is no problem.

Then, with no problem to solve, what will you do? Immediately you start living. You will eat, you will sleep, you will love, you will have a chit-chat, you will sing, you will dance - what else is there to do? You have become a God, you have started living.

If there is any God, one thing is certain: he will not have any problems. That much is certain. Then what is he doing with all his time? No problems, no psychiatrist to consult, no gurus to go and surrender to... what is God doing? What will he do? He must be getting crazy, whirling. No, he is living; his life is totally full with life. He is eating, sleeping, dancing, having a love affair - but without any problems.

Start living this moment and you will see that the more you live, the less problems there are. Because now that your emptiness is flowering and living there is no need. When you don't live, the same energy goes sour. The same energy which would have become a flower, is stuck; not being allowed to bloom it becomes a thorn in the heart. It is the same energy.

Force a small child to sit in the corner and tell him to become completely immobile, unmoving. Watch what happens...just a few minutes before, he was perfectly at ease, flowing; now his face will become red because he will have to strain, hold himself. His whole body will become rigid and he will try to fidget here and there and he will want to jump out of himself. You have forced the energy - now it has no purpose, no meaning, no space to move, nowhere to bloom and flower; it is stuck, frozen, rigid. The child is suffering a short death, a temporary death. Now if you don't allow the child to run again and move around the garden and play, he will start creating problems, he will fantasize; in his mind he will Create problems and start fighting with those problems. He will see a big dog and he will get afraid, or he will see a ghost and he will have to fight and escape from him. Now he is creating problems. The same energy that was just a moment before flowing all around, in all directions, is stuck and becoming sour.

If people can dance a little more, sing a little more, be a little more crazy, their energy will be flowing more, and their problems will by and by disappear. Hence I insist so much on dance. Dance to orgasm; let the whole energy become dance, and suddenly you will see that you don't have any head - the stuck energy in the head is moving all around, creating beautiful patterns, pictures, movement. And when you dance there comes a moment when your body is no longer a rigid thing, it becomes flexible, flowing.

When you dance there comes a moment when your boundary is no longer so clear; you melt and merge with the cosmos, the boundaries are mixing.

Watch a dancer - you will see that he has become an energy phenomenon, no longer in a fixed form, no longer in a frame. He is flowing out of his frame, out OT his form, and becoming more alive, more and more alive. But only if you dance yourself will you know what really happens. The head inside disappears; again you are a child. Then you don't create any problems.

Live, dance, eat, sleep, do things as totally as possible. And remember again and again:

whenever you catch yourself creating any problem, slip out of it, immediately. Once you get into the problem then a solution will be needed. And even if you find a solution, out of that solution a thousand and one problems will arise again. Once you miss the first step you are in the trap. Whenever you see that now you are slipping into a problem, catch hold of yourself, run, jump, dance, but don't get into the problem. Do something immediately so that the energy that was creating the problems becomes fluid, unfrozen, melts, goes back to the cosmos.

Primitive people don't have many problems. I have come across primitive groups in India who say they don't dream at all. Freud would not be able to believe that it is possible.

They don't dream, but if sometimes somebody dreams - it is a rare phenomenon - the whole village fasts, prays to God. Something has gone wrong, something wrong has happened... a man has dreamed.

It never happens in their tribe because they live so totally that nothing is left in the head to be completed in the sleep. Whatsoever you leave incomplete has to be completed in your dreams; whatsoever you have not lived remains as a hang-over and completes itself in the mind - that's what a dream is. The whole day you go on thinking. The thinking simply shows that you have more energy than you use for living; you have more energy than your so-called life needs.

You are missing real life. Use more energy. Then fresh energies will be flowing. Just don't be a miser. Use them today; let today be complete unto itself; tomorrow will take care of itself, don't be worried about tomorrow. The worry, the problem, the anxiety, all simply show one thing: that you are not living rightly, that your life is not yet a celebration, a dance, a festivity. Hence all the problems.

If you live, ego disappears. Life knows no ego, it knows only living and living and living.

Life knows no self, no center; life knows no separation. You breathe - life enters into you; you exhale you enter into life. There is no separation. You eat, and trees enter into you through the fruit. Then one day you die, you are buried in the earth, and the trees suck you up and you become fruits. Your children will eat you again. You have been eating your ancestors - the trees have converted them into fruits. You think you are a vegetarian? Don't be deceived by appearances. We are all cannibals.

Life is one, it goes on moving. It comes into you; it passes through you. In fact to say that it comes into you isn't right, because then it seems as if life comes into you, and then passes out of you. You don't exist - only this life's coming and going does. You don't exist - only life exists in its tremendous forms, in its energy, in its millions of delights.

Once you understand this, let that understanding be the only law.

And start living as Buddhas from this very moment. If you decide otherwise, it is for you to decide - but as I see it, it is a decision: 'I am not going to befool myself anymore.

Now I start living as a Buddha, in emptiness. I will not try to find unnecessary occupations. I dissolve.'

Question 3:

I notice that deep down I want to be loved, accepted, like the
greatest man on earth, that I want to be the most famous
person. And I feel hurt when someone rejects me. What to do
with these dreams?

If you understand that they are dreams then wash your face and have a cup of tea. What is there to be done about it? Dreams are dreams - why be bothered?

But you don't understand that they are dreams. This is borrowed. You know that they are not dreams - that s why you are worried. Otherwise why be worried? If in a dream you see that you have fallen ill, when you wake up in the morning do you go to the doctor?

In my dream I was very ill and now some medication is needed. You never go. You realize it was a dream - finished! What is the point of going to a doctor?

But you have not yet understood that these are dreams. These are realities for you - hence the problem.

I NOTICE THAT DEEP DOWN I WANT TO BE LOVED. If you want to be loved - love! Because whatsoever you give is returned back. If you want to be loved forget about wanting to be loved, and in a thousand ways love will come to you. Life reflects, life resounds, life echoes whatsoever you throw at life. So if you want to be loved forget about wanting and being loved - that is not the point at all then. Then simple is the rule - love.

And if you want to be accepted like the greatest man on earth, then start accepting everybody as the greatest man on earth. Otherwise how are they going to accept you as the greatest? They are also on the same trip. They are not going to accept you as the greatest because then what will happen to them? If you are the greatest, then who are they? Nobody wants to be anything else.

Once it happened, a friend of Mulla Nasruddin was talking to Mulla Nasruddin. They had met after many - years. Both were bitter rivals; both were poets. Both started to boast about the progress they had made in their careers.

'You have no idea, Nasruddin, how many people read my poetry now,' bragged the friend. 'My readers have doubled.'

'My God, my God!' cried Nasruddin. 'I had no idea you got married!'

Everybody is on the same trip. If you want people to accept you as the greatest man on earth, let this be the rule: whatsoever you want others to do for you, do for them. But that is the trouble. The ego wants you to be the greatest man on earth - nobody else. Then you will feel hurt. Because all are on the same trip - can't you understand the simple point? They are also waiting for you to accept them as the greatest man.

I heard Mulla Nasruddin once. He was delivering a political speech.

He Said, 'It is with some trepidation that I address an audience of people all of whom are smarter than I am... all of them put together, that is.'

Everybody is trying to be at the top of the world - then you are in competition with the whole world. Remember, you are going to be defeated. One man fighting against the whole world - that is the situation.

If you see the point, there are two ways. One, forget about this trip, be ordinary, simple, whatsoever you are. There is no need to be great, the only need is to be real. Great is the wrong goal. To be real.... I have come across a hip slogan: Be realistic - plan for a miracle. Yes. that s how it is. If you ale really realistic, you start living the miracle. And the miracle is: if you are real, you don't want to be bothered with competition, comparison. Who bothers? You enjoy your food, you enjoy your breathing, you enjoy the sunlight, you enjoy the stars, you enjoy life, you enjoy being alive - you are perfectly in tune. in harmony with the Whole. What is the point of being a great man? The great men, the so-called great men, are almost always phony - they have to be. They cannot be real persons. They are plastic. Because they have chosen a wrong goal: to be great is an ego goal; to be real is existential.

If you want to be great you will be in continuous conflict. And of course you will be hurt by everybody. Not that everybody is trying to hurt you, they are doing their own trip.

You are unnecessarily coming in their way.

Get out of this rat race. Sit under the tree by the side of the road; it is tremendously beautiful and silent. Otherwise be ready to be hurt.

One politician used to come to me. Once he was the president of the Indian National Congress - a great man in India.

And he told me, 'I am such a simple man. Why do people go on spreading nasty things about me? Why do people want to hurt me?'

I told him, 'Nobody wants to hurt you. You are unnecessarily coming in their way. They also want to be president of great parties - you are standing in their way. They have to push you away.' I told him, 'You just remember what you did to the president before you.

The same thing they are trying to do with you - leg-pulling.'

Once you are in a power post you are continuously being pulled and pushed. It has to be so.

Ramakrishna used to tell a beautiful story.

A bird was flying with a dead mouse and twenty or thirty birds were chasing him. The bird was very much worried.

'I am not doing anything to them, I am just carrying my dead mouse. They are all after me.'

And they hit him hard and in the conflict, in the struggle, the bird opened his mouth and the mouse dropped. Immediately they all flew towards the mouse; they all forgot about him.

Then he sat upon a tree and brooded.

They were not against him, they were also on the same trip - they wanted the mouse.

If people are hurting you, open your mouth. You must be carrying a dead mouse! Drop it!

And then sit - if you can, sit on the tree or under the tree and brood. And suddenly you will see that they have forgotten about you. They are not concerned. They never were concerned. The ego is a dead mouse.

Jones' oldest daughter had just given birth to a beautiful baby and Jones was being congratulated.

He looked downcast, however, and a friend said, 'What's the matter, Jones? Don't you like the idea of being a grandfather?'

Jones heaved an enormous sigh. 'No,' he said, 'I don't, but that doesn't bother me so much.

It is just that it is so humiliating to have to go to bed with a grandmother.'

Just watch your mind - how it creates problems. The woman remains the same but now she has become a grandmother - and one feels humiliated.

It is your idea that is giving you humiliation. If you are really concerned with your own well-being then nobody is hurting you - just your own ideas. Drop them.

Or, two, it you feel good with them, don't be worried about the hurts. Carry them. But you have a decision inside. If you want the ego trip, if you want to be the greatest man in the world, then everybody is going to prove that you are the worst man in the world.

Then have courage and heart to suffer all that. It is futile, but if you choose that way, it is your choice. If you really want your well-being and your inner calm and silence and bliss, then these hurts are indicative: you are carrying some wrong ideas within you.

Drop those ideas.

Question 4:

I don't have a question - just a feeling of hopelessness. I can't
believe my questions, I have a feeling they come from
something brittle and unreal.

I DON'T HAVE A QUESTION - JUST A FEELING OF HOPELESSNESS. How does hopelessness arise? You must be hoping too much; it comes out of too much hope.

If you don't hope, all hopelessness disappears. If you expect too much, frustration is bound to come. if you are trying to succeed, you are bound to fail. Whatsoever you want to try too hard, just the opposite will happen.

You must have been trying too hard to fulfill some hope then hopelessness comes. If you really want to get rid of hopelessness - and everybody wants that - then get rid of hope. Drop all hope and suddenly you will see that with the hope, hopelessness has disappeared. Then one comes to an inner tranquillity where no hope exists - and no hopelessness. One is simply calm and quiet and collected - a deep reservoir of energy, a pool of energy, cool.

But for that you have to sacrifice hope. The question shows that you are still hoping....

Go a little more deeper and further: if you are really hopeless, hopelessness will disappear.

Let me tell it to you another way. Whenever a person says that he is hopeless he simply says he is still clinging to the same hope which has proved to be futile, of which there is no indication of being fulfilled at all. One goes on holding it, hoping against all hope.

Then hopelessness continues.

Don't hope for anything. There is no need because all that you can hope for is already given. What more can you hope for?

You are here, everything is here - just being is all. But you don't appreciate, you are asking for some dead mouse, some power trip, some ego trip, some success in the eyes of the world. Those are not going to be fulfilled, even Alexanders have failed. Even Alexander dies a poor man, a beggar, because everything that you accumulate is snatched back from you, you go empty-handed. Empty-handed you come; empty-handed you go.

So why bother about success, riches, power - material or spiritual? Just be.... And being is the greatest miracle. Turn within yourself - what Buddha calls PARABVRUTTI.

Turn yourself a complete turn, a total turn, and suddenly you are so full of joy, you don't need anything. In fact you have so much that you would like to shower it on others.

But things go on moving from one extreme to another. You hope - then by and by the pendulum moves towards hopelessness. If you are too much in love with life, by and by you move towards suicide. If you are too religious, by and by you move and become anti- religious. The pendulum goes on moving towards the opposite.

Somewhere in the middle one has to stop. And if you stop in the middle, time stops with you. And when time stops, all hope, all desires have stopped. You start living. Now, now is the only time and here is the only space.

Let me tell you one story. It is a very beautiful Jewish anecdote.

Young Sammy Moskowitz had just bought himself a motor scooter, but he had been brought up in orthodox fashion and wasn't the least bit sure whether it was fitting for an orthodox Jew to ride one. He thought that the best way out would be to get his reverend rabbi to teach him a barucha - a traditional prayer of blessing - to intone over the motor scooter before he drove it. Surely that would make it proper for him to use it.

He therefore approached his rabbi and said, 'Rabbi, I have bought a motor scooter and I wish to know if you could teach me a barucha to say over it each morning.'

The rabbi said, 'What is a motor scooter?'

Sammy explained, and the rabbi shook his head. 'As far as I know, there is no appropriate barucha for the occasion and I strongly suspect that riding a motor scooter is a sin. I forbid you to use it.'

Sammy was very downhearted for from his very soul he longed to drive his motor scooter, which had set him back a considerable sum. A thought occurred to him. Why not seek a second and perhaps more liberal opinion - from a rabbi who was not orthodox, but merely conservative?

He found a conservative rabbi, who, unlike the orthodox rabbi earlier consulted, was not in the traditional long coat at all but wore a dark business suit. The conservative rabbi said, What is a motor scooter?'

Sammy explained.

The rabbi thought for a while, then said, 'I suppose there's nothing wrong about riding a motor scooter, but still I don't know of any appropriate barucha and if your conscience hurts you without one, then don't drive it.'

He journeyed out to the suburbs and met Rabbi Richmond Ellis, in his knickerbockers, about to leave for the golf-links on his motor scooter.

Sammy grew terribly excited, 'It's all right for a Jew to ride a motor scooter?' he said. 'I've got one but I didn't know.'

'Sure, kid,' said the rabbi. 'Nothing wrong with the motor scooter at all. Ride it in good health.'

'Then give me a barucha for it.'

The reformed rabbi thought, then said, 'What's a barucha?'

The orthodox doesn't know what a motor scooter is and the progressive is not aware of what a barucha is.

From religion, too much dogmatic religion, people become too irreligious. When they leave the church, they move to the prostitute.

Somewhere a deep balance is needed. Just between the two, exactly between the two, is transcendence.

So, you have lived with hope - now the hope has failed and you are living in hopelessness. Now, let hopelessness also fail; you drop hope and hopelessness together.

You just transcend that attitude which lives in the future. Live here now! Living in hope is living in the future, which is really postponing life. It is not a way of living, but a way of suicide. There is no need for any hope and there is no need to feel hopeless. Live here now. Life is tremendously blissful, it is showering here and you are looking somewhere else. It is just in front of your eyes, but your eyes have moved far away, they look at the horizon. It is within you, but you are not there.

I am not for hope; I am not for hopelessness. I am against all extremism. All excess is futile.

Buddha used to say, 'My path is the middle path.' That is the path of transcendence.

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