---
section: Library
booktitle: "Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "TAO2"
dategiven: "06 March 1977 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #10"
chaptertitle: "The Song of All Songs"
acode: "7703060"
shorttitle: "TAO210"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "115mins"
displaytitle: "Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2: Chapter #10"
---

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The first question:
<p class="question">JESUS, BUDDHA AND T.D. SUZUKI HAVE BEEN MY MASTERS FOR FIVE YEARS NOW. WHENEVER I HAD A PROBLEM I WOULD CALL ON JESUS' NAME FOR HELP. NOW YOU ARE MY MASTER. WHAT CAN I DO WITH THE REST OF THEM? JESUS SAYS A MAN CAN ONLY SERVE ONE MASTER. HE WILL EITHER LOVE ONE AND HATE THE OTHER, OR HATE THE ONE AND LOVE THE OTHER. PLEASE COMMENT.</p>


THE FIRST THING: to be a disciple does not mean to be monogamous. To be a disciple simply means to be ready to learn. A real disciple becomes connected through one Master to every other Master possible. Your Master becomes a link to all the Masters of the past, present and future.


But human mind is very narrow. We turn everything into jealousy and possessiveness. At least don't do that with the Master. It is difficult for you to conceive of how you can love two Masters but the problem arises because you consider two Masters as two. If you have really loved me you have loved Jesus through me, you have loved Buddha through me, you have loved Zarathustra through me. If you have really loved me and you have seen me, you have seen all the Masters. If you have not loved and not seen me then the problem will arise. Then there will be a choice -- whether to choose Jesus or Buddha or me.


And if the question arises it means that you are not yet a disciple, you are not related to me at all. If you are related to me then there is no problem. Then suddenly you will feel for the first time that you are related to all known and unknown Masters. They will all become alive through me. That is the meaning of a Master. If a Master closes your mind and makes you narrow, he is not a Master at all.


Remember it. You can still call on Jesus, you can still call on Krishna. There is no competition between me and them. In fact, my whole effort here is to make you able to call them more intensely. When you call Jesus, really you have called me; when you call me, really you have called Jesus. These are just names. Jesus is an emptiness, the emptiness we were talking about just the other day. His whole heart -- all the seven holes of the heart -- are open. He is a door. So is Buddha, so is Krishna. How can you make a distinction between two emptinesses? Can you?


I have heard. A small boy was playing in the garden when his father came home from the office, tired. The boy was very jubilant and he asked his father, 'What do you do in the office the whole day?'


The father was so tired that he was not interested in the kid's question so he said, 'Nothing.' The boy stood there, puzzled for a moment, and then said, 'But how do you know when you are finished doing it?'


If you do nothing how do you know when it is over? If you do something you know when it is over because there is a definition. But 'nothing' has no definition.


If Jesus is nothing and Buddha is nothing and I am nothing, where do you make a definition? How do you demark where your Master ends and Jesus begins? There is no fence between me and Jesus so if you enter into me you have entered Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu -- you have entered all . If you enter Jesus, you have entered me. So drop these foolish ideas.


But it will certainly be easier for you to be related to me. I am here alive, present, Jesus has not been here for two thousand years. Whatsoever you know about Jesus is not about Jesus but about the people who have said things about Jesus. Whatsoever you know about Jesus is not direct, is not immediate. Two thousand years of corruption, two thousand years of distraction, two thousand years of interpretation, have changed a lot. The meaning of choosing a living Master is that you can know the dead Masters too. Jesus cannot be know directly -- two thousand years are standing between you and him, millions of screens, much smoke. Whatsoever you know about Jesus is doubtful, is not certain. It cannot be certain. Even while you are facing me whatsoever you know about me is doubtful, so what to say about Jesus and what to say about Krishna -- after five thousand years?


And Krishna has been corrupted more than Jesus -- because Hindus are great scholars. Jesus' followers were very simple people -- a fisherman, a farmer, a woodcutter. Even if they had wanted to corrupt Jesus they couldn't have. They were not efficient enough. They were not knowledgeable people. But with Hindus there are the Brahmins and the pundits. Krishna's lot is far worse because of all these Brahmins and commentators and interpreters -- and two thousand years of commentaries.


The Bible has not a single commentary, the Gita has one thousand commentaries. Now if you want to know what Krishna said, it is almost impossible. You will go mad if you go through all the one thousand commentaries. And those are the famous ones, I am not talking about ALL the commentaries. If all the commentaries were counted there would be thousands and thousands. If you go through all these commentaries you will simply go crazy because they are saying such diverse things -- things which are diametrically opposite to each other. How can you connect with Krishna?


The only way to make a connection is to find a living Master to whom you can surrender -- a living Master who is still in the body, whose emptiness is still shrouded and shrined by a body and a mind, whose inner space exists still within flesh. Through him you will have a taste of emptiness and through that taste you will know all the people who have ever existed on the earth -- because the taste of emptiness is the same.


Just think of it in this way. When you go into a palace the walls are of marble, but when you go into a poor man's cottage, a hut, the walls are different. They may consist only of bricks, or maybe just of leaves and bamboos. But the inner space of the palace and the hut are the same. The walls differ -- the palace has marble walls, very costly, and the poor man's hut has bamboo walls -- but the emptiness that is surrounded by the palace walls and the hut walls is the same.


The space is the same. Krishna speaks one language, Buddha another, Jesus another still, but the meditation, the inner experience, is the same.


If you have chosen me -- let me say it to you -- if you have chosen me you have chosen all. Through me you will be able to understand all those who have lived before and all who are going to live after. I can promise about the future even, because the taste of emptiness is never going to be different. Many more enlightened people will walk on the earth -- tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, centuries after centuries. We don't know their names but that doesn't matter because whenever there is an enlightened man on the earth the taste will be the same. You try to taste me. The taste is so clear -- it is the taste of hot chillies -- you cannot miss it!


JESUS, BUDDHA AND T.D. SUZUKI HAVE BEEN MY MASTERS FOR FIVE YEARS NOW. Good, they prepared you to come to me, otherwise you would not have been here. Feel grateful, feel thankful. And always remain thankful to them because without them you would not have been here. They have prepared the path. Sometimes it happens that if you had come to me five years before, you may not have understood a word. Suzuki must have prepared you, Krishnamurti must have helped you. They have given you a direction, now you can understand me better.
Let me tell you one very beautiful story.


Master Tennen Tanka, a great Zen Master, once visited a temple and stayed there for the night. The abbot of the temple was very happy because Tennen Tanka was a very famous Master and it was a great blessing to the temple that he had come. But during the night Tennen did something which was unbelievable to the abbot. It was a cold night and Tennen burnt a wooden Buddha to create a fire. The abbot of the temple was shocked. When he saw the fire in the temple he rushed in and found that one great Buddha statue was missing and the head was there just half burnt. He cried, 'What have you done? Are you mad? You have burnt my Buddha!'


Tennen laughed and poked the ashes with his staff. The abbot asked, 'What are you doing now, you mad man?' Tennen said, 'I'm trying to find the relics of the Buddha' -- the bones, what the Hindus call flowers.


It was the turn of the abbot to laugh. He said, 'You are certainly mad. A wooden Buddha has no relics.' Tennen asked. 'Are you certain'?' The abbot said, 'Yes, I am certain. How can a wooden Buddha have relics?' Then Tennen said. 'Bring other Buddhas too. Your temple has many, you need not have so many. And the night is cold and I am shivering. See the living Buddha is shivering and the wooden Buddhas are sitting on their pedestals. Bring them.'


The abbot could not do it but Tennen brought another two Buddhas and threw them in the fire. At that moment the abbot became a little doubtful about his own saying that a wooden Buddha has no relics. Now he started feeling guilty. If he had not said that, at least two Buddhas would have been saved. Now he was guilty. This man was mad but what was he doing here and why didn't he stop him? But he couldn't. He himself had said that a wooden Buddha had no relics so how could he stop Tennen?


A great doubt arose in him and therefore, the story says, the abbot tell into hell.


But not Tennen. He had burnt the Buddha but he never fell into any hell -- he reached nirvana.


A strange story, very illogical. If Tennen had gone to the seventh hell we would have understood. It serves him right. But Tennen is in nirvana, sitting with Buddha himself, maybe taking a cup of tea, gossiping. And the abbot is suffering in the seventh hell. These Zen people are strange. What type of stories do they make?


But there is logic in it, great logic in it. The logic is that when Tennen burnt the Buddha there was no doubt in his mind, not a single doubt. In fact, it was not a Buddha at all, it was just wood. What nonsense to call wood Buddha. Just because you have carved a form on it does not make it a Buddha. Because he was so certain he could bring two more statues and enjoy the fire -- and the night was certainly cold.


I am all in favour of what Tennen did. He did well. And Buddha must have enjoyed it in nirvana! Sitting there in his moksha he must have enjoyed it. This man was doing well, perfectly well. That's what he had been teaching his whole life: don't look for the formless in the form, don't look for the message in the word. Go deeper. Enter into the formless. Don't look for the soul in the body. Go deeper. Reach the inner emptiness.


And that's what Tennen had done. When he poked his staff in the ashes what was he saying? He was saying that this was simply a wooden body, there were not even bones in it. So what to say about the soul? This is just wood, dead wood. He was absolutely certain; his certainty was utterly absolute.


But the abbot doubted. He became a little doubtful. 'What have I said? Have I committed a crime?' He must have shivered deep in his backbone. He must have trembled. That fear, that doubt, that trembling, threw him into hell.


If you have really come to me, the problem of what to do with Jesus and what to do with Krishnamurti and what to do with Suzuki will never arise. If the doubt arises it simply shows that you are still on the way -- you have not yet arrived. You are just in the middle, hanging in limbo, between the past and the present.


If you come to me you will see all the faces that you have ever loved. Sometimes my face will be that of Krishnamurti. Those who are close, they know. Sometimes my face will be that of Krishna. Those who love me, they know. Sometimes my face is that of a Buddha. Those who have really surrendered, they have seen it.


You are still a little far away, you are still wavering. The past pulls you back. You cannot go head-long. If you come really close the question will dissolve on its own and you will not need to do anything with Jesus or Buddha or Suzuki or Krishnamurti. And remember, they have prepared you.


In this story of Tennen there is another part. I would like to tell that too.


It is said that when Tennen himself was a seeker he went to a great Master whose name was Matesi. Matesi looked into his eyes, shook his head and said, 'No, no, I am not your Master -- at least, not now. Go to Sakito.' Sakito was a Master who was an opponent of Matesi. His monastery was on a nearby hill. Matesi said, 'No, no, I am not your Master -- not yet. You go to Sakito. He is your Master. He didn't say, 'He will be,' he said, 'He is.'
So Tennen went to Sakito.


Now have the delicate and subtle taste of it. Because Tennen had accepted Matesi as his Master, he had to follow his advice. He couldn't say, 'I will not go. You are my Master.' That would have been foolish, that would have been disobedient. He said, 'Okay, Master, if you say so, I can go anywhere. Sakito is my Master.'


The others who were present thought, 'Poor chap, where is he going? He should have insisted on staying. He should have forced himself. He should have waited at the door and fasted and insisted that Matesi was his Master and that he would stay with him. Poor chap. Where is he going?' But Tennen was really innocent. He said, 'Okay, if you say so, I can go anywhere. If you send me to hell I will go there.'


He went to Sakito. For three years he served the Master meditated, served, meditated, served. After three years the Master said, 'Now you are ready. I am going to initiate you into sannyas.' Tennen came, bowed down to his feet, and said, 'Yes, Master, you initiate me.' Not a single doubt arose in his mind, 'What is happening now? If he initiates me what about my Master, Matesi? In fact, I am his disciple. He has sent me here and now I am getting into trouble. This man says he will initiate me.' Sakito shaved his head as Buddhist BHIKKHUS have to be shaved and told him to repeat the vow of a Buddhist BHIKKHU. He said, 'Whatsoever I say, you repeat it.' But when Tennen heard the first sentence he closed both his ears and ran away laughing.


The Buddhist monk has to take a vow, a traditional vow: 'I will never commit any crime, I will never commit anything illegal, I will not steal, I will not murder, I will not do this and that' -- a thousand and one things, it is a long list. The moment Sakito told him 'You take this vow' Tennen put his hands over his ears so he wouldn't hear, laughed, and escaped. And Sakito's disciples said, 'We had always thought that he was a little mad.'


Somebody followed him, caught hold of him outside the ashram and asked, 'What is the matter?' He said, 'I have never committed any sin. How can a man commit a sin? The whole teaching of the Buddha is that all doing is false, illusory. I have never committed anything wrong and how can I commit it in the future? What type of nonsense is this vow? I am going to my Master and I am going to hit him hard. Why did he send me to such a fool?'


He rushed to his old Master's monastery but the Master was not there. When he went into the temple only the Buddha statue was sitting there. He jumped onto Buddha's shoulders and he sat there mounted on them. And he was so mad that a few disciples of Matesi came and looked from the outside and said, 'He looks mad. Sitting on Buddha!' They rushed to the Master and they said to him, 'A queer monk has come and has mounted upon the shoulders of the wooden Buddha. What shall we do?'


Matesi himself came to see. He recognised the young seeker and he recognised his awakening too. He said, 'You are so innocent. You are nature itself, rao itself. Tennen means nature, Tao, innocence. And now I am your Master and you are my disciple.'


Tennen came down from the wooden statue, fell at the Master Matesi's feet and said, 'I am grateful to you for giving me my monk's name.'


And the Master said, 'Now I am your Master and you are my disciple. Those three years were needed with Sakito. Those three years were a must.'


So, being with me should make you feel grateful to whomsoever you have been with before. And I am not saying that only about Krishnamurti, Jesus, Suzuki and people like that, I am saying it about even the ordinary people you have lived with the parents you were born to and the friends and enemies that you had and the teachers under which you studied in the school, college, university. They were all part of your growth. If a single one had been missing you would not have been here.


So feel grateful to your parents, to your friends, to your enemies, to your Masters, to your teachers; feel grateful to all your relationships that have existed in the past -- because this is the culmination of them all.


And don't ask such a question: NOW YOU ARE MY MASTER WHAT DO I DO WITH THE REST OF THEM? No, it is bad taste. Worship them. Continue to worship them, continue to be grateful to them.


JESUS SAYS A MAN CAN ONLY SERVE ONE MASTER. You have misunderstood Jesus. When he says that, he is not saying that you cannot serve two enlightened Masters. He is not comparing two enlightened Masters; he is not saying you can serve only Jesus or Buddha or Krishna -- he is not saying that. Christians have interpreted it in that way -- that you can serve only one Master, and if you believe in Jesus you have to believe in Jesus absolutely, you have to believe that Jesus is the only door, the only begotten son. Others may be good, saintly people but not real enlightened Masters.


This is absolutely a misinterpretation of Jesus' saying. When Jesus says you can serve only one master, look at the context. He was talking about either serving money or serving God. That was the context. Either you can serve the world the worldly desires -- greed, ambition, politics -- or you can serve God -- meditation, desirelessness, peace, silence. You cannot serve two Masters. That was his reference. You cannot serve mammon and God both together.


A person cannot be religious and political together, not even a person like Mahatma Gandhi. Nobody can be religious and political together. If you are really political, religion will be a pretension; if you are really religious you will not bother about politics. Who bothers? Or at the most, politics will be a pretension. But a person cannot be both together because politics needs ambition, desire, competition, jealousy. All the poisons are needed. Religion says drop all the poisons, purification is needed.


When Jesus says you cannot serve two Masters he means you cannot serve the outer and inner together. He is not comparing Buddha and Krishna and himself.
Beware of interpretation.


Whenever you are reading words of Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, be very careful. Your mind can play tricks with you. Your mind can colour them with your own prejudice.


I understand why this problem arises. This problem arises because our minds are very narrow, monogamous. You can love only one woman, you can love only one man. Even mothers think that they cannot love all their children in the same way. If you insist, they will say that one is a favourite. This is because of the narrowness of the mind, because you think love has to be directed. Love need not have any direction, love need not be a relationship, love can be just a state of your being. In fact, a man is satisfied only when he becomes love, not loving -- when he becomes love.


The greatest, the deepest longing inside your heart IS not to become more loving, the deepest desire is to become love. What is the difference? When you are loving, you will be loving to somebody -- and when you are loving to somebody, others will be in the shadow. When you focus your mind on one thing, everything else goes out of focus. When you are looking exclusively at one thing, everything else is excluded, bracketed out. Love can be a concentration, then it is monogamous; love can be meditative, then it is not monogamous. And when love is not monogamous, then it is religious, spiritual .


You are listening to me. You can listen with concentration -- as it is being taught in the universities. Concentrate! Out of fear and greed you concentrate, otherwise you will fail in the examination, you will not come first, you Will not get the merit, you will lose the possibilities of a good job and money and a car and a good house -- this and that. So you concentrate because of fear. That's why the closer the examination comes, the more the students are able to concentrate -- because the fear and the greed are becoming more actual, they are becoming solid realities. Concentration is out of fear and greed.


Meditation is totally different. When you concentrate you close your mind to everything else. Meditation means just an openness, a relaxed openness. It is not concentration. While listening to me you are listening to the birds singing in the trees too. The wind passing through the trees singing its song -- you are open to it too. The aeroplane passing by, or the train -- yoU are open to it too. This is meditation -- you are simply open, available, conscious, available, all doors are open.


It would be very poor if you are only listening to me because these birds singing in the trees are a background music to what I am saying. They enrich it, they are not distractions. They don't distract the mind. They distract the mind only if you are concentrating -- remember it. Distraction is only a by-product of concentration. If you are concentrating the bird is disturbing you because it distracts. The bird will not distract you if you are not concentrating. Be simply available here, whatsoever happens be available, open, with all the doors open. If it starts raining, be open; if it starts a storm, be open; if the clouds thunder, be open -- whatsoever happens be open. Then your openness is total.


And you are open to me too because I am also happening here. And I would like to tell you that if you are open in such a way, your understanding will grow -- but if you are concentrating on me your knowledge will grow. If you are concentrating on me, on what I am saying, then you will cling to the words. That's why one concentrates -- so that not a single word is missed. You go on holding. You don't want to miss a single word. But you are missing the whole life.


If you are simply open here, meditatively open, you will listen to what I am saying in just the same way as you listen to the birds as they sing: Then both will enter into you together and you will have no choice -- you are choicelessly silent.


Then your understanding will grow. Then you may not remember what I have said but you will understand what I have said. Then you may not be able to go and reproduce what I have said -- you may say that you have completely forgotten -- but you have absorbed it, you have digested it. It will show in your life although it may not show in your knowledge. It may not be possible for you to give a discourse on me, but it will transform your life in a subtle way. The next time you are angry suddenly you will find the quality is different. The next time you are making love to your woman or your man you will find the quality is more meditative, is less sexual. The next time somebody insults you, suddenly you will find that nothing is disturbed, you are not hit by it, it has not touched any wound. The next time you will be standing before the mirror you will start laughing at yourself.


You have laughed at others but that is violent. When one starts laughing at oneself one is being a little wiser. Then one knows the whole ridiculousness, one's own stupidities. And when a man starts laughing at himself he is becoming less ridiculous, he is becoming more and more aware, alert -- that's why he can laugh. He can see his own foolishness. And when you can see your own foolishness you can become wise. Only fools are not aware that they are fools; wise people are always aware that there are a thousand and one stupidities. The more wise you become, the more aware you are -- aware about everything.


Listen to me in a meditative way and love me in a meditative way, then my love will not distract you from Jesus, Krishna, Buddha. Then my love will enrich all your loves, my love will enrich your life. I am here to enrich you, not to impoverish you. Without Jesus you will be a little poor, certainly a little poor. Such a beautiful person as Jesus has not to be forgotten, has not to be thrown into oblivion. And such a beautiful man as Buddha....


Humanity has suffered very much because of this monogamous mind. The Buddhists will not think of Jesus at all and the Christians will not think of Buddha. What a calamity! What a curse! If a Christian can love Buddha also, his Christianity will go very deep and if a Buddhist can understand Jesus also he will understand Buddha far more, far better. And if you can understand Mahavir and Mohammed and Zarathustra and Lao Tzu all together, and you can love them all together as a different expression of the same divine certainly your life will be the life of an emperor. Right now it is just the life of a beggar. A Christian is a beggar, a Hindu is a beggar, a Mohammedan is a beggar -- I want you to become kings, kings of kings.


All these people have sung the same song, the song of all songs. Languages differ, expressions differ, gestures differ, but the content is the same.

The second question:
<p class="question">IS THERE A POSSIBILITY, SIR, THAT PEOPLE WILL MISUNDERSTAND YOU?</p>


You say a possibility? Every possibility, sir! At the best they will not understand me, at the worst they will misunderstand me. It is happening every day.


Just the other day I talked about being natural and authentic in your relationship. So one sannyasin outside the camp jumped on another sannyasin and they beat each other up. They thought that I had said it -- I said be natural. They must have been feeling angry, they must have been feeling antagonistic to each other -- they must have been carrying it.


Now I have said be natural, and I have said don't worry about the consequences -- so they were fighting about a woman and they were at each other's necks. And the woman ,was sitting and looking at the whole affair. She seems to have understood better.


There is every possibility that I will be misunderstood. These words are dangerous. Whatsoever I am saying is like a sharp sword. If you are not very alert, aware, you will cut your own head or somebody else's. It has been always so. Jesus and Lin Chi and Bodhidharma have all been misunderstood.


In fact, Zen has become so appealing in the West not because people understand it but because it has the greatest possibility of being misunderstood. No other religion has that much possibility. It has the most potential. You can misunderstand Zen so easily that much intelligence is not needed to misunderstand it. To misunderstand Hinduism a little intelligence will be needed; to misunderstand Buddha a little more understanding will be needed; to misunderstand Jainism you will have to be really very intelligent. But to misunderstand Zen, no, nothing is needed. Anybody is capable of misunderstanding it.


Says Lin Chi, the founder of Rinzai Zen in Japan: 'No effort is necessary, do nothing special. Just move your bowels, urinate. put your clothes on, eat your meals, and when you are tired go and lie down. The stupid may laugh at you but a wise man will understand. He who exerts himself is surely a fool. Now the beat generation has understood it perfectly well -- the hippies and the yippies and all. They say that they are doing their thing, and Lin Chi says that this is the way.


But you have not heard another saying of Lin Chi and it is fortunate that hippies don't know about it otherwise there would be great danger. The other saying is: 'On the way, kill anything you meet, kill the Buddha, kill your Master, kill your parents and relatives. Only then can you be liberated.' Now this is certainly an open licence to murder! It is very fortunate hippies have not heard about it because it is very easy to misunderstand such a great statement.


'Kill everything that you meet on the way.' The way is the way of meditation. When you go in and you are meditating whatsoever comes in on the way, kill it. Don't shirk it. Because whatsoever you allow on the way will become a hindrance. You are seeking emptiness, you are seeking a no-mind -- then anything that is allowed will be part of the mind. When a Buddhist sits, the Buddha is there -- Lin Chi was a Buddhist so he knows about Buddha. When you are a Buddhist and you sit in meditation then everything disappears except Buddha. All is gone. He remains in tremendous glory, in great luminosity -- but he has to be thrown out also, out of the way. Otherwise that will hinder the path.


A Hindu knows. When everything else has gone then Krishna is still standing there with his flute, playing.


Ramkrishna knew it well. When everything went and his mind was becoming almost -- I say almost -- empty, Kali would be standing there. He had loved the idea of Kali so much that it was difficult for him to push Kali aside, impossible. Even to think of its seemed sacrilegious. Push Kali aside? No. But that was the barrier. When he was learning the last meditative step from Totapuri, Totapuri said, 'You have to kill this Kali. This won't do. This woman is too much of hindrance. Gather courage.'


And Ramkrishna closed his eyes. He wanted to kill her because now he knew well that only one barrier remained. But when he closed his eyes he forgot. The woman was so beautiful -- the mother of the whole universe -- she was so enchanting. He completely forgot about Totapuri and all the nonsense he had been talking about. And Totapuri was sitting in front of him and Totapuri knew that he had forgotten because his eyes started swelling with tears and tears and he started swaying and dancing. And Totapuri said, 'Stop! Again, again you are doing the same thing!' And Ramkrishna opened his eyes and he said, 'It is difficult, Master. It is very difficult, it is impossible. I can kill my mother, I can kill my father, I can kill my wife, I can kill myself, I can kill you -- but Mother Kali? The very idea simply disappears when I close my eyes and she is there, luminous, in all her glory. The very idea is not there. I forget again and again, I am sorry.'


Then Totapuri said, 'This is the last time, because I cannot stay any longer. Enough of your stupidity and your Kali.' He rushed out. In the street he found a piece of glass which he brought in. And he said, 'Now close your eyes. The moment I feel that your tears are coming and the Kali has come I will cut your forehead with this piece of glass, hard. Blood will start coming. When I cut your forehead, remember that you have to cut the Kali in two.' Ramkrishna said, 'But how will I cut and with what?' Totapuri said, 'How will you cut and with what? How did you create the Kali? By imagination. If you can create Kali by your imagination, create a sword by your imagination. Or take the sword that Kali carries in her hand. Borrow it and kill her!'


The Master was hard and he threatened that he would leave immediately if he was not followed. So Ramkrishna closed his eyes and started swaying. Totapuri cut his forehead so hard that the mark remained for the rest of his life. When his forehead was cut he remembered. In a single moment of courage he took the sword from Kali's hand and cut the Kali in two. She fell, one part on one side, another on the other side, and opened the emptiness between the two.


For six days Ramkrishna was in samadhi. When he opened his eyes after six days, the first words that he uttered were, 'The last barrier has fallen.'


Now this is what Lin Chi is talking about -- the last barrier. So he says, 'On the way kill anything you meet. Kill the Buddha, kill your Master, kill your parents and relatives only then can you be liberated.'


But you can become murderers. Please don't kill anybody at the gate. You may be carrying the idea for many days.


What I am saying here has to be understood very, very delicately, safely. You are not to bring your foolishness into it. Otherwise, rather than being helped by it, you will be destroyed by it. Truth is dangerous. If you can't take help from it, it will destroy you. Truth is dangerous because it is potential, it is powerful, it is fire. You are playing with fire when you come close to truth. If you are not alert you will be burned. A little mistake and you will be burned.


When Moses saw God on Mount Sinai he committed a little mistake. When he saw God he naturally rushed towards him. But God shouted, 'Wait! Throw your shoes away. This is holy ground.' Moses had forgotten to throw his shoes away.


Now this is simply symbolic. The Jews have never been able to understand the meaning of this. Shoes protect the feet. Your mind is the shoe of your soul. As shoes protect the body, the mind protects the soul. The Jews have been thinking that God was worried about the shoes. What nonsense! The whole earth is a holy ground because everything is full of God. No, he was not talking about the shoes; in fact, he is even in the shoes. That's why we cannot show where God is -- because where to show? He is everywhere. Even if I point with my finger -- that there is God -- he is in the finger too.


You cannot point out where God is, no. The shoes are a symbol. Just as shoes protect the body, so the soul is protected by the mind. 'Throw your shoes away' means 'Throw your mind away, Moses. Don't rush at me through the mind otherwise you will be burnt.' If you rush to God through the mind it means that you will interpret, you will bring in your prejudices, your ideas, your thoughts. Naturally you will miss.


Then God said, 'Go back and tell your people that nobody is to come on the mountain while I am here. And say it particularly to the priests because they may try to come.' Moses said, 'But why?' God replied, If they come they will be burnt, they will be burnt utterly. Go down and tell your people that nobody is to come. And tell the priests particularly that they are not to be allowed because they are the most irreligious people. They are pretenders. They may think that because they are priests they are needed, that when God is there they should go, but they cannot see me.'


In old Tibet there is a saying that if you see God and you are not prepared, you will die. Truth is dangerous. And what I am giving to you here is truth, bare truth, naked truth. I am not even dressing it up in any way. So you have to be very, very careful. Your responsibility is great. If you cannot understand what I am saying then please know that you don't understand; don't interpret it in your own way. Keep your shoes off, otherwise there is every possibility that you will misunderstand, you will misinterpret. Then your whole life will go in a wrong direction.


Walk very carefully and cautiously. You are on holy ground.

The third question:
<p class="question">I WOULD LIKE YOU TO ANSWER ME, TO TELL ME SOMETHING, BUT I DON'T KNOW THE QUESTION.</p>


EVEN if you know the question, the answer cannot be told. And when you don't even know the question then it becomes even more impossible.


What question can be answered? If answers were enough to answer questions, all questions would have disappeared long ago. But not a single question has disappeared. In fact, each answer creates more questions. No answer has been able to dissipate questions; each answer has created ten more questions. Humanity has more questions now than ever; five thousand years of thinking have created millions of questions, and not a single problem is solved. That's the whole story of philosophy.


Bertrand Russell has written in his memoirs: 'When I was young and I went to university, I went to study philosophy with the idea that it would answer my questions. But when I came out of university I started laughing at the whole ridiculousness of it -- because my old questions remained the same They became more sophisticated, that is true, but they remained the same. And from university I got a million more questions. Not a single question was answered and millions more were created.'


No answer is possible because really the question is not a question. When a question is there you may be able to feel it correctly or not correctly; when a question is there it simply shows that there is some block in your consciousness. The question is not the thing, it is the block. The block shows that you are not flowing as you should flow, that something is going wrong. It is not only a question, it is a question of an energy going wrong. Something is missing in your life, something that is needed, very much needed, and you are groping for it but you cannot name it or say what it is.


That's the situation. You say: I WOULD LIKE YOU TO ANSWER ME, TO TELL ME SOMETHING, BUT I DON'T KNOW THE QUESTION. In fact, even those who ask so many questions don't know what they are asking. That's why you go on asking again and again and again but still you feel you have not asked the right question yet.


A great, sensitive soul, Gertrude Stein, was on her death-bed. Suddenly she opened her eyes and said to the friends who were around, 'What is the answer?' They were puzzled because she had not asked any question. Somebody said, 'But what is the question? You have not asked the question.' She opened her eyes again and she said, 'So, okay. What is the question?' And then she died.
And we don't know what was in her heart.


Yes, that is the situation of man: you don't know the question, you don't know the answer, you don't know exactly what you want to ask. You go on asking many things and many answers are given to you, but no answer fits because, in fact, the question has not yet been asked.


Unless you ask the real question how can any answer help? But that real question is not an intellectual thing, let me tell you, that real question is, 'Who am I?' All other questions are just formulations of this basic question.


Somebody asks 'What is God?' but that is not a real question. If you don t know yourself, how you are supposed to know God? Somebody asks 'Who created the world?' but that is meaningless. You don't even know how you came into existence, what to say about the world? First try to solve your own mystery. Encounter it.


So the basic question of all questions is, 'Who am I'?' How to answer it? Can somebody else answer it for you? That is not possible. How can I say who you are? If you cannot say it yourself, how can I say who you are? Whatsoever I say will again become information in the head.


I can say that you are God and you will carry this idea that you are God, but again and again you will feel that this is not right -- because somebody insults you and the God becomes very angry. And then you feel, 'What type of God am I?' And somebody takes your woman and you want to murder him and then you think, 'What type of God am I?' And you see a beautiful woman going by and lust arises in you and you say, 'What type of God am I?' And then you see a car and you want to have that car and you think, 'What type of God am I? Hankering for a car?' There are so many small things, very small things, so small that you feel embarrassed if you have to talk about them. They are very small things -- there is not enough salt in your dahl and the God is furious; the tea is cold and the God throws the tea and the kettle and everything on the floor and becomes mad.


Now trouble arises because Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, me, we all go on saying, 'You are God.' The answer is right but you are not at the point where you can catch it. You are not ready for it.


The more you look into yourself, the more you feel yourself to be like a dog rather than like a God. You simply become puzzled about all the great things that have been said about you. They have been said about you? These Upanishadic seers, they are saying that you are Brahma. You? Were these people just mad, saying things and not knowing what they were talking about? You, and Brahma? Not possible. You have not accepted it, you cannot, it is impossible. Hence you have created God in your own image. The Bible says God created man in his own image but the truth is just the reverse. You cannot trust this idea that God has created you in his image because that will create many difficulties in your life. So you have created a God in your own image.


If you go and look at your Gods... look at the Jewish God. The Jewish God said, 'I am very jealous.' How beautiful. This seems to be a man-created God. The Jewish God said, 'I am a very jealous God. If you don't follow me, I will destroy you, I will throw you into hell. And don't worship any other God. I am the only God.' And the Mohammedan God and the Christian God are very jealous. 'Destroy all other Gods. I am the only God.' This seems to be very human, it doesn't look very godly. God seems to be very political, he doesn't seem to be very religious. He cannot tolerate other Gods'? God should be more non-serious, more playful.


Hindus have playful Gods but when you see the Hindu Gods play you will find human faces. Brahma created the world and created the first woman and fell in love with her -- his own daughter -- and started chasing her. A very Hindu God! More like Hindus than like God. Chasing his own daughter! And the daughter became very much afraid -- naturally. She started rushing about, hiding herself in different forms. She became a cow, and the God became a bull -- definitely a Hindu God! When the woman becomes the cow the God becomes the bull. And she tried all forms that is how all the animals were created. She became a bitch so the God became a dog. This seems to be a more human idea. Rather than thinking that you are God you would like to think that God is human.


And if you look at Hindu Gods you will see that they are very much afraid. Sitting in heaven Indira is always afraid. If some poor rishi starts meditating deeply, his throne starts trembling. He becomes very much afraid. He sends beautiful girls to corrupt the rishi. Now the rishi has not done anything, he was just meditating. but Indira sends beautiful girls to corrupt him. He is afraid for his status. If this rishi attains to the ultimate he may become the next Indira, or he may claim Indirahood. These Gods are very jealous, very ordinary.


If you look into Hindu PURANAS YOU will be surprised. The stories seem to be about man, not about God at all.


Brahma and Vishnu once went to see Shiva. There was some trouble. In the first place, trouble should not exist in the world of God... but there there was some trouble.


Some political party must have been creating some trouble and they could not figure out what to do. The ASURAS, the devils, the opposite political party, have always been creating trouble for Gods.


So Brahma and Vishnu went to Shiva because he may be able to help. He is a dangerous fellow. This is just as politicians go to hooligans when they cannot manage! This Shiva is the God of death. He is dangerous. And he has very dangerous company -- ghosts and all sorts of Beelzebubs and devils and satyrs. They are all his disciples. So he may be needed. Whenever there is some real problem he is needed.


They went to see him. The guard tried to stop them but nobody feels good about the guards. You don't, nobody does. They pushed the guard aside. They said, 'Krishna, you keep away. It is urgent, it is an emergency.' They pushed aside the guard and entered, rushed in. Shiva was making love to Parvati. It was not very polite of them to rush in but the problem was such that they didn't bother about courtesies. They stood there but Shiva is Shiva, he didn't bother at all. They were standing and he said, 'Okay, stand.' Hours passed and he went on making love and making love and they got fed up and they said, 'Stop!' But Shiva wouldn't listen. Parvati was very embarrassed. She closed her eyes... since then all women have made love with closed eyes. Shiva was so involved that he was not even aware that somebody was standing there.


Vishnu and Brahma felt very much offended. This was a great insult. So they cursed Shiva: that forever and ever. he would be remembered by his sexuality -- hence the linga and yoni, the symbol of Shiva. The linga and yoni are male and female sexual organs. That became symbolic of Shiva.


These are very human stories. Can you improve upon them? It is impossible. They are very human stories. Too human. all too human. Rather than thinking that you are a God. you create Gods in your own image. No, if I say that you are God, this answer won't help -- you will have to find your own answer.


The question is existential; you will need an existential answer. The question is out of your being; only out of your being can the real answer come. You will have to go deep inside yourself. First ask, 'Who am I?' Ask, 'Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?' Let this question penetrate into every fibre and cell of your body and your mind. Let your whole bodymind vibrate with the question, 'Who am I?' It will take months, sometimes years, but it pays. Let your whole being vibrate with one question, 'Who am I?' Let this question sink so deep that whatsoever you are doing the question remains vibrating deep down, 'Who am I?' Walking, eating, talking, listening, the question goes on pulsating deep, deep down, 'Who am I? Who am I?' By and by the question will not be verbal, it will be just a feeling -- 'Who am I?' not verbal, not these words, 'Who am I?' It will be just a question mark in your being, just a questioning, a quest.


And then one day, when your total being is so full of the question that your whole being has become a question-mark, the answer comes. It will not be verbal, it will not be somebody saying, 'Listen, Tushita' -- the question is from Tushita -- 'Listen, Tushita.' Nobody will say that. Suddenly something will explode, as a seed explodes, as a bud opens. And you will be full of the fragrance. When you open your eyes all questioning has disappeared, all problems have disappeared. Then you live the life of no problems. And only then will you live, only then will you be. Then everything is a benediction. Each breath is a blessing -- and all, all is nirvana, all is God.


That is what is needed deep down in you, Tushita. You ask: I WOULD LIKE YOU TO ANSWER ME, TO TELL ME SOMETHING, BUT I DON'T KNOW THE QUESTION. It is good that you don't know, because if you know the question it is bound to be the wrong thing. This is the question. But don't use it as a question because the answer is not going to come from the outside the answer is hidden in the question itself. The question is a seed, the outermost core of the answer, and the answer is the hidden tree in the seed. Take the question as a seed and become the soil for it. A 'skullful' soil will do, your head becomes the soil -- that is what I call 'skullful' soil. Only one question, only one question, only one question -- you become pregnant with the question. And the pregnancy becomes so deep that you cannot forget it in any moment. Even while .you are sleeping it will be there. Even in your sleep, in your dream, the question will continue -- 'Who am I?' Not so much in words, remember -- again I repeat, not so much in words -- but the question will be there, 'Who am I?' pulsating, streaming, moving, moving deeper and deeper and deeper. And one day it reaches to the very core, it hits your heart, the inner space, the heart space. And then something opens.


If you can ask rightly within your own being, you will come to the right answer. And that is the only answer -- the one you come to yourself.

The fourth question:
<p class="question">HAVING BEEN TOUCHED, CAN I PASS THROUGH THE WHIRLPOOL OF YOU VERY FAST? SINCE NOTHING PLEASES OR DISPLEASES WILL I CEASE TO BE IN CONTACT WITH YOU AND YOUR LOVE BY NO LONGER WEARING ORANGE AND THE MALA?</p>


FIRST, you ask: having been touched can I pass through the whirlpool of you very fast? That shows you have not been touched. I have touched you but you have not been touched because those who have been touched don't want to pass through it at all. You ask Taru. She will say she does not want any nirvana.


If it is a question of choosing between enlightenment and me, those who have been touched will choose me. And because of this choice they will become enlightened. If you are still choosing enlightenment against me you will not achieve it, at least not through me. You will not achieve it.


You are in such a hurry you have not been touched. You are simply greedy.


This person has taken sannyas only one week ago. You are in too much of a hurry. You don't understand what you are saying. You don't understand what you are seeking. You don't understand where you are. You don't understand to whom you are talking.


You say: HAVING BEEN TOUCHED CAN I PASS THROUGH THE WHIRLPOOL OF YOU VERY FAST? If you have been touched you will want to reside in this very whirlpool forever and forever. You will not want to get out of it. If you have been touched you have fallen in love. Who wants to get out of love? If you want to get out of it, it simply means you are not in love at all. You just want to go through it so that you can maybe gain something. You are not a sannyasin. You have taken sannyas but you are not a sannyasin. You only have orange clothes and the mala and nothing else. Your heart has remained uncoloured. And when the heart is uncoloured, whether you keep the mala and the orange or you don't, it doesn't matter. Even if you keep them you are not in contact with me. So dropping them doesn't matter. You can drop them .


I will not say this so easily to others if I see that their heart is getting coloured, dyed in my colour. I will not say to them 'Drop your mala and clothes' easily, I will not say it at all. But to you I can say it because you only have the mala and the clothes and nothing else. The 'plus' is missing -- hence the question.


And you ask: SINCE NOTHING PLEASES OR DISPLEASES WILL I CEASE TO BE IN CONTACT WITH YOUR LOVE.... You are already out of the contact. Just by being here do you think you are in contact? Just by listening to me for four or five days do you think you are in contact? Just by breathing in the meditation and jumping a little do you think you are in contact? Then you don't understand at all. Contact takes time. Contact takes your commitment, needs your commitment. If you are not committed to me how is the contact possible?


And when I say 'Nothing pleases or displeases me' I am saying it about me. It will not displease me at all if you all drop orange -- it will not displease me at all. It has not pleased me that you have taken orange.


That is not a problem. If nobody comes here I will be as happy as I am now. If the whole world comes here I will be as happy as I am now. My happiness is my inner quality. It does not depend on you, I am not dependent on you. My happiness is mine. That sometimes hurts you too. You would like me to be dependent on you. You would like me to go after you and say, 'Don't do it. It will hurt me very much.' You would like me to persuade you because it will help your ego to feel more inflated. But my happiness is an independent phenomenon. I am simply happy -- not for any reason at all. You or no you doesn't make any difference.


But it will make much difference to you. You can drop the clothes -- it will not make much difference to me at all, but it will make a difference to you.


You say: WILL I CEASE TO BE IN CONTACT WITH YOUR LOVE BY NO LONGER WEARING ORANGE AND THE MALA? As far as my love is concerned it will go on showering on you -- because it is unconcerned with you. Please try to understand it. When I am showering my love on you it is not a concern of mine It is not that I don't shower my love on you, or I do shower my love on you -- as if it is a choice. It is not a choice. I am not showering love on you, I am love. When you are not there then too it is showering, when I look at the trees then too it is showering, when I look at the rock then too it is showering.


You are not special. I am not doing anything special to you. It is just the way I am. It is very ordinary. It is simple. It is just as if I am alive in front of you, not because of you. If you go away I will not die. You are not the cause of my breathing. You will go away, I will breathe -- breathe with the trees, breathe with the stars. But even if stars go away and trees go away that will not change anything because I am not causally related that way. In the same way is my love. I am not showering it on you. Yes, it is being showered but nobody is showering. There is nobody to shower it. I am love.


But it will make much difference to you. If you drop the mala and the orange, you will become closed. You will not be able to receive. It can be raining but if you put the pot upside down the clouds will go. on raining. They don't depend on the pot to be right side up, they don't wait for it, they will go on raining. It is irrelevant whether the pot is right side up or right side down. Whether it is upside down or not doesn't matter, the rains will go on falling. But if the pot is upside down it will not collect any rainwater. Or, even if it is right side up and closed, then too it will not gather water. Or, even if it is not closed and gathers water but has leakages, then too it will miss. And the clouds will go on showering. They are not particularly addressing their water to a particular pot.


I am not addressing my love particularly to you. But it depends on you. If you want it to get into your heart you will have to remain open.


These clothes and the mala are just gestures, symbols that you are open towards me, that you show from your side that you are related. From my side there is no relationship possible. All relationship is from your side. There is no Master here, there are only disciples. The Master is dead. A Master is a Master only when he is not. The day I came to know, that same day I disappeared. It is an absence, it is an emptiness, a nothingness.


If you want to receive this nothingness you will have to be causally related to me, you will have to be open towards me. These orange clothes and mala are nothing. They are just gestures. But very significant as far as you are concerned.


How does it matter to me whether you wear orange or not? How is it concerned? But to you it matters much because you live in these small things. You are still your clothes because you are still your body. The mala and the locket mean much to you because you still think of yourself as the picture. When you look in the mirror you think that this is you. To me it makes no difference. It is not my picture because there is no possibility of getting a photograph of me. All that you will get will be only of the form And I am not the form. That is the whole message.


So, if it pleases you, drop wearing orange and the mala -- but think before you do that, meditate over it. The first foolish thing you did was that you became a sannyasin -- you must have become a sannyasin without thinking about it. Now this will be a second foolish thing -- to get out of it without thinking. So please, at least, when you are going to do the second foolishness be a little more alert.


I have heard about Mulla Nasruddin. He took his pay one month and there was a ten-rupee note extra. The accountant must have counted wrongly. But he was happy.


Next month there was a ten-rupee note missing so he immediately complained. The accountant said, 'Mulla, and what about the other time when I had given you a ten-rupee note more? Then you didn't complain.'


Mulla said, 'Listen. When a mistake is committed once, it is okay. But when it is committed twice, I complain.'


So remember it. You have committed a mistake once, now don't be so foolish again.

The last question:
<p class="question">WHEN I FEEL COMPASSIONATE IT IS MY HOLIER-THAN-THOU ATTITUDE; WHEN LOVING, TOO SAD AND SERIOUS; WHEN PLAYFUL, IT IRRITATES. SHOULD I KILL MYSELF AND LESSEN OTHER PEOPLE'S MISERY?</p>


Good idea! Really good! But again with a wrong basis. You ask: SHOULD I KILL MYSELF AND LESSEN OTHER PEOPLE'S MISERY? Again you will feel holier-than-thou. Even after you have killed yourself you will roam like a ghost and haunt people and you will say, 'Listen, I killed myself for you.'


Live for yourself, and if you want to kill yourself, kill for yourself. A man can be allowed to kill himself for himself if he has lived for himself -- never before it. Because if you cannot live, if you cannot even live for yourself, how can you kill yourself for yourself'? It will be impossible.


Life is the first step, death is the second. Death is a higher phenomenon. Those who are not able to live rightly cannot die rightly. How can you die rightly when you were not even able to live rightly? You missed the primary school and you are trying to enter the university. You will not pass there. Life is simple, death is very complex. First live.


But your life seems to be wrong. You say: WHEN I FEEL COMPASSIONATE IT IS MY HOLIER-THAN-THOU ATTITUDE. Compassion has not to be directed towards others. A real compassion always feels happy when somebody accepts your compassion your love. He has made you grateful. You have to thank him. When somebody accepts your love, you have to thank him. He could have rejected it -- then what? He could have said 'No, I don't need your compassion' -- then what? He gave you a chance to show your love. He helped you to flower. You have to be grateful.


But ordinarily we think he has to be grateful that we showed him so much love. Nonsense. By showing your love to him he may not have flowered, he may even have been crushed. But you have flowered. The real gain is yours. The real gain is of the one who loves: It may be the other's, it may not be the other's, it depends -- but the real gain is always of the one who loves. The loved one may not gain anything, may even be harmed. Love can become a suffocation. Love can kill the other. So many children are killed by the mother's and the father's love and so many husbands are killed by the wife's love and so many wives are killed by the husband's love. People suffocate each other and they say, 'We love you.' And the more they love, the more they suffocate you, they don't allow you any freedom.


Love is not necessarily a blessing to the other but to the one who loves it is always a blessing. So the lover should feel grateful. Drop this attitude of being holier-than-thou. You are not obliging anybody else. When the flower flowers and the perfume is released to the winds, the flower does not feel that he has obliged anybody. When the sun rises and millions of flowers open and millions of birds sing and the whole earth becomes awake, the sun does not feel that he has obliged anybody. It is his nature. He is happy in being himself.


Your compassion seems to be wrong-rooted. You are thinking in terms of serving people. You are a dangerous person, you are a do-gooder. And these are the most mischievous people on the earth. You can become a mahatma. Avoid it. Enjoy that you love, that you have compassion, that you serve somebody -- enjoy it. It is an opportunity to flower, to bloom.


And then you say: WHEN LOVING I FEEL TOO SAD AND SERIOUS. Yes, because when you are loving and somebody loves you, being compassionate is simple. You are compassionate, you don't take anything from the other. In love you have to take something from the other. That hurts you. You? How can you take anything from the other? It is difficult to give, it is far more difficult to take -- because in giving, the ego is fulfilled, but in taking, the ego is hurt.


Hence Patanjali says in his Yoga Sutras: Neither give nor take. He does not mean don't give and don't take -- because then life would not be possible. Even he has given the Yoga Sutras No, he doesn't mean that. He means this: in giving, don't think that 'I am giving' and in taking, don't think that 'I am taking'.


You will be surprised that in Hindi we don't have any equivalent word to 'thank you'. DHANYAVAD IS there but it is artificial, it has been created. It has been created to translate 'thank you'. Otherwise in Hindi we don't have any word for thank you'. This is something. The society which has existed for thousands of years -- the oldest society in the world -- has no word for 'thank you'. Why? Because it is always God who gives and God who takes, so who are we to take a 'thank you' or give a thank you'? That is the meaning of it. Who are we? We are just instrumental. In Hindi, if you say thank you' to somebody -- DHANYAVAD -- it looks a little awkward, it looks a little out of place.


Can you think of thanking your mother? I have never said DHANYAVAD to my mother. And I have everything to thank her for but I have never said thank you and I cannot say it. That word simply seems meaningless. She has not thanked me, she cannot. The word seems meaningless.


When you say 'thank you' to somebody it means he has done something to you, he is the doer. And then, when you do something to somebody, you wait for the 'thank you'. Then you are waiting silently -- 'Give the thank you'. Otherwise you will get angry.


In the Western society 'thank you' is very common. People are very false. Even a son can say 'thank you' to the father and to the mother. In the West it seems cultured, in the East it seems uncultured. Just to think of saying 'thank you' to your mother is impossible. It cannot even be thought of.


It is always God who takes, who gives. Sometimes he takes from my side, sometimes he gives from my side. Sometimes he becomes a giver and sometimes he becomes a taker but it is always he. So who is there to thank and to be thanked? Nobody. It is one reality. That is the meaning of Patanjali when he says: Don't take, don't give. He is saying: Let God be the giver, let God to be taker -- you don't come in.


It is difficult to give because of the holding mind -- but not as difficult as to take. Because when you take, it hurts. It hurts very much. You have to take something from somebody. It makes you sad. You are on an ego trip.


WHEN LOVING I FEEL SAD AND SERIOUS, WHEN PLAYFUL, IT IRRITATES. Yes, an egoistic person cannot play. How can you fall so low as to be playful? Playfulness is for children, ungrown-ps. Playfulness is for foolish people. A serious person like you -- how can you be playful?


It happened in one camp. Two sannyasins were found playing cards. A great political leader, one of the oldest M.P.s in India, was also in the camp and those two sannyasins were staying just by his side. He could not believe it. Sannyasins playing cards? He rushed to me. He was a very old man, seventy-five, renowned all over the country. It was late in the night, eleven o'clock, when he knocked on my door and he said, 'What is happening? What type of sannyasins have you created?'


I said, 'What has gone wrong that you have to come in the middle of the night?' He said, 'Two sannyasins are playing cards.' Now what is wrong in it? Who else can play cards if sannyasins cannot play? But he said, 'I thought the whole idea was they should be serious seekers.'


They are seekers, but why should they be serious? Have you ever heard of any person who has been serious and has attained to God? God is very playful. Can't you see the whole existence is so playful, so celebrating? If your mahatmas go to God they will not like it very much. They will say, 'What do you go on doing? Why do you go on creating butterflies? Why in the first place are there so many flowers'? Why so many trees? Why so many stars? Why?' God is excess. You exceed all limits only when you are playful. God is extravagant. God is very luxurious. That's why in India we call him Ishvar Ishvar means: the ultimate in luxury. It comes from the word AESVARYA, which means the ultimate in luxury. Play is ultimate luxury. Poor people work, rich people play.


And when a person becomes such a total player that he plays at whatsoever he is doing -- his whole life is play -- then he is the richest man in the world. He may not have a single PAI, that is not the point.


Just look at me. What I am saying to you is not a serious phenomenon. I enjoy. It is play. I play with these words. I play with you. And I would like you also to be playful here. It is not a serious place. This ashram is not a serious ashram -- in fact, the very word 'ashram' means where you rest and play. The very word 'ashram' means rest, relaxation.


I can understand. You are on a big ego trip. So the playfulness irritates you.


SHOULD I KILL MYSELF AND LESSEN OTHER PEOPLE'S MISERY? Please don't do that otherwise you will haunt other people. Right now you are in the body so you cannot do much harm. If you become a ghost.... You will become a ghost -- because such people have never been heard to go to heaven and recently I have heard that even the Devil has started rejecting them. Hell is too full of these people.


Just a few days ago a politician died. Naturally he knocked first at heaven's door. He was thinking that he would be received there. But the doorkeeper said, 'Sir, this is not the place for you.' He said, 'I am a great politician, a great leader.' He said, 'That I know, but leaders and politicians are never allowed in this place. You go to the other place.'


This was not V.I.P. treatment but what to do? Now he was alone and a nobody. Very reluctantly he went to the other place. The Devil looked at him and said, 'No, enough! We have enough of them, these politicians.' So he said, 'What do you mean? Have I to go back to New Delhi? No place in heaven, no place in hell,.so have I to go back to New Delhi again?'


A ghost is not allowed anywhere nowadays. You will haunt these people. If you live, live for yourself; if you die, die for yourself. Let your life never be a life of a martyr. Let your life be always a life of a lover, not a martyr. Let your life be always a celebration, not a sacrifice.
			

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