2 Aloneness is the last achievement

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‌CHAPTER 2

Aloneness is the last achievement

2 May 1976 am in Buddha Hall

The first question:

Question 1

DOES A DISCIPLE STEAL SOMETHING FROM HIS MASTER?

Everything!

Because the truth cannot be taught, it has to be learned. The Master can only tempt you, make you more and more thirsty for it; but he cannot deliver it to you – it is not a thing. He cannot simply transfer it in your name – it is not a heritage. You will have to steal it. You will have to work hard in the dark night of the soul. You will have to find ways how to steal it. The Master only tempts you; he simply provokes you. He shows that something is there, a treasure, and now you have to work hard. In fact, he will create all sorts of obstacles so that you cannot reach to the treasure very easily. Because if you reach to the treasure very easily, you will not have grown; you will lose that treasure again. It will be a treasure in the hands of a child. The key will be lost, the treasure will be lost.

So not only do you have to steal, but the Master has to work in such a way that you become able to steal only when you are ready. He has to create many obstacles. He goes on hiding the treasure. He will allow you only when you are ready. Just your greed or your desire is not enough, but your readiness, your preparedness; you have to earn it. And it is like stealing because the effort has to be made in the dark, and the effort has to be made very silently. And there are a thousand and one obstacles on the path, temptations to go away, temptations to get distracted. The help of the Master

is really to make you more skillful, to give you the knack of how to feel whether the treasure exists here or not.

Living with the Master, surrounded by his climate, slowly, slowly, a certain awareness arises in you. Your eyes become clear and you can see where the treasure is. And then, you work hard for it. The Master gives you a glimpse of the far-away peak of the Himalayas – snow-covered, shining in the sun – but it is far away and you will have to travel. It is going to be hard, it is going to be uphill. There is every possibility that you may get lost. There is every possibility that you may miss the goal, you may go astray. The closer you come to the peak, the possibility of missing becomes bigger and bigger, greater and greater – because the closer you come to the peak, the less you can see the peak. You have to move just by your own alertness. From far away you can see the peak; it is difficult to lose the direction. But when you have reached the mountains and you are moving upward, you cannot see the peak. You have simply to grope in darkness, so it is more like stealing. The Master is not going to give to you easily. It can be allowed very easily – the door can be opened right now – but you will not be able to see any treasure there because your eyes are not trained yet. And even if, just on trust, you believe that this is very, very valuable, you will lose your trust again and again. Unless you feel and know that this is valuable, it is not going to be kept for long; you will throw it anywhere.

I have heard about a poor man, a beggar, who was coming with his donkey on the road. The donkey had a beautiful diamond just dangling on his neck. The beggar had found it somewhere and thought it looked beautiful, so he had made a little ornament for the donkey, a necklace. One jeweller saw it. He reached to the poor man and asked, “How much will you take for this stone?” The poor man said, “Eight annas will do.” The jeweller became greedy. He said, “Eight annas? – for just this small stone? I can give you four annas.” But the poor man said, “For four annas why take it away from the donkey? Then I’m not going to sell.” The jeweller said that the beggar would sell, so he went a little far away. He would come back to persuade. But by that time, another jeweller saw it. He was ready to give one thousand rupees, so the poor man sold immediately because the other was not even ready to give eight annas. And this jeweller looked almost mad; one thousand rupees he offered! -The first jeweller came back but the diamond was gone. He said to the poor man, “You are a fool! You have sold it just for one thousand rupees; it was worth almost one million RUPEES!” The beggar laughed, “I may be a fool – I am – but what about you? I did not know that it was a diamond, and you knew it and you would not take it even for eight ANNAS.”

You can get the diamond; it will be taken away from you. You cannot keep it for long. It will be stolen unless you yourself understand how valuable it is. So you have to grow.

The work of the Master is very paradoxical. The paradox is: he provokes you, he invites you, and goes on hiding the treasure. He has to do both simultaneously: he has to tempt you, seduce you, and yet, he is not to allow you an easy approach. Between these two very paradoxical efforts: provoking, continuously provoking.…

I go on speaking every day; this is nothing but temptation, an invitation. But I will hide it to the last unless you have become capable of stealing. I am not going to give it; it cannot be given. You can only steal it. But you will become, by and by, a master thief. The temptation will make you. What will you do? I will tempt you and nothing will be given to you. What will you do? – you will start thinking of how to steal it.

Nothing happens before its right time; truth, at least, never happens before its right time. And if I try to give it to you, it will never reach you in the first place. Even if it reaches, you will lose it again. And... it will not be an act of compassion on my part if I give it to you. My compassion has to be hard. My compassion has to be so hard that you go on crying for it and I go on hiding it. On the one hand, I tempt you; on the other hand, I hide it. Once tempted, you will become, by and by, crazier and crazier. You will find ways; you have to find ways. Because only through finding, searching, seeking ways, inventing, innovating, enquiring new paths, getting out of the old patterns, finding new patterns, new disciplines, will you grow, will you become rich. In fact, the moment you have grown, suddenly the truth is there within you. One just has to recognize it, but that recognition comes the hard way. You will have to stake everything that you have: that is the meaning of stealing. It is not a business: it is not a bargain. It is like stealing.

Think of the thief: he stakes everything for something which is not known, which he doesn’t know whether it is really there or not. He stakes his property, he stakes his family, he stakes his own life. If he misses and something goes wrong, he may be in prison forever. He’s a gambler; very courageous. He’s not a businessman. He stakes everything for something which may be there or may not be there. The businessman has a dictum: he says, “Never lose your half bread in the hand for a whole bread in the future, in imagination. Never lose that which you have for that which you don’t have.” That is the dictum of the businessman, the businessman’s mind.

The thief follows another dictum totally: he says, “Put everything that you have at stake for something that you don’t have.” For his dream, he stakes the real. It is just a ‘perhaps’. He risks all his securities for something very insecure. That’s where courage is.

So rather than being a businessman, be a thief, be a gambler. Because the unknown can be found only when you are ready to drop the known. When the known ceases, the unknown enters into your being. When all security is lost, only then do you give way for the unknown to enter in you.

The second question:

Question 2

CANNOT ONE ENJOY LIFE ALONE? BECAUSE I AM NOT SO AWARE, THAT MOVING INTO WATER WITHOUT GETTING WET, OR GOING THROUGH FIRE WITHOUT GETTING BURNT CAN BE POSSIBLE FOR ME. CANNOT ONE ENJOY LIFE ALONE?

At least the questioner cannot enjoy, because one who can enjoy will never ask the question.

The very question shows that it will be impossible for you to enjoy being alone. Your aloneness will deteriorate and become loneliness. Your aloneness will not be a fullness; your aloneness will be loneliness – empty.

Yes, out of fear you can settle in it. Out of the fear of getting wet in the water, out of the fear of getting caught in the fire; out of fear, you may settle. Many have settled. Go to the monasteries; look into the old ashrams: many have settled just out of fear.

Relationship is a fire; it burns. It is difficult. It is almost impossible to live with someone. It is a constant struggle. Many have escaped, but they are cowards. They are not grown-ups; their effort is

childish. Yes, they will live a more convenient life, that’s true. When the other is not there, of course, everything goes easily. You live alone – with whom to get angry? – with whom to get jealous? – with whom to fight? But your life will lose all taste. You will become tasteless; you will not have any salt.

Many escape from life just because life is too much, and they don’t find themselves capable of coping with it. I will not suggest that; I am not an escapist. I will tell you to fight your way through life, because that is the only way to become more aware and alert; to become so balanced that nobody can unbalance you; to become so tranquil that the presence of the other never becomes a distraction. The other can insult you but you are not irritated. The other can create a situation in which, ordinarily, you would have gone mad, but you don’t go. You use the situation as a stepping- stone for a higher consciousness.

Life has to be used as a situation, as an opportunity to become more conscious, more crystallized, more centered and rooted. If you escape, it will be as if a seed escapes from the soil and hides in a cave where there is no soil, only stones. The seed will be safe. In soil, the seed has to die, disappear. When the seed disappears, the plant sprouts. Then dangers start. For the seed there was no danger: no animal would have eaten it, and no child would have broken it. Now the beautiful green sprout, and the whole world seems to be against it: the winds come and they try to uproot it, clouds come, and thunders come, and the small seed is fighting alone against the whole world. There are children and there are animals and there are gardeners, and millions of problems to be faced. The seed was living comfortably, there was no problem: no wind, no soil, no animals – nothing was a problem. It was closed completely into itself; the seed was protected, secure.

So you can go to a cave in the Himalayas: you will become a seed. You won’t sprout. Those winds are not against you; they give you an opportunity, they give you challenge, they give you an opportunity to get deeply rooted. They tell you to stand your ground and give a good fight. That makes you strong.

You see, one eucalyptus tree is here. Just to protect it, Mukta placed a bamboo by the side when the tree was small. Now it has gone so long, but it cannot stand on its own. The bamboos are still there and now it seems impossible. Once you remove the bamboos, the whole tree will fall down. The protection will have proved to be dangerous. Now the tree has become accustomed to protection. It has not grown in strength, it has remained childish.

Challenges are growth opportunities, and there is no greater challenge in life than love. If you love someone, you are in a tremendous turmoil. Love is not all roses as your poets say; they are all fools. They may have dreamed about love but they have never known it. It is not all roses. It is more thorny than you can imagine. Roses are rare, here and there; thorns are millions. But when out of a million thorns a rose arises, it has a beauty of its own. Love is the greatest danger in life. That’s why I insist that if you really want to grow, accept the greatest danger and move into it.

People have tried to find many ways of avoiding it. Some have left the world. Why are you so afraid of the world? The fear of the world is really fear of love, because when others are there, the possibility is there that you may fall in love with someone. There are so many beautiful souls around, so many attractions; you may get caught somewhere. Danger... escape! A few have escaped to the monasteries, a few have escaped in other ways. A few have escaped into marriages. That too is an escape. The monastery is an escape, and marriage is also an escape – to avoid love.

One never knows what will be the outcome of a love affair. It is always on the rocks. It is never convenient, it is never comfortable. It may bring you moments of joy, but it brings hell also. It is painful growth, but all growth is painful. One never grows without pain. Pain is part, an essential part. If you avoid the pain you also avoid the growth.

Many have settled somewhere. A few have settled in ambition, have become politicians. They are not worried about love. They say they have great things to do in the world. They are worried about power: they use power as an escape. A few are buried in their monasteries, a few are buried in their families: marriage, children, this and that, but I rarely come across a man who has faced the challenge of love, the greatest storm there is. But one who has faced it, grows. He comes out of it one day, clean, pure, mature.

So you ask, “Cannot one enjoy life alone?”

You can be happy alone, but you cannot enjoy. You can be happy, in a way, because there will be no disturbance, no turmoil, no conflict. Your happiness will be more like peace, less like enjoyment. It will not have any ecstasy in it. Joy is very ecstatic; joy is very much like dance. Happiness is like the singing you do in your bathroom – the bathroom singing – it is very lukewarm; you can do it alone. You always do it in your bathroom because you are alone. But singing and dancing with other people, getting completely possessed by it, is joy. Joy is a shared phenomenon; happiness is a non-shared phenomenon.

People who are miserly always look for happiness, not for joy – because joy needs sharing. You cannot be joyful alone. A certain atmosphere is needed, a certain climate is needed: a certain whirlwind of people, persons, consciousness, is needed. Alone you can be happy, at the most.

And remember, happiness is not a very happy thing.

Joy is really moving high. Joy is the climax, like peaks; happiness is a plain ground: one moves comfortably with no fear of any fall anywhere – no valley around, no danger. You can walk with your eyes closed. You know the path. You have been moving on that path, this way and that. You can move completely unconsciously.

Joy needs consciousness. Have you ever moved into the mountains and just by the side, a great valley is yawning? You become alert. That is one of the beauties of mountaineering. It is not really the joy in the mountain; the joy is in moving in danger, constant danger. Always there is death around; the valley is waiting to swallow you at any moment. Once you lose your footing, you are gone forever. Because of that danger one becomes very sharply aware, like a sword. That awareness gives joy.

When you are moving with people, in relationship, you are always in danger. Life becomes sharp. Then you have a tone; then your energy is not just rusting, it is flowing. Look at the people who have lived too long in the caves or in the monasteries: you will see that a certain rust has settled on their faces. They will not look alive. They will be dull almost to the point of being stupid. That’s why monks have not created anything beautiful in the world. Nothing has come out of them. They are wastages; they are not fertile soil. They proved impotent.

All escape makes you more of a coward, impotent. And the more you escape, the more you want to escape. All escape is suicidal.

Then what do I mean? Am I saying to you, never be alone? No, not at all. But I am saying, never be lonely. Aloneness comes out of the richness that you have learned through relationships, out of many relationships, of many dimensions, many qualities: being with a mother, being with a father, being with a friend, being with a brother, sister, being with a wife, being with a beloved, lover, with friends, with enemies.’Being with’ is the world. And one has to be in as many relationships as possible; then you expand. Each relationship contributes something to your inner enrichment. The more you spread into people, the more you expand. You have a bigger soul, and you have a richer soul. Otherwise, you become impoverished.

Now psychoanalysts have been working hard on children who have not received their first and basic relationship: the relationship between the child and the mother. They shrink. These children are never normal. Somehow, the first urge to expand has not happened. The relationship between a child and the mother is the first entry into the world.

You enter into the world with your mother’s love. You enter into the world because you relate with your mother, and you learn how to relate. The warmth that flows between the child and the mother is the first exchange of energies. It is tremendously sexual, because all energy is sexual. The child smiling, the mother smiling, a tremendous energy is being exchanged. The mother cuddling the child, hugging the child, kissing the child; a great energy is being given to the child, and the child is getting ready to respond. Sooner or later, the day will come when the child will hug and kiss the mother. Now he’s ripe – not only ready to take, but ready to give also. That is his first learning. Then he will move with brothers and sisters and father and uncles, and the circle will become bigger and bigger and bigger: in school, and in college, and in the university, and then in the universe one goes on.

The more and more you relate, the more and more you are. The being is discovered through being related. Each relationship is a mirror. It shows a fragment of your being to you. It reflects something about yourself. When you have grown so much and expanded to the infinity, then the last relationship is with God.

That is the last relationship.

If you escape from relationship, as these so-called religious people doThey are doing something

very absurd. They will not be able to relate with God because they have not learned how to relate. They have not learned how to move in relationship. And remember, to relate with God is the greatest, the most dangerous relationship there is.

Just the other day I was reading a memoir of a Christian, a very beautiful person who had lived in Soviet Russia’s jails for many years. For three years continuously he was in an underground cell, thirty feet into the earth. For three years continuously he never saw any sunlight, any flower, any butterfly, any moon. He didn’t see any human face, except the guard. For three years it was maddening: no book to read, nothing to do. He was not even aware of whether it was day or night, whether the sun had arisen outside in the world or not. There was no newspaper, no news of what was happening in the world, nothing. He was completely unrelated. He started doing one thing –

tremendously beautiful: he started talking to God. What to do? What else to do? For three years he talked to God and, by and by, he started giving sermons. God was the only audience. He would stand and he would give a sermon. But those sermons are really beautiful. Now, out of the jail, he has collected those sermons, and he has put them as he had given them to God. He says, “Don’t be offended,” because many times he becomes angry with God. One has to become. What nonsense: for three years! He quotes from scriptures and says to God, “Look at what you have said. In the Bible you say that a man should never be alone. What about me! Have you forgotten all about your scripture and your message that you gave through Jesus? Where are you? Have you changed your rules? A man should never be alone? – then why have you forced me for three years to be alone?” And he says, “Remember, at the last day of judgement I am not going to be the only culprit, you are also going to be the culprit. Not only will you tell about my sins, I am also going to tell about your sins. Remember! Don’t forget it! It is not going to be one way.”

Really, those sermons are beautiful, those talks with God. He remained sane because of these talks. He came out perfectly sane, saner really than when he had gone in – more sane. Such a beautiful relationship... and the God was absolutely silent. It irritates. You go on talking; he never says yes, no – nothing.

Just think – you go on speaking and your wife keeps quiet. She goes on working in the kitchen. You are going crazy and you are shouting and yelling, and she goes on silently doing her things. How will you feel? The same happens in relationship with God. One has to learn it in life, then you can relate with God. To relate with God is to relate with the whole. Of course, the whole is silent, and great skill is needed in relating – only then. After you have related with God, and you have become merged with Him, then aloneness arises.

Aloneness is the last achievement.

That’s what Patanjali calls kaivalya: absolute aloneness. It is not in the beginning; it is in the end. That is why we are reading the last chapter. The chapter is about aloneness, Kaivalya Pada. It is the whole effort of the yogi through many lives to reach to aloneness. It is not so cheap as you think: that you just leave the house and you go into a cave, and you are alone. Then there is no need for Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. A simple sutra will do: go to the railway station, purchase a ticket, and go to the Himalayas – finished. Who is preventing you? Who can prevent you? How can you be prevented?

But that way, life would be too cheap, would not be of worth. One has to learn it. Aloneness is the flowering of all your relationships. You have gathered the fragrance out of all your relationships: good and bad, beautiful and ugly; you go on gathering fragrance. Then, a flame arises in you. That aloneness has to be the goal. What you call aloneness right now is not aloneness; it is going just to be loneliness. To be solitary is not to be in solitude. To be solitary is ugly, ill, sad. To be in solitude has a tremendous beauty in it; it is an achievement.

“... because I am not so aware, that moving into water without getting wet, or going through fire without getting burnt can be possible for me.”

Then how are you going to become aware? Move more and more. By escaping you will never become aware. All these situations are needed to make you aware. If you cannot become aware in

the world, you cannot become aware out of the world. Otherwise, why has the world been given to you; why are you in the world? – to learn awareness.

When so many people are criss-crossing your path, so many energies criss-crossing all around you, and it is a puzzle to solve, awareness will arise out of it. Yes, one day you will be able to walk in water and the water will not touch your feet; but before that happens, you will have to walk in many rivers and many oceans of life. Yes, one day you will be capable of walking into fire and the fire will not burn you, but that has to be learned through many fires, and many burnings. Only out of experience is one freed. Truth liberates; experience gives you truth. Never decide for the life of no experience. Always decide for more experience. Howsoever hard and difficult, but always choose the life of experience. One day, you will transcend, but one transcends only by knowing it.

The third question:

Question 3

IN REPLY TO MY QUESTION, YOU SAID THE OTHER DAY TO LIVE AND ENJOY LIFE TOTALLY. BUT WHAT IS LIFE THEN? – TO GO IN SEX, TO MAKE MONEY, TO FULFIL WORLDLY DESIRES, AND ALL THAT? IF SO, THEN ONE HAS TO DEPEND ON OTHERS, AND THE WORLDLY THINGS WHICH ARE SURE TO BECOME A BONDAGE IN THE LONG RUN. AND ALSO, WILL IT NOT MAKE THE SEARCH OF THE SEEKER VERY, VERY LONG?

Yes, life is all that you can imagine and desire. Sex is included, money is included; everything that the human mind can desire is included. But you live in a sort of hang-over. Even in the formulation of a question, your condemnations are absolutely clear, emphatically clear.

You say, “In reply to my question, you said the other day to live and enjoy life totally. But what is life then – to go in sex, to make money, to fulfil worldly desires, and all that?” The condemnation is clear. You seem to know the answer before you have asked the question. Your learning is absolutely clear: cut sex, cut love, cut money, cut people. Then what sort of life would be left there?

This has to be understood: the word ‘life’ has no meaning in it if you go on cutting everything. And everything can be condemned. Enjoying food is life; anybody can condemn it: “What nonsense! Just chewing food and swallowing it inside? Can this be life? Then breathing – just taking air in, throwing it out, taking it in, throwing it out – what boredom! And for what? Then getting up early in the morning and going to sleep in the evening, and going to the office and to the shop, and a thousand and one miseries. Is this life? Then making love to a woman? Just two dirty bodies! Kissing a woman – nothing but an exchange of saliva and millions of germs. Think of germs: it is not even hygienic; certainly it is irreligious. It is also unhygienic.”

So what is life? Take everything out of the context of the whole, and it looks meaningless, absurd. That’s how religious people have been condemning life through the ages. You give them anything, and they will be able to condemn it. They say, “What is the body? Just in a bag of skin there are millions of dirty things. Just open the bag and see.” And you will find that then they are right. But have you asked the other question? These people must have been expecting something which they have not found. Were you expecting gold inside the bag of skin, or diamonds inside the bag of skin? Then would things have been better? Ask the other question: what were you expecting? You cannot

find a better and more beautiful body than you have, and you go on looking at the dirt inside. You don’t look at the beautiful work it continues.

The whole body continues to work for seventy, eighty, or even a hundred years with such smooth efficiency, with such silence. Look at the throbbing energy in the body, the pulsation of energy. But there are people who can always find something wrong. Whatsoever it is, they can find something wrong. You show them a rose and they will take it off the plant and will say, “What is it? It will be dead within a few hours. Yes, it will wither, so all beauty is lost.” You show them a beautiful rainbow, and they will say that it is illusory: “You go there and you will not find anything. It simply appears to be.” These are the great condemnors, the poisoners of life. They have poisoned everything, and you have listened to them too much. Now you find that it has become almost impossible for you to enjoy life. But you never think that this incapacity to enjoy life is created by your so-called religious teachers. They have poisoned your being. Even when you are kissing a woman, they go on inside telling you, “What are you doing? This is nonsense. There is nothing in it.” Even while you are eating they go on saying, “What are you doing? There is nothing in it.” Those condemnors have done a great work.

And this is one of the basic problems: that to appreciate is difficult, and to condemn is easy. To appreciate is very difficult because you have to prove something positively. Only then can you appreciate. Heinrich Heine, one great German poet, writes in his memoirs: “One day I was standing with the great philosopher, Hegel, and it was a beautiful cool night – dark, silent – and the whole sky was beautifully full of stars.” Of course, the poet started appreciating it, and he said, “What beauty; what tremendous beauty!” And he added, “I always think that if a man only looks at the earth and never looks at the sky, he may become an atheist. But a man who looks at the sky, how can he become an atheist? – impossible!” But, by and by, he became a little uneasy because Hegel was completely silent; he had not uttered a word. He asked Hegel, “What do you think, sir?” And Hegel said, “I can’t see any beauty or anything. These stars you are talking about? – they are nothing but a leprosy of the sky.” Leprosy...!

Condemnation is so easy. That’s why condemnors are so articulate. People have not talked in favor of life because it is difficult to say anything positive about life – it is too much for words. Condemnors have been very articulate: they have been condemning and negating, and they have created a certain mind in you which goes on working from the inside and goes on poisoning your life. Now you ask me, “What is life – to go in sex? to make money? to fulfil worldly desires, and all that?” And what is wrong in worldly desires? In fact, all desires are worldly. Have you come across any desire which is not worldly? What do you desire God for? – and you will find the whole world hidden there in your desire. What do you desire heaven for? – and you will find the whole world hidden there. Those who know say that desire is the world. They don’t say ‘worldly desires’. Buddha has never said ‘worldly desires’. He says, “Desire is the world”; desire as such. The desire for samadhi, the desire for enlightenment, is also worldly. To desire is to be in the world; not to desire is to be out of the world.

So don’t condemn the worldly desire; try to understand it, because all desires are worldly. This is the fear: that if you condemn the worldly desires, you will start creating new desires for yourself which you will call unworldly, or other-worldly. You will say, “I am not an ordinary man. I am not after money. What is it, after all? You die – you cannot take the money with you. I’m seeking, searching for some eternal wealth.” So are you unworldly, or more worldly? People who are satisfied with the

wealth of this world – which is momentary, and death will take it away – they are worldly. And you are searching for some wealth which is permanent, which is forever and ever; and you are unworldly? You seem to be more cunning and clever.

People are making love to ordinary human beings – they are worldly. And what are you desiring? And look in the Koran, look in the Bible, look in the Hindu scriptures: what are you desiring in heaven? – beautiful damsels made of gold, never aging, remaining always young. They are always at the age of sixteen – never fifteen, never seventeen – something miraculous. When the scriptures were written, then too they were at the age of sixteen. Now the scriptures have become very ancient, but those girls continue to be at the age of sixteen. What are you desiring?

In Mohammedan countries homosexuality has been prevalent, so even that is provided for in heaven. You will not only have beautiful girls, you will have beautiful boys available. And in this world alcohol is condemned, and there, in the Mohammedan heaven, there are springs of wine. Springs! You need not go to the pub, you can just swim in them, drown in them. And you call these people unworldly? In fact, they are nothing but very worldly people who have become so frustrated with this world that now they live in fantasy. They have a fantasy world; they call it paradise, heaven, or something else.

All desires are worldly, and when I say that, I am not condemning them – I am simply stating a fact: to desire is to be worldly. Nothing is wrong in it. God has given you an opportunity to understand what desire is. In understanding desire, in the very understanding of it, the desire disappears. Because desire is in the future, desire is somewhere else, and you are here-now. You want to be here-now; and the reality is here-now, the existence is happening here-now, everything is converging on here- now, and with your desire you are somewhere else so you go on missing. You remain always hungry because that which can satisfy you is showering here, and you are somewhere else.

Now is the only reality, and here is the only existence. Desire takes you away.

Try to understand desire: how it goes on deceiving you, how it goes on taking you away on further trips, and you go on missing. So whenever you remember, come back, come back home.

There is no need to fight with the desire, because if you fight with the desire you will create another desire. Only one desire can fight with another desire. Understanding is not a fight with desire. In the light of understanding desire disappears, as darkness disappears when you kindle a lamp.

So don’t call these worldly desires; don’t be a condemnor. Try to understand.

“If so, then one has to depend on others, and the worldly things which are sure to become bondage in the long run.” But what is wrong in depending on others? The ego does not want to depend on anybody. The ego wants to be independent. But you are dependent. You are not separate from existence, you are part of it. Everything is joined together. We exist together, in a togetherness. Existence is a togetherness, so how can you become independent? Will you not breathe then? Will you not eat food? If you will eat food, you will have to depend on the trees, on the plants. They are supplying food to you. Will you not drink water? – then you will have to depend on rivers. And will you not need the sun? – then you will die. How can you become independent?

‘Independent’ is a wrong word, as wrong as the word ‘dependent’. Independence and dependence are both wrong. The real thing is ‘interdependent’. We are all together, interdependent. Even the king is dependent on his slave, as much as the slave is dependent on the king. It is an interdependence.

It happened in the life of Caliphas Haru-an-Rasid. He was sitting with his court joker, Bollul, and he said, “Bollul, I’m the most independent man in the world. I’m a monarch with infinite power, and whatsoever I want I can do. The whole world obeys me. Can you find anything which is not under my order?”

Bollul kept silent, then he said, “Sir, this one fly is disturbing me very much. Can you order her not to disturb me?”

Haru-an-Rasid said, “You are a fool. How can I order the fly? And she will not listen to me.”

Bollul said, “Have you forgotten sir, what you were saying: that the whole world follows your orders? – and even this fly just in front of you is sitting on my head. I am trying to avoid it, and it goes on landing again and again on my nose; and I have seen it landing on your nose also, sir! And you cannot order this small fly? – and the whole world follows your order? You think again.”

The world is an interdependence.

Haru-an-Rasid and flies are all interdependent, and Bollul is wiser than Haru-an-Rasid. In fact, because he is very wise is why he’s thought of as a fool. Or, maybe it is because of his wisdom that he calls himself a fool – because to exist in this world of fools you should not declare that you are a wise man. Otherwise, they will kill you. This Bollul seems to be wiser than Socrates and Jesus. They committed one mistake: they declared that they were wise. That created trouble. All the fools gathered together and they said, “We cannot tolerate you.” You cannot crucify a Bollul. Maybe he is wiser than Jesus and Socrates. He says, “I am a fool, sir”; but see his insight.

Once Haru-an-Rasid wrote a poem. Now, everybody appreciated it; everybody had to appreciate. It was just nonsense. And when he asked Bollul before the court, he said, “This is just nonsense. Even a fool like me, sir, will not write this.” Of course, Haru-an-Rasid was very angry. Bollul was thrown into imprisonment, and he was beaten and forced to starve. After seven days, again he was brought to the court. Haru-an-Rasid had written another poem, and had improved much upon the first. And the whole court said, “Rah, rah!” Again Bollul was asked. He looked at the poem, he listened, and immediately stood up and started to leave. The King said, “Where are you going?” He said, “To the prison. Again I am going. I will not give you the trouble of sending me. What is the point?” He was really a wise man.

This is the irony: that many times the wise man has to appear as a fool. Remember, the effort to be independent is very foolish. And it is not possible; it is impossible. Then you will become more and more frustrated, because always you will find that you are again dependent, again dependent. Wherever you go you will remain dependent, because you cannot go out of the net of existence. We are like the knots of a net – energies go on passing through us. When many energies pass through a point, that point becomes an individual, that’s all. Draw a line on paper, then draw another line across it; where these two lines cross, individuality arises. Where life and death cross, you are there – just a crossing point.

To understand it, is all. Then you are neither dependent nor are you independent; both are absurdities. Then you are simply interdependent, and you accept.

“If so, then one has to depend on others, and the worldly things which are sure to become bondage in the long run.” Who has told you that they are sure to become bondage in the long run? Either you know or you don’t know. If you know, then there is no point in asking me; you will not get into that bondage. If you don’t know and you have simply heard it from others, this is not going to help you. You will be in trouble.

You will always be half-hearted because it is not your understanding, and only your understanding can liberate you.

Let me tell you a few anecdotes.

A man and his wife made a pact that whichever one of them died first would come back and tell the other one what it was like on the other side. “There is just one thing, though,” said the husband. “If you die first, I want you to promise me that you will come back during the daytime.” He was afraid, half-hearted.

If you have believed others – because others say that if you move in the world, you will be in bondage – then wherever you move, you will be in bondage because it is not your understanding. Understanding frees you. And remember, the bondage does not happen in the long run; it happens immediately.

The moment you desire, that very moment, the bondage has happened. It is of desire, and the desire has arisen around you; you are already imprisoned. If you have the insight, you will immediately see that every desire brings an imprisonment with it, and not in the long run. The long run... the very idea of long run arises because others say so. This is not your own experience. And always remember to accept your own experience; nothing else is of worth.

It happened in a court: “I notice,” said the judge to the tramp in the dock, “that in addition to stealing this money, you also took a lot of very valuable jewellery.” “Yes, Your Honor,” remarked the tramp cheerfully. “You see, me mother taught me from childhood that money alone does not bring happiness.”

Teachings from others are not going to help. You will change their whole meaning according to you. It will happen unconsciously, not consciously. You read the Dhammapada: you don’t read Buddha’s words, you read your own interpretations. You read Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras: you don’t read Patanjali, you read yourself through Patanjali. So if you are ignorant, you will find something in Patanjali which helps your ignorance. If you are greedy, you will find something in Patanjali which helps your greed. If you are greedy, you may become greedy for kaivalya, for liberation, nirvana. If you are an egoist, you will find something which helps your egoism. You will start becoming a great independent being. How can you depend?... such a great man. How can you depend on anybody else? – you have to be independent. You will always find yourself whatsoever you read, whatsoever you listen to, unless you start understanding your own life.

“And also, will it not make the search of the seeker very, very long?” – this is greed. Why be afraid? Why be too concerned with the result? I am saying continuously, repeatedly, to be here-now; don’t think of the tomorrow. And you are not thinking only of tomorrow, you are thinking of future lives.

“Will not the search become too long, very, very long?” Why be afraid of it? Infinity is available. There is no shortage of time. You can move very, very slowly; there is no hurry. The hurry is because of the greed. So whenever people become very greedy, they become very hurried and go on finding more ways to gain more speed. They are continuously on the run because they think that life is running out. These greedy people say, “Time is money.” Time is money? Money is very limited; time is unlimited. Time is not money; time is eternity. It has always been there and will be there, and, you have been always here and you will always be here.

So drop greed, and don’t be bothered about the result. Sometimes it happens that because of your impatience, you miss many things. If you are listening to me with greed, with greedy eyes, then you will not be listening to me. You will inside be continuously talking: “Yes, this is good; this I will try. This I will do. This seems that it will bring me to the goal very soon.” You have missed me, what I was saying, and in listening to what I was saying, the goal was hidden there.

One doctor used to come here; now he is transferred. He used to take continuous notes. I asked him, “What do you go on doing?” He said, “Later, at home, with ease, I read it. And then, later on, whenever I need, I can read it again.” But I told him, “You go on missing me. You hear one thing – you write – in that time I have said something which you have missed. Again you write something, again you have missed. And whatsoever you collect are fragments, and you will not be able to join them together. You will fill the gaps with your own greed, your own understandings, your own prejudices, and then the whole thing will be destroyed.”

The goal is here.

You have just to be silent, patient, alert. Live life totally. The goal is hidden in life itself. It is God who has come to you as life in millions of ways. When a woman smiles at you, remember, it is God smiling at you in the form of a woman. When a flower opens its petals, look, watch – God has opened his heart in the form of a flower. When a bird starts singing, listen to it – God has come to sing a song for you. This whole life is divine, holy. You are always on holy ground. Wherever you look, it is God that you look at; whatsoever you do, it is to God that you are doing it; whatsoever you are, you are an offering to the God. That’s what I mean: live life, enjoy life, because it is God. And He comes to you and you are not enjoying Him. He comes to you and you are not welcoming Him. He comes to you and finds you sad, aloof, uninterested, dull.

Dance, because each moment He is coming in infinite ways, in millions of ways, from all directions. When I say live life in totality, I mean, live life as if it is God. And everything is included. When I say life, everything is included. Sex is included, love is included, anger is included; everything is included. Don’t be a coward. Be brave and accept life in its totality, in its total intensity.

The last question:

Question 4

CAN ONE BE INTIMATE WITH YOUR SOUL WITHOUT BEING YOUR DISCIPLE?

It is as if you ask, “Can one be intimate with you without being intimate with you?”

What is a disciple? – a disciple is just an attitude, a readiness to be intimate. A disciple is just a receptivity, a readiness to accept, welcome. A disciple is a gesture: if you give to me, I will not reject it. But you are fogged with words. You have lost all insight into love, intimacy. If you are not a disciple you will not be intimate from your side. From my side, I am intimate to all, whether they are my disciples or not. I am unconditionally intimate.

But if you are not a disciple from your side you are closed, so my intimacy alone won’t work. It will not get connected with you. You will remain an outsider. Somehow, you will remain in a defending mood. Of course, you will choose whatsoever you like, and you will reject whatsoever you don’t like. A disciple is one who says, “Osho, I accept you totally. Now I will not be a chooser with you” – that’s all. “Now I drop my mind; you become my mind. I will listen to you and not to my mind. If there is any conflict, I will go with you and not with my mind” – that’s all. “If a decision has to be taken, then you will be closer to me than my own mind” – that’s all.

One who is not a disciple stands on the border and he says, “Whatsoever I like, or whatsoever I feel convinced of, I will choose; and whatsoever I don’t like and don’t feel convinced of I will not choose.” Whatsoever you like will make your mind more and more strengthened; whatsoever you don’t like will not allow your mind any transformation. You will become more knowledgeable. You will learn many things from me, but you will not learn me. So it is up to you.

It is not a question, for me, to make you a disciple; it is up to you. When more is available, you decide for less – so far, so good.

Let me tell you one anecdote.

A doctor had two patients from different ends of town, both chronic insomniacs. To help get some sleep, he gave them some sleeping pills. One got green pills and the other, red ones. One day, both got into conversation about their sleeplessness, and at the end of the talk, one man felt so annoyed that he rushed to his doctor and said, “How is it that when I take my pills, I go to sleep and dream I am a docker unloading a dirty tramp steamer in Liverpool, getting covered in oil and filth, while Mr. Brown takes his pills and dreams that he is Lying on a beach in Bermuda, surrounded by half-dressed beautiful girls, all caressing him and kissing him and giving him a good time?” The doctor shrugged and said, “Be reasonable, now. You are on the National Health, and Mr. Brown is a private patient.”

So, only that much can I say to you: be reasonable!

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