Spiritual Insights (part1)

Spiritual Insights

(A Collection of Spiritual Teachings)

Part 1

1. Nobody can live without a soul, and once you start thinking that there is no soul, your life starts losing all meaning. The soul is your very integrating concept; without it you are cut away from existence and eternal life. Just like a branch cut off from a tree is bound to die -- it has lost the source of nourishment -- the very idea that there is no soul inside you, no consciousness, cuts you away from existence. One starts shrinking, one starts feeling suffocated.

2. “Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.” 

3. Live in the world without any idea of what is going to happen. Whether you are going to be a winner or a loser, it doesn’t matter. Death takes everything away. Whether you lose or win is immaterial. The only thing that matters, and it has always been so, is how you played the game. Did you enjoy it?—the game itself? Then each moment is a moment of joy.

4. You are the truth; you are not to go anywhere. You have to stop going, so that you can remain at home where the truth is. It is not a question of following a path; on the contrary it is a question of not following any path, not going anywhere, so you can be here -- so that you can be now, just within yourself. Every path leads astray, that was Bodhidharma's approach. No practice is needed. You are really where you need to be. It is just that you go on and on, round and round, but never settle down into your own being.

5. Dharma means self-nature. For example, to be hot is the dharma of fire; to be cold is the dharma of ice, the self-nature. What is the self-nature of man? No-selfness, silence, and suddenly an upsurge of compassion. Every seeking is going to take you away from yourself, so non-seeking is one of the essentials of Bodhidharma's teaching.

6. Don’t go anywhere. Pull all your energy inwards. Close all your petals and just be in. And you will experience what dharma is, what self-nature is. Then practice it. Then act as if you are nobody. Then act with great compassion. Then let your whole life be simply a presence, but not a person because there is no self inside you.

7. ALL PHENOMENA ARE EMPTY. Whatever happens outside you in life is just empty, as empty as dreams; it is made of the same stuff. THE WISE WAKE UP and see the whole of life as a long series of dreams -- sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes sweet, sometimes nightmarish, but they are all dreams. The awakened one neither dreams in his sleep nor is deluded by the dreams of the outside world while he is awake. They contain nothing worth desiring.

8. The realization of enlightenment, or buddhahood, is difficult. And it is also not difficult. It is difficult if you start looking for it. It is not difficult if you simply sit down, settling within yourself in calmness, quietness, being just purely aware. Then you are the buddha, then you are the enlightenment. It is not that you become enlightened, it is not your becoming. It is your very being, it is you in your simplest, spontaneous nature.

9. Enlightenment is your self-nature. Once somebody attains to enlightenment, the greatest difficulty is to convey it to those who are living in darkness and who have never seen any light. It is almost like talking about light to blind people. One enlightened master has been reported to have said, "My whole effort of conveying my experience is just like selling glasses to blind people."

10. “I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. 

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process. 

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher. 

And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.

That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.” 

11. On the path of Gautam Buddha there is no reward because the very desire for reward comes from a greedy mind. The whole teaching of Gautam Buddha is desirelessness and if you are doing all these so-called virtuous acts, making temples and monasteries and feeding thousands of monks, with a desire in your mind, you are preparing your way towards hell. If you are doing these things out of joy, to share your joy with the whole empire, and there is not even a slight desire anywhere for any reward, the very act is a reward unto itself. Otherwise you have missed the whole point."

12. Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny--he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally--you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.”

13. “That is the simple secret of happiness. Whatever you are doing, don’t let past move your mind; don’t let future disturb you. Because the past is no more, and the future is not yet. To live in the memories, to live in the imagination, is to live in the non-existential. And when you are living in the non-existential, you are missing that which is existential. Naturally you will be miserable, because you will miss your whole life.” 

14. “Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, but nobody is equal either. People are simply unique, incomparable. You are you, I am I. I have to contribute my potential to life; you have to contribute your potential to life. I have to discover my own being; you have to discover your own being.” 

15. “Doubt--because doubt is not a sin, it is a sign of your intelligence. You are not responsible to any nation, to any church, to any God. You are responsible only for one thing, and that is self knowledge. And the miracle is, if you can fulfill this responsibility, you will be able to fulfill many other responsibilities without any effort. The moment you come to your own being, a revolution happens in your vision. Your whole outlook about life goes through a radical change. You start feeling new responsibilities--not as some thing to be done, not as a duty to be fulfilled, but as a joy to do.” 

16. “You exist in time, but you belong to eternity- You are a penetration of eternity into the world of time-You are deathless, living in a body of death- Your consciousness knows no death, no birth- It is only your body that is born and dies-But you are not aware of your consciousness-You are not conscious of your consciousness-And that is the whole art of meditation; Becoming conscious of consciousness itself.” 

17. Unless you start feeling the source of light within yourself, you will not be able to see that light anywhere else. First it has to be experienced within one’s own being, and then it is found everywhere. Then the whole existence becomes so full of light, so full of joy, so full of meaning and poetry, that each moment one feels grateful for all that god has given, for all that he goes on giving. Sannyas is simply a decision to turn in, to look in. The most primary thing is to find your own center. Once it is found, once you are centered, once you are bathed in your own light you have a different vision, a different perspective, and the whole of life becomes golden. Then even dust is divine. Then life is so rich, so abundantly rich that one can only feel a tremendous gratitude towards existence. That gratitude becomes prayer. Before that, all prayer is false.” 

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

19. If you want to learn anything, learn trust - nothing else is needed. If you are miserable, nothing else will help - learn trust. If you don't feel any meaning in life and you feel meaningless, nothing will help - learn trust. Trust gives meaning because trust makes you capable of allowing the whole descend upon you.” 

20. If you live consciously, if you try to bring consciousness to every act that you go through, you will be living in a silent, blissful state, in serenity, in joy, in love. Your life will have the flavor of a festival. That is the meaning of heaven: your life will have many flowers in it, much fragrance will be released through you. You will have an aura of delight. Your life will be a song of life-affirmation; it will be a sacred yes to all that existence is. You will be in communion with existence — in communion with stars, with the trees, with the rivers, with the mountains, with people, with animals. This whole life and this whole existence will have a totally different meaning for you. From every nook and corner, rivers of bliss will be flowing towards you. Heaven is just a name for that state of mind. Hell means you are living so unconsciously, so absurdly, in such contradiction, that you go on creating more and more misery for yourself.” 

21. Energy can have two dimensions. One is motivated, going somewhere, a goal somewhere, this moment is only a means and the goal is going to be the dimension of activity, goal oriented--then everything is a means, somehow it has to be done and you have to reach the goal, then you will relax. But for this type of energy the goal never comes because this type of energy goes on changing every present moment into a means for something else, into the future. The goal always remains on the horizon. You go on running, but the distance remains the same.

No, there is another dimension of energy: that dimension is unmotivated celebration. The goal is here, now; the goal is not somewhere else. In fact, you are the goal. In fact there is no other fulfillment than that of this moment--consider the lilies. When you are the goal and when the goal is not in the future, when there is nothing to be achieved, rather you are just celebrating it, then you have already achieved it, it is there. This is relaxation, unmotivated energy.” 

22. “The world is like a waiting room in a railway station; it is not your house. You are not going to remain in the waiting room forever.
Nothing in the waiting room belongs to you – the furniture, the paintings on the wall . You use them – you see the painting, you sit on the chair, you rest on the bed – but nothing belongs to you.
You are just here for a few ...minutes, or for a few hours at the most, then you will be gone.
Yes, what you have brought in with you, into the waiting room, you will take away with you; that’s yours. What have you brought into the world? And the world certainly is a waiting room.
The waiting may not be in seconds, minutes, hours, days, it may be in years; but what does it matter whether you wait seven hours, or seventy years?
You may forget, in seventy years,that you are just in a waiting room. You may start thinking perhaps you are the owner, perhaps this is the house you have built. You may start putting your nameplate on the waiting room.

23. “If you love a person, you accept the total person. With all the defects. Because those defects are a part of the person. Never try to change a person you love, because the very effort to change says that you love half, and the other half of the person is not accepted .When you love, you simply love.” 

24. You don’t have any problems — only this much has to be understood. This very moment you can drop all problems. because they are your creations. Have another look at your problems: the deeper you look, the smaller they will appear. Go on looking at them and by and by they will start disappearing. Go on gazing and suddenly you will find there is emptiness — a beautiful emptiness surrounds you. Nothing to do, nothing to be, because you are already that.”

25. “If you know your being, there is no question of becoming. All that you could have ever imagined to become you already are. You are gods who have forgotten who they are. You are emperors who have fallen asleep and are dreaming that they have become beggars. Now beggars are trying to become emperors, in dreams they are making great efforts to become emperors, and all that is needed is to wake up.

26. “The longer a person has been dead the greater is the tradition ... If Buddha is alive you can barely tolerate him. ... You cannot believe this man has known the ultimate because he looks just like you ... Hungry he needs food, sleepy he wants a bed, ill, he has to rest – just like you ... That is why Jesus is worshiped now and yet he was crucified when he was alive. Alive, you crucify him; dead, you worship him.”

27. “Respect life, revere life. There is nothing more holy than life, nothing more divine than life.”

28. You should live in the world but remain untouched by it. You should remain in the world, but the world should not remain in you.” 

29. Never belong to a crowd; Never belong to a nation; Never belong to a religion; Never belong to a race. Belong to the whole existence. Why limit yourself to small things? When the whole is available.” 

30. Man ordinarily lives in loneliness. To avoid loneliness, he creates all kinds of relationships, friendships, organizations, political parties, religions and what not. But the basic thing is that he is very much afraid of being lonely. Loneliness is a black hole, a darkness, a frightening negative state almost like death … as if you are being swallowed by death itself. To avoid it, you run out and fall into anybody, just to hold somebody’s hand, to feel that you are not lonely… Nothing hurts more than loneliness.
But the trouble is, any relationship that arises out of the fear of being lonely is not going to be a blissful experience, because the other is also joining you out of fear. You both call it love. You are both deceiving yourself and the other. It is simply fear, and fear can never be the source of love. Only those who love are absolutely fearless; only those who love are able to be alone, joyously, whose need for the other has disappeared, who are sufficient unto themselves…

The day you decide that all these efforts are failures, that your loneliness has remained untouched by all your efforts, that is a great moment of understanding. Then only one thing remains: to see whether loneliness is such a thing that you should be afraid of, or if it is just your nature. Then rather than running out and away, you close your eyes and go in. Suddenly the night is over, and a new dawn … The loneliness transforms into aloneness.

Aloneness is your nature. You were born alone, you will die alone. And you are living alone without understanding it, without being fully aware of it. You misunderstand aloneness as loneliness; it is simply a misunderstanding. You are sufficient unto yourself.” 

31.  You see my five fingers, but somebody can see the five gaps between my fingers. Ordinarily you will not see the gaps, you will see five fingers. But the gaps are more real: fingers may come and go, gaps will remain. Between sounds of music there are gaps of silence. The authentic music consists not of sounds,but of the gaps. Sounds come and go; those gaps remain. And music can make you aware of those gaps more beautifully than anything else; hence I have to say that music comes next to silence.” 

32. You need not search for uniqueness, you are unique already. There is no way to make a thing more unique. The words “more unique” are absurd. It is just like the word “circle.” Circles exist; there is no such thing as “more circular.” That is absurd. A circle is always perfect, “more” is not needed.

33. “First thing: There is no need to survive in this world. This world is a madhouse. There is no need to survive in it. There is no need to survive in the world of ambition, politics, ego. It is the disease. But there is another way to be, and the whole religious standpoint is: You can be in this world and not be of it. “When I listen to my feelings, my inner voice, they tell me to do nothing.…” Then don’t do anything. There is nobody higher than you, and God speaks to you directly. Start trusting your inner feelings. Then don’t do anything. If you feel just to sleep, eat, and play on the beach, perfect. Let that be your religion. Don’t be afraid then. You will have to drop fear. And if it is a question of choosing between the inner feeling and the fear, choose the inner feeling. Don’t choose the fear. So many people have chosen their path out of fear, so they live in a limbo, they live in indecision. Fear is not going to help. Fear always means the fear of the unknown. Fear always means the fear of death. Fear always means the fear of being lost—but if you really want to be alive, you have to accept the possibility of being lost. You have to accept the insecurity of the unknown, the discomfort and the inconvenience of the unfamiliar, the strange. That is the price one has to pay for the blessing that follows it, and nothing can be achieved without paying for it. You have to pay for it: Otherwise you will remain fear-paralyzed. Your whole life will be lost. Enjoy whatsoever your inner feeling is.” 

34. “There are always problems in the world, and the world has always been there, and the world will remain there. If you start trying to work it out—changing circumstances, changing people, thinking of a utopian world, changing the government, the structure, the economy, the politics, the education—you will be lost. That is the trap known as politics. That’s how many people waste their own lives. Be very clear about it: The only person you can help right now is you yourself. Right now you cannot help anybody. This may be just a distraction, just a trick of the mind. See your own problems, see your own anxieties, see your own mind, and first try to change that. It happens to many people: The moment they become interested in some sort of religion, meditation, prayer, immediately the mind tells them, “What are you doing sitting here silently? The world needs you; there are so many poor people. There is much conflict, violence, aggression. What are you doing praying in the temple? Go and help people.” How can you help those people? You are just like them. You may create even more problems for them, but you cannot help. That’s how all the revolutions have always failed. No revolution has yet succeeded because the revolutionaries are in the same boat. The religious person is one who understands that “I am very tiny, I am very limited. If with this limited energy, even if I can change myself, that will be a miracle.” And if you can change yourself, if you are a totally different being with new life shining in your eyes and a new song in your heart, then maybe you can be helpful to others also, because then you will have something to share.” 

35. Just look at life with more playful eyes. Don’t be serious. Seriousness becomes like blindness. Don’t pretend to be a thinker, a philosopher. Just simply be a human being. The whole world is showering its joy on you in so many ways, but you are too serious, you cannot open your heart.” 

36. “Have you ever thought about it? If somebody asks, “Who are you?” what do you answer? You say your name. The name is not yours, because you came into the world without a name. You came nameless; it is not your property, it has been given to you. And any name, A-B-C-D, would have been useful. It is arbitrary. It is not essential in any way. If you are called “Susan” good; if you are called “Harry” good, it makes no difference. Any name would have been as applicable to you as any other. It is just a label. A name is needed to call you by, but it has nothing to do with your being. Or you say, “I am a doctor” or you say, “I am an engineer”—or a businessman, or a painter, or this and that—but nothing says anything about you. When you say, “I am a doctor,” you say something about your profession, not about you. You say how you earn your living. You don’t say anything about life; you say something about your living. You may be earning your living as an engineer, or as a doctor, or as a businessman—it is irrelevant. It does not say anything about you. Or you say your father’s name, your mother’s name, you give your family tree—that too is irrelevant because that doesn’t define you. Your being born in a particular family is accidental; you could as well have been born in another family and you would not even have noticed the difference. These are just utilitarian tricks—and man becomes a “self.” This self is a pseudo self, a created, manufactured self, homemade. And your own real self remains deep down hidden in mist and” 

37. “Thoughtlessnes
There is a Totally Different Quality of Being which Comes by not Thinking, Not good, Not bad, Simply a State of No-thinking. You simply Watch, you simply Remain Conscious, but you don´t Think, and if some Thought Enters, they will Enter, Because Thoughts are not Yours..They are just floating in the Air. All around there is a no sphere, a Thought-Sphere, all around. Just as there is Air, there is thought all around you, and it goes on Entering on its Own Accord. It Stops only when you become more and more aware. There is something in it. If you become more Aware, a Thought simply Disappears, it Melts, Because Awareness is a Greater Energy than Thought.
Awareness is like Fire to Thought. It is just like you Burn a Lamp in the House and the Darkness cannot enter, you put the Light off from Everywhere Darkness has entered, without taking a single Minute, a single Moment, it is there. When the Light Burns in the House, the Darkness cannot enter. Thoughts are like Darkness; they enter only if there is no Light within. Awareness is fire. you Become more Aware, less and less Thoughts Enter.
If you become really integrated in your Awareness, Thoughts don't enter you. you have Become an Impenetrable Citadel, nothing can Penetrate you. Not that you are closed. Remember you are absolutely open, but just the very Energy of Awareness Becomes your Citadel. And when No Thoughts can enter you, they will come and they will bypass you. You will see them Coming, and simply, by the Time they Reach near you they Turn. Then you can Move Anywhere, then you Go to the very Hell Nothing can Affect you. 
This is what we mean by Enlightenment.” 
― 

38. THE WAY OF THE Buddha is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the term, because it has no belief system, no dogma, no scripture. It does not believe in God, it does not believe in the soul, it does not believe in any paradise. It is a tremendous unbelief—and yet it is a religion. It is unique. Nothing has ever happened like it before in the history of human consciousness, and nothing afterward.” 

39. You were born as a no-mind. Let this sink into your heart as deeply as possible because through that, a door opens. If you were born as a no-mind, then the mind is just a social product. It is nothing natural, it is cultivated. It has been put together on top of you. Deep down you are still free, you can get out of it. One can never get out of nature, but one can get out of the artificial any moment one decides to.” 

40.  People are more interested in how to grab and get. Everybody is interested in getting and nobody seems to enjoy giving. People give very reluctantly—if ever they give, they give only to get, and they are almost businesslike. It is a bargain. They always go on watching to make sure they get more than they give—then it is a good bargain, good business. And the other is doing the same. Love is not a business, so stop being businesslike. Otherwise you will miss your life and love and all that is beautiful in it—because all that is beautiful is not at all businesslike. Business is the ugliest thing in the world—a necessary evil, but existence knows nothing of business. Trees bloom, it is not a business; the stars shine, it is not a business and you don’t have to pay for it and nobody demands anything from you. A bird comes and sits at your door and sings a song, and the bird will not ask you for a certificate or some sign of appreciation. He has sung the song and then happily he flies away, leaving no traces behind.” 

41. “How to start the journey? Start becoming more and more a witness. Whatever you do, do it with deep alertness; then even small things become sacred. Then cooking or cleaning become sacred; they become worship. It is not a question of what you are doing; the question is how you are doing it. You can clean the floor like a robot, a mechanical thing; you have to clean it, so you clean it. Then you miss something beautiful. Then you waste those moments in only cleaning the floor. Cleaning the floor could have been a great experience and you missed it. The floor is clean now, but something that could have happened within you has not happened. If you had been aware, not only the floor but you would have felt a deep cleansing. Clean the floor full of awareness, luminous with awareness. Work or sit or walk, but one thing has to be a continuous thread: make more and more moments of your life luminous with awareness. Let the candle of awareness burn in each moment, in each act. The cumulative effect is what enlightenment is. The cumulative effect, all the moments together, all small candles together, become a great source of light.” 

42. Watch the waves in the ocean. The higher the wave goes, the deeper is the wake that follows it. One moment you are the wave, another moment you are the hollow wake that follows. Enjoy both--don’t get addicted to one. Don’t say: I would always like to be on the peak. It is not possible. Simply see the fact: it is not possible. It has never happened and it will never happen. It is simply impossible--not in the nature of things. Then what to do? Enjoy the peak while it lasts and then enjoy the valley when it comes. What is wrong with the valley? What is wrong with being low? It is a relaxation. A peak is an excitement, and nobody can exist continuously in an excitement.

43. “All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well...desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing-food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to decieve oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.” 

44. If a child is afraid in the dark, we say, "Don't be afraid, be brave." Why? The child is innocent- naturally he feels fear in the dark. You force him: "Be brave." So he also forces, then he becomes tense. Then he endures the darkness but now tense; now, his whole being is ready to tremble and he suppresses it. This suppressed trembling willfollow him now his whole life. It was good to tremble in the darkness, nothing was wrong. It was good to cry and run, nothing was wrong. The child would have come out of darkness more experienced, more knowing. And he would have realized, if he passed through darkness trembling and crying and weeping, that there was nothing to fear.

Suppressed, you never experience the thing in its totality, `you never gain anything out of it. Wisdom comes through suffering and wisdom comes through acceptance. Whatsoever the case, be at ease with it.

45. What is the secret- how to enjoy suffering? The first thing is: if you don't escape, if you allow the suffering to be there, if you are ready to face it, if you are not trying somehow to forget it, then you are different. Suffering is there but just around you; it is not in the center, it is on the periphery. It is impossible for suffering to be in the center; it is not in

the nature of things. It is always on the periphery and you are the center. So when you allow it to happen, when you don't escape, you don't run, you are not in a panic, suddenly you become aware that suffering is there on the periphery, as if happening to someone else, not to you, and you are looking at it. A subtle joy spreads all over your being because you have realized one of the basic truths of life: that you are bliss and not suffering.

46. Infinite space exists between you and your body -- infinite space, I say. An unbridgeable gap exists between you and your body. And all suffering exists on the periphery. Hindus say it is a dream because the distance is so vast, unbridgeable. It is just like a dream happening somewhere else -- not happening to you -- in some other world, on some other planet.

When you watch suffering suddenly you are not the sufferer, and you start enjoying. Through suffering you become aware of the opposite pole, the blissful inner being. So when I say enjoy, I am saying: Watch. Return to the source, get centered. Then, suddenly, there is no agony; only ecstasy exists.

47. Life is such a mystery, no one can understand it, and one who claims that he understands it is simply ignorant. He is not aware of what he is saying, of what nonsense he is talking.If you are wise, this will be the first realization: life cannot be understood. Understanding is impossible. Only this much can be understood -- that understanding is impossible.

48. Mind is the illusion that which is not but appears, and appears so much that you think that you are the mind. Mind is maya, mind is just a dream, mind is just a projection... a soap bubble floating on a river. The sun is just rising, the rays penetrate the bubble; a rainbow is created and nothing is there in it. When you touch the bubble it is broken and everything disappears -- the rainbow, the beauty- nothing is left. Only emptiness

becomes one with the infinite emptiness. Just a wall was there, a bubble wall. Your mind is just a bubble wall -- inside, your emptiness; outside, my emptiness. It is just a bubble, prick it, and the mind disappears.

49. The mind is not your reality; it is a false interpretation. You are not the mind, you have

never been a mind, you can never be the mind. That is your problem- you have become identified with something which is not. You are like a beggar who believes that he has a kingdom. He is so worried about the kingdom -- how to manage it, how to govern it, how to prevent anarchy. There is no kingdom, but he is worried

50. The mind can exist only if you continuously seek something. Why? It is because seeking is desire, seeking is moving into the future, seeking creates dreams. So somebody is seeking power, politics, somebody is seeking riches, kingdoms, and then somebody is seeking the truth. But seeking is there and seeking is the problem, not what you are seeking. The object is never the problem, any object will do. The mind can hang on to any object, any excuse is enough for it to exist.

51. Somebody was asking me, "You go on talking every day?" I said, "Because there is nothing to be taught." Some day you will suddenly feel it -- that I am not talking, that I am not teaching. You have realized there is nothing to be taught because there is no truth.

What discipline am I giving to you? None. A disciplined mind is again a mind, even more stubborn, more adamant; a disciplined mind is more stupid. Go and see the disciplined monks all over the world Christian, Hindu, Jain. Whenever you see a man who is absolutely disciplined you will find a stupid mind behind it. The flowing has stopped. He is so much concerned with finding something that he is ready to do whatsoever you say.

If you say, "Stand on your head for an hour," he is ready to stand on his head. It is because of desire. If God can be achieved only through standing on his head for hours, he is ready, but he must achieve.

I am not giving you any achieving, any desiring; there is nowhere to reach and nothing to achieve. If you realize this you have achieved this very moment. This very moment, you are perfect; nothing is to be done, nothing is to be changed. This very moment, you are absolute Brahma.

52. You are the inquirer. You have come to me to inquire about how to achieve truth, you have come to me to inquire about how to achieve a state of mind which is blissful. You have come to acquire knowledge, to solve the mystery, and I repeat to you: There is no state of mind, because there is no mind; there is no truth, so no seeking is allowed. All seeking is futile; search as such is foolish. Seek and you will lose, don't seek and it is there, run and you will miss. Stop: it has always been there. And don't try to understand- be. Understanding is superficial. Under the Bodhi tree, Buddha has not known more. You may know more.

Unlearn. Drop knowledge, and that which is more will happen to you.

A real master teaches you unlearning; it is never learning. You have come to me to unlearn whatsoever you know, never learning. You have come to me learned, so whatsoever you know, please drop it. Become ignorant, become like a child. Only the heart of a child can knock at the doors of the divine, and only the heart of a child is heard. Your prayers cannot be heard; they are cunning. Only a child, only a heart which doesn't know can be.

53. And only if this happens, that through meditation vegetarian food comes into you not through mind manipulation, it is good.But manipulating by the mind, argument, reasoning that vegetarian food is good, that it will help you to gain spirituality, is not going to help anything. Your clothes, your food, your habits of life, your style, everything will change; but this change is not basic. The basic change is going to be in you and then everything else follows.  If you meditate long enough, deep enough, it is impossible for you to hurt anybody for food; it is impossible. It is not a question of argument, it is not a question of scriptures, it is not who says what, it is not a question of calculating that if you take vegetarian food you will become spiritual; it is automatic. It is not a question of cunningness, you simply become spiritual. The whole thing seems so absurd. Just for food, killing animals, birds, seems so absurd, it falls down. Your clothes change automatically; by and by you like looser and looser clothes. The more relaxed you are inside -- loose clothes. Automatically I say; there will be no decision on your part. By and by, if you use tight clothes you will feel uneasy. Tight clothes belong to a tense mind, loose clothes belong to a relaxed mind. But the inner change is the first thing and everything else is just a consequence. If you reverse the order you will miss then you will become a food addict.

It is the other way round: food cannot make you spiritual, but if you are spiritual your food habits will change.

Eating anything will not make much difference. You can be a vegetarian and cruel to the extreme, and violent; you can be a non-vegetarian and kind and loving. Food will not make much difference.

54. What you eat makes no difference; what you are is a totally different phenomenon. And when that changes, everything will change; but that change will not be from the mind, it will be from the innermost being. Then things will change automatically. Sex will disappear by and by. So I don't say be a brahamachari, be a celibate. That is foolish, because if you force celibacy you will become more and more sexual in the mind and your whole mind will become ugly and dirty; you will think only of sex and nothing else. That is not the way. you will go crazy and insane. Freud says that ninety percent of madmen are mad because of repressed sexuality. I don't say change sex, I don't say change food; I say change your being and then things will start changing.

Why is so much sex needed? Because you are tense, sex becomes a release. Your tensions are released through it -- you feel relaxed, you can go to sleep; if you repress it, you remain tense. And if you repress sex -- the only release, the only possibility of release -- what will happen? You will go mad. Where will you release your tensions then?

55. Change yourself and food will change, clothes will change, sex will change. But change should come from the innermost core, it should not come from the periphery. And all turmoil is on the periphery; deep down there is no turmoil. You are just like the sea – go and watch the sea. All the turmoil, all the waves clashing, is just on the surface; deep, the deeper you go, there is more and more calm. At the deepest part in the sea there is no turmoil, not a single wave.

56. First go deeper into your sea so you achieve a calm crystallization, so you achieve the point where no disturbance ever reaches. Stand there. From there every change comes, every transformation comes. Once you are there you have become a master; Now whatsoever is unnecessary can be dropped, and can be dropped without any struggle and fight.

Whenever you drop something by fight, it is never dropped. You can drop smoking by fighting, and then you will start doing something else which will become a substitute. You may start chewing gum, it is the same; You may start chewing pan, it is the same, there is no difference. You need something to do with your mouth -- smoking, chewing, anything. When your mouth goes on working, you feel at ease because through the mouth tensions are released. So whenever a man feels tense he starts smoking. Why is it that through smoking or chewing gum or tobacco tensions are released?

56. Just look at a small child. Whenever he feels tense he will put his hand in his mouth, he will start chewing his own hand. This is his substitute for smoking. And why does he feel good when his thumb is in his mouth? Why does the child feel good and go to sleep? This is the way of almost all children. Whenever they feel sleep is not coming they will put the

thumb inside the mouth, feel at ease, and fall asleep. Why? The thumb becomes a substitute for the mother's breast, and food is relaxing. You cannot go to sleep on a hungry stomach, it is difficult to get sleep. When the stomach is full you feel sleepy, the body needs rest. So whenever the child takes the breast in his mouth, food is flowing, warmth, love. He is relaxed, he need not worry; tensions are relaxed. The thumb is just a substitute for the breast; it is not giving milk, it is a false thing, but still it gives the feeling.

When this child grows, if he takes his thumb in public you will think he is foolish, so he takes a cigarette. A cigarette is not foolish, it is accepted. It is just the thumb, and more harmful than the thumb. It is better if you smoke your thumb, go on smoking to your grave; it is not harmful, it is better. No harm is done but then people think you arechildish, juvenile, then people think what you are doing is stupid. But there is a need so it

has to be substituted.

And in countries where breast-feeding has stopped, more smoking will automatically be there. That's why the West smokes more than the East -- because no mother is ready to give her breast to the child because the shape is lost. So in the West smoking is increasing more and more; even small children are smoking.