The first question:

Question 1

LEAVING SOON FOR THE WEST

I LOOK BACK ON THE FIVE MONTHS WITH YOU AND THINK:

I HAVE BEEN WITH BHAGWAN AND I HAVE NOT BEEN WITH BHAGWAN.

I HAVE SEEN HIM AND YET SOMETHING REMAINS UNSEEN.

I HAVE HEARD HIM YET STILL I AM DEAF TO HIS TEACHING.

I LEAVE WITH NO FEELING OF SECURITY, NO SENSE OF CERTAINTY, NOTHING TO RELY ON.

HAVE I MISSED YOU?

THE QUESTION is from Swami Anand Subhuti. No -- you have not missed me at all. People who leave me with certainty, security, they are the ones who have missed me.

I am not here to give you a dogma. A dogma makes one certain. I am not here to give you any promise for the future -- any promise for the future makes one secure.

I am here simply to make you alert and aware. That is: to be herenow -- with all the insecurity that life is; with all the uncertainty that life is; with all the danger that life is.

I know you come here seeking some certainty, some creed, some 'ism', somewhere to belong to, someone to rely upon. You come here out af your fear. You are searching a sort of beautiful imprisonment -- so that you can live without any awareness.

I would make you more insecure, more uncertain, because that's how life is, that's how God is. When there is more insecurity and more danger, the only way to respond to it is by awareness.

There are two possibilities. Either you close your eyes and become dogmatic -- become a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan... then you become like an ostrich. It doesn't change life: it simply closes your eyes; it simply makes you stupid; it simply makes you unintelligent. In your unintelligence you feel secure -- all idiots feel secure. In fact, only idiots feel secure. A really alive man will always feel insecure. What security can there be?

Life is not a mechanical process. It cannot be certain. It is an unpredictable mystery. Nobody knows what is going to happen the next moment. Not even God that you think resides somewhere in the Seventh Heaven, not even He -- if He is there -- not even He knows what is going to happen, because if he knows what is going to happen then life is just bogus, then everything is written beforehand, then everything is destined beforehand. How can He know what is going to happen next if the future is open? If God knows what is going to happen the next moment, then life is just a dead mechanical process, then there is no freedom. And how can life exist without freedom? Then there is no possibility to grow, or not to grow. If everything is predestined then there is no glory, no grandeur. Then you are just robots.

No -- nothing is secure. That is my message. Nothing can be secure, because a secure life will be worse than death. Nothing is certain. Life is full of uncertainties, full of surprises -- that is its beauty! You can never come to a moment when you can say, "Now I am certain." When you say you are certain, you simply declare your death, you have committed suicide.

Life goes on moving with a thousand and one uncertainties. That's its freedom. Don't call it insecurity. I can understand why mind calls freedom insecurity.

Have you lived in a jail for a few months or a few years? If you have lived in a jail for a few years, when the day of release comes the prisoner starts feeling uncertain about the future. Everything was certain in the jail; everything was dead routine. Food was supplied to him, protection was given to him; there was no fear that he would be hungry next day and there would be no food -- nothing! Everything was certain. Now, suddenly, after many years the jailer comes and says to him, "Now you are going to be released." He starts trembling. Outside the wall of the prison, again uncertainties; again he will have to seek, search; again he will have to live in freedom...

Freedom creates fear. People talk about freedom but they are afraid. And a man is not yet a man if he is afraid of freedom. I give you freedom -- I don't give you security. I give you understanding -- I don't give you knowledge. Knowledge will make you certain. If I can give you a formula, a set formula, that there is a God and there is a Holy Ghost and there is an only begotten son, Jesus; there is Hell and Heaven; and these are the good acts and these are the bad acts; do the sin and you will be in Hell; do what I call the virtuous acts and you will be in Heaven -- finished! -- then you are certain.

That's why so many people have chosen to be Christians, to be Hindus, to be Mohammedans, to be Jains -- they don't want freedom. They want fixed formulas.

A Jew was dying -- suddenly, in an accident on a road. Nobody knew that he was a Jew. A priest was called, a Catholic priest. He leaned close to the Jew -- and the man was dying, in the last throes of death -- and the priest said, "Do you believe in the Trinity of God the Father, the Holy Ghost and the son Jesus?"

The Jew opened his eyes and he said, "Look, here I am dying -- and he is talking riddles? Here I am dying and he is talking in riddles!"

When death knocks at your door, all your certainties will be simply riddles and foolish. Don't cling to any certainty. Life is uncertain -- its very nature is uncertain. And an intelligent man always remains uncertain.

This very readiness to remain in uncertainty is courage. This very readiness to be in uncertainty is trust. An intelligent person is one who remains alert whatsoever the situation -- and responds to it with his whole heart. Not that he knows what is going to happen; not that he knows that 'do this' and 'that will happen'. Life is not a science; it is not a cause and effect chain. Heat the water to a hundred degrees and it evaporates -- it is a certainty. But like that, in real life, nothing is certain.

Each individual is a freedom, an unknown freedom. It is impossible to predict, impossible to expect. One has to live in awareness and in understanding.

You come to me seeking knowledge; you want set formulas so that you can cling to them. I don't give you any. In fact, if you have any I take them away. By and by, I destroy your certainty; by and by, I make you more and more hesitant; by and by, I make you more and more insecure. That is the only thing that has to be done. That's the only thing a master needs to do! -- to leave you in total freedom. In total freedom, with all the possibilities opening, nothing fixed... you will have to be aware. Nothing else is possible.

This is what I call understanding. If you understand, insecurity is an intrinsic part of life -- and good that it is so, because it makes life a freedom, it makes life a continuous surprise. One never knows what is going to happen. It keeps you continuously in wonder. Don't call it uncertainty -- call it wonder. Don't call it insecurity -- call it freedom.

"I leave you with no feeling of security, no sense of certainty, nothing to rely on." Precisely that's what I have been always hoping. "Have I missed you?" No, not at all. You have understood me well. Go with this uncertainty into the world; go with this insecurity into the world. And never be a coward, and don't regress back into some dogma.

"I have been with Bhagwan and I have not been with Bhagwan."

YES, IT IS SO. This is the paradox of love. You possess your beloved and yet you don't possess. You are with your beloved and yet you are not with. This is the paradox of love.

You cannot possess your beloved like a thing; you cannot become a possessor -- yet in a certain sense you possess your beloved, and in a certain sense you don't possess. In fact, the more you love, the more you make your beloved free. In fact, the more freedom you give to your beloved, the more you possess. The more you possess, the less you possess. This is the paradox of love.

Here being with me is an act of love. I have nothing else to give to you -- except my love. I have nothing else to share with you except my love. While you are here with me you will be in this paradox continuously: you will feel you have been with me, and you will feel that you have not been with me. Both are true -- and both are true together! That's the paradox of love.

The more you have been with me, the more you will feel that you have not been with me. The less you have been with me, the more you will feel that you have been with me.

There are foolish people, unloving people, who come and listen once or twice and think they have known me. And they go with certainty, with decisions, conclusions. They don't know what love is. They don't know what truth is. They come with certain prejudices, and if they feel that I am agreeing with their prejudices, they think they have understood me and they say I am right. If I am not agreeing with their prejudices, they think they have understood me and 'this man is wrong'.

If you are here for a longer period... and the period is not as important as the depth of the relationship. That is the meaning of sannyas: it is a plunge into a deeper intimacy, into a deeper commitment.

Just the other night a woman was asking: "If I don't take sannyas, won't you accept me?" I told her: "Yes, I accept you -- whether you take sannyas or not is irrelevant -- but you will not be able to accept me if you don't take sannyas."

If you are able to accept me, then sannyas is just a gesture of your acceptance, nothing else. It is just a gesture that 'I am coming with you', that 'I am ready to be with you', that 'even if you are going to hell I would rather be with you in hell than be in heaven alone' -- that's all. I am not promising you that I will take you to heaven -- nothing of the sort. Nobody should be hoping that. I am not promising you anything of that sort. Maybe I am going to hell.

A sannyasin is one who has trusted me, who says, "Okay, so I am also coming -- but I am coming with you." Then something starts transpiring between me and you. It is not only changing your clothes, it is not only changing your name. It is simply dropping your whole past and starting from A-B-C. That's why I change your name -- mm? -- just to give you a new start, as if you are born again.

The day of your initiation into sannyas becomes your real birthday. You disown the past and you tell me: "I am ready for a new future -- I will not continue my past; I am ready to discontinue it. And I will not insist on my past -- I disclaim, I disown it. And I am absolutely open: wherever you lead, I am ready. I have no prejudices."

If you have been here with me in a deep intimate relationship, if you have loved me, and if you have tasted my love, this is bound to happen: "I have been with Bhagwan and I have not been with Bhagwan." Yes, you will feel that paradox. "I have seen him and yet something remains unknown, unseen." That will always remain -- unless you also become Bhagwan. Unless you also reclaim your divinity, unless you also become a God, something will remain unknown -- because we can know only that of which we have become capable.

Another woman last night came to me and she said, "I love you, but I cannot love you as a divine being -- I love you as a human being." That's okay! In fact, how can you see divineness if something of the divine has not already stirred in your heart? How can you see beyond yourself?

And the woman who said it is a dogmatic Christian. In fact she thinks -- maybe not very consciously, but unconsciously -- that Jesus is the only God there ever has been. But you must know that Jesus was crucified, and the people who crucified him, they were not crucifying a God -- they were crucifying a vagabond, they were crucifying a criminal; they were crucifying a man who was creating mischief.

The people who crucified Jesus were not able to see his godliness at all; they could only see the mischief in him. So whether Jesus was a God or not is not the question -- whether you can see or not is the question. And you can see only that which you are; you cannot see beyond yourself.

The moment you start seeing God in me, something of the God has been born in you. And then it is not going to remain confined to me. The moment you start seeing God in me, by and by you will see God in Jesus, in Buddha, in Krishna. And, by and by, you will see God in other people. By and by, you will be able to see God in birds, in trees, in rocks -- and one day you will see that only God exists and nothing else. In fact, only God exists and nothing else.

The more you hear me, the more you will feel something has been left unheard. The more you see me, the more you will feel something is missing, you have not seen me totally. The more close you are to me, the more intense your thirst will become. The more you love me, the more passionate you will become in your love; a burning desire will arise in you to become a God yourself.

Now there is a problem with Christians, Mohammedans, Jews, who think of God as a person -- there is a problem. They think God is the one who created the world. In the East we have a deeper understanding of God than that. Creation is not something separate from God: it is His play; it is He Himself hiding in many forms. Here He has become a rock, there He has become a flower. Here He is a sinner and there He is a saint. The whole play is His. And He is the only actor and He goes on dividing His roles. He is in Jesus and He is in Judas.

In the East, God is not a person -- God is the very stuff the universe is made of. God is not a creator -- God is creativity. And the creator and the creation are just two aspects of the same creative energy.

In the West, the idea is something like a painter making a picture, a painting. By the time the painting is complete, the painting is separate from the painter. Then the painter can die, but the painting will remain. In the East, we don't think of God and the world as a painter and a painting -- we think of God as a dancer, nataraj. You cannot separate the dancer from the dance; if the dancer goes, the dance goes. If the dance stops, then the person is no more a dancer. Dancer and dancing exist together; they cannot exist separately; you cannot separate them.

God is more like a dancer. I am one of His movements; you are also one of His movements -- you may recognize it, you may not recognize it. The only difference in the world is that a few people recognize that they are Gods and a few people don't recognize that they are Gods. The difference is not of your being, it is only of recognition.

The more and more you love, the more and more you become understanding and aware, the more and more you will feel something is missing.

"I have heard him and yet still I am deaf to his teaching" -- you have really heard me. Only then can this feeling arise. If hearing me you think you have understood me, you are really deaf -- not only deaf, you are stupid also.

I am saying something about the ineffable. I am saying something about the ultimate mystery. You can understand it, yet you can never understand it totally. It is elusive, it escapes. It is within reach, but it is not within grasp. You are always coming closer and closer to it, but you never arrive. And the day you arrive, then you are no more there; the distinction between the seeker and the sought disappears. Then you are it. That art thou -- then you are it! That is the moment of culmination.