WHEN SOME VISITORS

UNEXPECTEDLY FOUND HERACLITUS

WARMING HIMSELF BY THE COOKING FIRE,

HE SAID TO THEM:

HERE, TOO, ARE THE GODS.

I HAVE SEARCHED MYSELF.

TIME IS A CHILD

MOVING COUNTERS IN A GAME;

THE ROYAL POWER IS A CHILD'S.

BIGOTRY IS THE SACRED DISEASE.

There are two ways to seek the true: one is to borrow knowledge, the other is to seek yourself. Of course borrowing is easy, but whatsoever you borrow is never yours, and that which is not yours cannot be true. This condition must be fulfilled: truth must be yours.

I may have known truth, but I cannot transfer it to you. In the very act of transferring it becomes a lie. That is the nature of truth. So nobody can give it to you, you cannot borrow it, you cannot steal it, you cannot purchase it -- you have to know it. And unless you know, your knowledge is not a knowing -- it is a hiding place for your ignorance. You are deceiving yourself, you are completely misguided.

The first thing to remember is that truth is a lived phenomenon. Who can live for you? You have to live for yourself, nobody can be a substitute. Who can love for you? Servants cannot do that, friends cannot be of any help -- you have to love. Jean-Paul Sartre says somewhere that sooner or later a time will come when people will engage servants to love for them. Of course, rich people are already on the way. Sooner or later those who can afford it, they will not bother themselves. Why bother when a servant can do it? You can find a beautiful, good servant, and he can love for you. You have other more important things to do -- love can be left to servants.

Mulla Nasruddin once told me, "I am very much interested in my wife's happiness."

So I asked, "What are you doing?"

He said, "I have hired a private detective to search for the reasons."

But can anybody else love for you? No, there is no possibility. You cannot be alive by proxy, you cannot love by proxy -- and you cannot reach truth by proxy either. That is the very nature of things. There is no way to be cunning about it and clever about it. Man has tried: "There is one who knows; we can get it from him, we can borrow it." But truth has to be lived. It is not something outside, it is an inner growth. It is not a thing, it is not an object; it is your subjectivity.

Truth is subjectivity, so how can you get it from anybody else, from scriptures, from vedas, korans and bibles? No, Jesus is not of much help, neither is Buddha. You have to go through it, there is no shortcut. You have to travel, suffer. Many times you will fall, many times you will err, many times you will go astray -- that's how it is. Come back again and again; start the search again and again. Many times the path is lost. Many times you move in a circle, you come back to the same point again and again. There seems to be no progress -- but go on searching. Go on searching and don't feel hopeless and dejected. Keep the hope: that is the quality of a seeker.

A seeker trusts, he hopes; he can wait, he can wait infinitely. He has patience and he goes on seeking. Not that every step leads to the goal, sometimes he is moving in just the opposite direction. But even moving in the opposite direction one learns; even erring is a part of learning. Nobody can learn if they are very much afraid of being in error. If one is very much afraid that he may go astray, then there is no possibility of traveling. This is why the mind says, "Ask the awakened, those who know -- gather from them." But then it is secondhand, and there is no such thing as a secondhand truth, it is simply a lie. A secondhand truth is a lie. A truth, to be true, has to be firsthand, original. It has to be fresh, you have to reach it -- it is always virgin.

Heraclitus says:

I HAVE SEARCHED MYSELF.

He is saying, "I am not saying something that I have heard -- I have searched myself. It is not something that I have learnt, it is something I have grown myself. It is a growth, it is a subjectivity -- it is my own experience." And when it is your experience, it transforms you.

Says Jesus: "Truth liberates." But you know many truths, and they have not liberated you. On the contrary, they have become the bondages, they are the fetters around you. Truth liberates, lies become a prison.

That's why Heraclitus says:

BIGOTRY IS THE SACRED DISEASE.

A man who knows himself is never bigoted, he is never a sectarian; he is never obsessed by a theory. He never makes any claim that only he is true, because when one knows the truth, one knows that the truth is multifaceted, and one knows that there are millions of ways of looking at it. And whenever someone comes near, whatsoever he sees is individual. It has never been so before, it will never be that way again -- because this individual has never been there, and this individual is totally unique. So every vision, every encounter of truth is unique. It cannot be compared.

A man who has known himself has also come to know that millions are the paths, millions are the faces of the truth. How can he be bigoted? How can he say, "Only my truth is true, and only my god is God; your god is a false god"? This is the language of one whose truth is borrowed. You see millions of religious people all over the world claiming truth. They have not come to know, they have not searched themselves; otherwise how can they miss? How can they miss the multifaceted experience, the phenomenon of truth? How can they say, "Only my truth," because when one comes to know that there is no "I," how can one claim? How is bigotry possible?

A really religious man has no claim. He accommodates., he does not tolerate because when you say, "I tolerate," there is intolerance. He does not say, "I am a Christian, you are a Hindu. Yes, I am a man of tolerance, I tolerate. You may also be true; I am true, you may also be true. I tolerate you." But tolerance always hides intolerance; the very word is intolerant. So whenever a person says, "I am tolerant," be aware he is intolerant, he is hiding. What do you mean by your tolerance? You think that you are somewhere higher and you are tolerating those who are lower, pitying them. Or, at the most, a Christian will say, "Yes, there are many ways, but my way is the best. Yes, people have reached by other ways also, but mine is the super highway." That, too, is intolerance. Why this claim? Why this "I"? Why this ego?

And that's why religions became so quarrelsome. They have murdered, they have killed, they have committed all sorts of sins. They are here to liberate man, and they are here to take man beyond all sins, yet they have committed all the sins. Religions have killed more than anybody else, and they have created misery and strife and struggle and conflict more than anything else on this earth. This earth is ugly because of so many churches, temples, mosques. They have not united man, they have divided. They have not made humanity one. They talk about love, but they have created hate. They talk about peace, but they create all sorts of causes for violence to exist. They feed violence and they talk about peace. Why? The reason is not religion; the reason is bigotry.

Says Heraclitus:

BIGOTRY IS THE SACRED DISEASE.

Diseases are bad, and when they are sacred they are worse of course. When a disease looks as though it is sacred, you think it is the ultimate in health. Whenever someone claims, "I am the only truth," and the claim can be made in very subtle ways, then ugliness enters. These mad people have even forced their gods to say things which look absurd. Mohammedans say, "God says, `I am the only God, and Mohammed is the only prophet.'" What do you mean? Is God exhausted in Mohammed? Then God is very poor. Then what about Mahavira? Then what about Buddha? Then what about Jesus, Krishna, Lao Tzu, Heraclitus? And what about all of you who are some day or the other going to become the prophets? What about the whole? Mohammed is beautiful, but Mohammedans claim that he is the only prophet, and then ugliness enters. Jesus is wonderful, but Christians say that he is the only begotten son. Why the only begotten son? Then what are all of you -- bastards? If he is the only begotten son, then what is this whole existence? From where do you come if he comes from God? Then who is YOUR father?

No, God is infinitely potential. Millions of Jesuses can come from him and he remains the same, he is not exhausted -- that is the meaning of omnipotent. If he has only one son, he seems to be impotent rather than omnipotent. He goes on creating and the creativity never ends -- that is the infinity. But Christians claim that Jesus is the only son. Why this claim? So that they can claim their book is the only book. The word bible means the book. They have not named it because for them this is the only book, all else is rubbish. What about the Upanishads? What about the sayings of Buddha? What about the Tao Teh Ching of Lao Tzu? Why should The Bible be the only book? It is beautiful, but when it becomes the only book it has become ill.

This is the sacred disease. When you claim for your truth that it is the whole and all, the ego has entered. Truth needs no claim. It's simply there in all its beauty; you can see it but it has no claim on you. In fact, truth never tries to convert anybody. It helps, it loves you, it would like you to be transformed, but there is no effort to convert. But Hindus try to make Christians Hindus, Christians try to make Hindus Christians. Why this effort? -- because they believe that they have the sole key and the only key and everybody else is going to hell. When people start converting they make the thing very narrow.

Infinite is the way, because to infinity it leads.

When the goal is infinite, how can the way be so narrow? In fact, whenever a man is religious he is neither a Christian, nor a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan. That's what I am trying to help you to be: neither Christians, nor Hindus, nor Mohammedans. Why can't you simply be? What need is there to carry the label of a sect? If you feel good, if you love Jesus, it is very beautiful. If you love Buddha, it is good -- but why become bigoted? Why become prejudiced? Your love is beautiful, and if it helps you it is good -- move accordingly. But then there are millions of people who move in different ways. Let them move, help them; wherever they are going, help them. Help them to move in their own ways, let them do their own thing. Don't force them and don't try to convert them. If they look at you and they feel something and they want to change their path, it is up to them. That's why Heraclitus is completely forgotten, because he never created a sect around him. He had followers, but he never created a sect and he never claimed anything. He never said, "This is the only truth."

Why does this appeal? When somebody says, "This is the only truth," why does this appeal? You are very uncertain and confused, so when somebody claims that his is the only truth, you think, "He must know, otherwise how can he claim?" The claim becomes a subtle influence, he looks authoritative. But remember well: a man of knowledge, a man of understanding, is always hesitant. He is not so authoritative because he sees the truth and he feels it cannot be expressed -- he hesitates. You will find poetry in his words, but you will not find statements. He has a subtle aroma around him which gives you a feeling of certainty, but that certainty doesn't come from his statements. His statements are always hesitant; before he says anything he hesitates -- because he knows that whatsoever is said cannot be the truth, and he knows that whatsoever he is trying to do is a dangerous thing. It is hazardous because words destroy, and when you hear the words you will give your own meaning to them.

A man of understanding hesitates. He does not know what will happen to his words. What you will do out of his words is unknown, and each single word can become very, very meaningful to you, or a meaningful effort on your part. He hesitates, he watches you, he looks all around, he tries to find your center of being, then he says something. So that it never becomes a misunderstanding, so that it doesn't misguide you, so that if his words can help it is okay and they don't prove harmful to you -- he hesitates. But a man of borrowed knowledge never hesitates. He is very, very certain. Just go and listen to Christian missionaries: they seem to be so certain that their certainty says they are stupid. Why this certainty? And they don't know anything, they have been trained -- trained for everything.

I used to visit a theological college, a Christian theological college. I used to watch how they prepare priests and ministers, and I was amazed -- the whole thing seems to be so stupid. Even gestures are practiced: how to stand on the pulpit, what to say, how to say it; when to raise your voice high, and when to whisper; and how to raise your hand, when to raise it exactly -- everything is trained. They look like actors. And they don't know anything, but they never hesitate because they have been trained. Training cannot make you religious, discipline cannot make you religious, learning cannot make you religious. You can become an actor, you may become a very skilled actor. You may become so skilled that not only do you deceive others, but you yourself are also deceived.

If you ask psychoanalysts they have an answer: a man who feels himself hesitant within will always create a certainty outside. He is afraid of his own inner uncertainty, so he clings to certain statements. A man who is certain within doesn't bother: he can hesitate, he can afford to hesitate, there is no fear. He can say, "Perhaps"; there is no need to be certain. He can say, "God is summer and winter; God is night and day; God is satiety and hunger; God is both rest and restlessness" -- he can be paradoxical. The paradox is used just to give you a feeling that the man is not claiming anything, he is simply trying to say the fact. And if the fact is complex, let it be so. If the fact is contradictory, let the statement also be contradictory -- let it be a true reflection. You cannot ask a man of learning to be so paradoxical -- God is summer and winter -- no. He is absolutely certain of what God is: God is day, never night; God is light, never darkness; God is good, never bad; God is peace, never war. When God is both war and peace, where are you? You become uncertain, you hesitate.

Says Heraclitus:

I HAVE SEARCHED MYSELF.

That's why he is so paradoxical. Always look for the paradox. You will always find it if a man has searched himself, because then what can he do? If existence is paradoxical, what can he do? -- he has to represent it as it is. But go to a missionary -- he has never searched. He has learnt much, he can quote scriptures. In fact, he cannot do anything other than quote scriptures. And you know very well that the devil is very skilled in quoting scriptures -- he is the perfect missionary.

WHEN SOME VISITORS

UNEXPECTEDLY FOUND HERACLITUS

WARMING HIMSELF BY THE COOKING FIRE,

HE SAID TO THEM:

HERE, TOO, ARE THE GODS.

He never went to a temple, because if you are a man of perception, if your eyes are open, if you can hear and feel, then what need is there to go to a temple? Here also are gods.

God is not a person. God is all that is the case. God is existence.

Just imagine the picture: Heraclitus sitting by the fireside, warming himself. The cracking of the wood, the flames rising towards heaven, the warmth.... It must have been a cold winter night -- unexpectedly some visitors come and they ask, "What are you doing?" And he says, "Here also are gods." What he is saying is that this is a prayer, this warming yourself is a prayer -- if the fire becomes a divine phenomenon.

It reminds me of a Zen master, Ikkyu. He was journeying and he was staying in a temple, just overnight. The night was very, very cold, so he made a fire. But not finding wood anywhere, he took a statue of Buddha -- a wooden statue that was in the temple -- and burnt it. The priest was fast asleep... noise, the fire, and this Ikkyu moving here and there. He looked -- he opened his eyes and looked -- and he was aghast, he couldn't believe it, because this was a Buddhist monk, and not only a monk but a very famous master. The priest jumped out of his bed, he came running and he said, "What are you doing? You have burnt a Buddha!"

Ikkyu took out a small piece of wood and searched in the ashes for the Buddha -- the statue was almost gone, nothing was there.

The priest said, "What are you searching for? It is no longer there."

Ikkyu said, "I am searching for the bones -- Buddha must have bones."

The priest laughed and said, "Now I am completely certain you are mad. How can a wooden Buddha have bones?"

Ikkyu said, "Then bring the other two Buddhas also, because the night is still long and very cold, and the buddha within me needs a little warmth. These Buddhas are just wooden, so don't worry. Here inside are bones, and a real buddha, and this buddha needs a little warmth. These Buddhas are no good anyway, they have no bones, so don't worry."

The priest threw him out of the temple. The night was very cold, but there are people who will worship a wooden Buddha and throw out a real buddha. In the morning he looked out to see what had happened to Ikkyu: he was sitting just outside the temple near a milestone -- and worshipping it. The sun was rising, it was a beautiful morning and he had found a few flowers from somewhere. He had put those flowers on the milestone and he was worshipping. The priest came running and he said, "What are you doing? You are really completely mad! During the night you burnt a Buddha and now you are worshipping a milestone."

Said Ikkyu, "Here, also, is a god."

Heraclitus: "Here, too, are gods."

If you can feel, every moment is divine and everything is divine, and all that exists is holy. If you cannot feel, go to the temples, go to the mosques and churches, but you will not find anything there either -- because it is you who need a transformation, it is not the situation that needs change. The situation remains the same: in the temple, outside the temple, everywhere God is. It is you who cannot see and so you change places: from the house you go to the temple in search of God.

You need an inner transformation.

The change in the situation won't help. You need a psychological reorientation. You need a totally new way of looking at things, then suddenly the whole world becomes the temple, then there is nothing else.

For Heraclitus, fire became the symbol -- and fire is really a beautiful symbol. Heraclitus says fire is the basic substance of life. It is! Now physicists agree with Heraclitus. They agree that electricity is the base of all existence, that everything is nothing but modes of electricity. Heraclitus says it is fire. What is the difference? And fire is a more beautiful word than electricity. Fire gives a sense of more aliveness than electricity does, fire is more wild than electricity. When you say electricity is the base, it looks as if the universe is somehow mechanical because electricity has become associated with a mechanism, and then God looks like an engineer -- but electricity is fire.

Hindus have called this basic element PRANA, vitality -- but vitality is fire. When you are vital, alive, you are fiery, aflame. Henri Bergson has called the base of all, elan vital, just like prana. Those who have been seeking, somehow or other they come near fire. Deep down this existence is fire. Fire is life. And Zarathustra is right: he made fire the suprememost god. He must have agreed with Heraclitus -- they were contemporaries, Zarathustra and Heraclitus. Fire became the supreme god for the followers of Zarathustra.

Fire has many things deep in it. You will have to understand the phenomenon of fire, the symbol, because it is a way of speaking, it is a metaphor. Something deep Heraclitus wants to indicate when he says that fire is the substratum. Watch fire some day on a winter's night; sit also by the side of a fire and just watch, just feel it, the warmth. Cold is death, warmth is life. A dead body is cold, a live body is warm -- and you have to maintain a certain warmth continuously. An inner mechanism exists in man to keep the warmth always within a certain limit, because only between those certain degrees is life possible. Human life exists just between ninety-five degrees and one hundred and ten degrees, just between those fifteen degrees. There are other lives which exist at other temperatures, but human life has a span of just fifteen degrees.

Mulla Nasruddin was very, very ill, feverish, in a high fever, and the doctor took his temperature and said, "One hundred and five."

Mulla opened his eyes and asked, "What is the world record?" -- because the ego always thinks in terms of world records. He was thinking, "Maybe I couldn't beat anyone in any other way, but maybe I can break the world record in fever" -- but beyond one hundred and ten there is no record, because then man simply disappears, you cannot absorb so much fire. Below ninety-five you disappear: so much cold, death settles in.

That's why we say, "A warm welcome," not, "A cold welcome"; warm love, not cold love -- because cold symbolizes death, warmth symbolizes life. The sun is the source, solar energy is fire. Just watch: in the evening everything becomes sad. Even trees, birds become completely silent; no song, all songs disappear. Flowers close and the whole earth waits for the morning. And in the morning, the sun has not yet risen and the earth starts becoming ready to welcome. The birds start singing even before the sun has arisen -- that is a welcome sign. Flowers start flowering again; everything becomes again alive, movement enters.

Fire is a very, very meaningful symbol in other ways also. If you watch fire you will see a continuous upward movement. Water flows downwards, fire flows upwards -- that's why the Hindus talk about "the fire of KUNDALINI." When you rise upwards you are not like water, you are like a flame of fire. When your inner being changes, you feel a flame going upwards. Water, even water, in contact with fire starts evaporating upwards.

In a very, very old Tibetan scripture it is said that a master is like fire and the disciple is like water. If the disciple comes in deep contact with the master, the quality of the disciple changes -- it becomes the quality of fire, just like water heated evaporates. Water without fire moves downwards. With fire immediately a change comes in. Beyond one hundred degrees the fire has made the water ready to move upwards; the dimension changes.

Fire always moves upwards. Even if you hold a lamp upside down the flame will go upwards, the flame cannot go downwards. Fire is an effort to reach the highest peak, the omega point. Another thing: if you watch a flame, you can see it only for a few seconds, split seconds, then it disappears. The higher you go, the more you disappear; the lower you go, the more you become solid. Watch water: if it goes on getting lower and lower and lower and colder and colder, it becomes frozen, it becomes ice. Then it is like stone, then all movement stops -- then it is dead. When water is frozen, it is dead, it is no longer alive. You will have to melt it through fire, then movement will appear again. You will have to heat it so much that it comes to a hundred degree point, then it will move upwards.

So there are three stages: no movement, that is when you are frozen; a downward movement, that is when you are like water -- first stage like ice, second like water -- and the third is when you evaporate: then you move upwards. In you, almost all three stages exist simultaneously. Some part of you is like fire, moving upwards, a very small part, very tiny.... That's why you have come to me, otherwise there would be no need.

Why have you come to me? You must have a tiny part which moves upwards, and that tiny part feels as though it is being pulled down by your whole being -- that is the anguish. You know that something in you goes towards the divine. In some moments you feel like a bird, and you can simply fly, but only in some moments. And even in those moments the greater part of you is hanging like stone. One part hangs like stone. Almost ninety percent of you is like ice. Nine percent of you moves like water, downwards. In sex, in anger, in hatred, you move downwards -- but at least it is better to move downwards than not to move at all. That's why, if I feel very much of a frozen being in you, I say fall in love, move towards sex, because at least it will melt you. Of course you will not be flying upwards, you will move downwards, but at least movement is good. And once movement is there then the direction can be changed, the dimension can be changed. But frozen...?

Just go to the monasteries and look if you want to see perfect examples of frozen ice. Go to the Catholic monasteries or Jaina monasteries. There you will find perfect frozen icecubes, no men -- because they are against sex, they are against food, they are against everything. They are just negative, they have been negating. And if you negate, by and by your life loses fire, because fire is a positive force. If you negate you become cold. Negativity is a method of suicide. By and by, you die; in fragments you kill yourself, then you are frozen. But this is no achievement, in fact it is falling down.

I tell people, "If you are frozen, then move towards sex, that will help." Of course, it is not going to lead you towards the ultimate, but one thing will happen: you will start moving. When you love a person, when you feel for some other person, your bioenergy starts moving. That's why in sex you feel very much excited: fire has begun to function, and when you make love, your body temperature rises. Love is like fever, a temporary fever created by your mind. That's why after love you relax deeply, you have a flow. If you can attain to sexual orgasm, a complete flow happens, then your bioenergy is moving. Those people who cannot have deep orgasms are difficult people, for meditation also -- because they cannot move, so how can they move upwards?

The first thing is movement. The second thing is to turn the movement upwards. And so many people cannot move, they are afraid, they are frozen. You can clearly see their bodies as frozen phenomena. You touch them and you will feel their bodies are cold. You shake hands with them and you will feel that you are shaking hands with the dead branch of a tree, no movement. You take their hands into your hands and you will not feel that any energy is being transmitted. The hand is there just like a dead branch. It doesn't give, it doesn't receive, it doesn't communicate. And you can watch people: just by their walking, their faces, their movements, you can see whether they are orgasmic or not.

The first thing for a master to know about you is whether you are orgasmic or not. If you are orgasmic, if your whole body vibrates when you make love, and the vibrating phenomenon is so deep that you are no more for a single second, of course then you become just a flow, from head to toe the energy moves like a flood, and there are no blocks of ice within you, everything melts. After making love you fall into sleep like a child because the energy has moved. You have played long, you are tired, but this tiredness is very nice. This tiredness is relaxation, now you can relax -- and the body feels alive. Hence so much appeal of sex -- because it is really your body trying to find a way to be orgasmic, to be riverlike, not frozen.

When you are frozen you cannot relate. When you are frozen you are closed within yourself, you make an imprisonment -- and from this imprisonment there is no way to God. You will have to melt. And before you reach the divine, before you can relate to the divine, you will have to relate to other persons in this world, because when you relate to other persons -- that is, when you love, care -- then your body melts, it flows. When it flows then another step can be taken.

In a flowing energy it is very simple to heat the body in certain inner ways. All meditations are methods to give you heat, more heat than sex can give. Meditations, particularly those we are doing here, are all to create fire within you. Through breathing, fast chaotic breathing, fire is created, because breathing brings you more and more oxygen, and when there is more oxygen, more fire happens; without oxygen, there is no fire. Even if a flame burns, it burns because of oxygen. If there is no oxygen, the fire will subside automatically. More oxygen has to be brought to your body because you are too frozen. You are not alive enough, you are not warm enough.

People come to me, particularly the frozen ones, and they say, "We don't like this dynamic meditation." They don't like it because they are frozen and they have too much invested in their frozenness. They don't love, but they think they are BRAHMACHARINS, celibates -- they are simply frozen, icecubes. In their lives there is no movement, but they think they are detached. Of course, there is a detachment that comes when you flow upwards, but that is totally different. And there is a detachment that happens when you don't flow at all. Of course a dead man is detached, a dead man is celibate -- a dead man is completely dead. You can be detached like a dead man; that is what has happened in all the monasteries of the whole world. And you can be detached in a totally different way, a qualitatively, diametrically opposite way. That is when you become so much alive that the fire comes to a point where the water doesn't flow downwards, it starts flowing upwards.

More fire has to be created within you, you should become a furnace. Absorb more oxygen, make more effort, allow the body as much movement as possible, bring energy, throbbing energy. It is there -- you just have to make it throbbing. Live like a flame burning from both sides together. Then only, suddenly one day, you will find that your energy is flowing upwards, that you have become a flame. Then you can see yourself up to a certain extent, and then you are no more. Then suddenly you disappear into the cosmos, then you have become one with the divine. This is the symbol of fire -- that you can see it only for a few seconds and then it is disappearing.

A buddha is continuously disappearing. Look at me: if you can see, you will see that I am continuously disappearing. Just up to a certain extent you can see. That's why the aura is seen around a man who is awakened. That aura is nothing but a disappearing fire, a continuously disappearing fire. Up to a certain extent you can see it, hence the aura. Beyond that aura there is nothing, it disappears.

Heraclitus is very, very right in finding the symbol. It is not a philosophical statement, but in Greek histories of philosophy they think Heraclitus is proposing, like others -- like Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes -- like other Greek philosophers, that he is proposing an element... Because there are four elements: earth, water, fire, air, so there have been philosophers who proposed that earth is the basic element; somebody else proposed that water is the basic element; somebody else fire; somebody else air. Heraclitus proposes that fire is the basic element, but he should not be understood in the way Thales is understood, no. It is not a statement. It is not a statement about a philosophical theme or theory, he is not proposing any doctrine. He is a poet, he is not a philosopher at all. He is giving a symbol, and the symbol means much more than the word fire.

Watch fire outside, then watch fire inside, and become as much of a flame as possible.

That's why:

WHEN SOME VISITORS

UNEXPECTEDLY FOUND HERACLITUS

WARMING HIMSELF BY THE COOKING FIRE,

HE SAID TO THEM:

HERE, TOO, ARE THE GODS.

I HAVE SEARCHED MYSELF.

And I am not just saying this because others have said -- I have known myself.

He says:

TIME IS A CHILD

MOVING COUNTERS IN A GAME;

THE ROYAL POWER IS A CHILD'S.

The royal power is a child's, and time is a child moving counters in a game -- the whole concept of LEELA, play, he condenses in just a few sentences. Life is like a play -- don't make it a business, otherwise you will miss it. You miss it because you make a business out of it and it is a play. Play well, but don't think in terms of achieving something out of it. Just be like a child: he plays, he is not worried about what he achieves out of it. Small children, even if they are defeated in a game, jump and feel very happy. Failure is not a failure if it is a play; defeat is not a defeat if it is a play. Otherwise, if it is a business, even victory is a defeat. Ask Napoleons, Alexanders: even victory is defeat. What do you find finally? You are victorious, and nothing has been achieved. You longed for this goal so much and now you have reached it -- and you simply feel frustrated and your whole life is lost.

Remember, your life will be lost if you are after some goals, because life has no goal. It is a purposeless play. It is not going anywhere, it is simply enjoying itself.

This is the most difficult thing to understand because the mind is mathematical. It says, "Then what is the meaning of it, then what is the purpose?" There is no purpose and no meaning. Then the mind immediately says, "If there is no meaning then why live, then why not commit suicide?" But see: if there is meaning the whole thing will become ugly, then it will be like a business. If there is purpose, then all life will lose the poetry.

The poetry is there because there is no purpose. Why does the rose flower? Ask the rose; it will say, "I don't know -- but flowering is so beautiful, what is the need to know? Flowering in itself, intrinsically, is so beautiful." Ask a bird, "Why do you sing?" and he will be simply puzzled at what nonsense questions you ask. Singing is so beautiful, it is such a benediction -- why raise the question? But the mind looks for the goal, the mind is an achiever -- it cannot simply enjoy. Something must be there in the future to be achieved, some goal must be reached, then mind feels good. If there is nothing to be achieved, it flops. But that is what the whole effort is -- let it flop!

There is no purpose, there is no goal.

This moment, the whole existence is celebrating -- all except you. Why not participate?

Why not be like a flower, purposelessly flowering?

And why not be like a river, meaninglessly flowing?

And why not be like the ocean, roaring, just enjoying?

This is what Heraclitus says:

TIME IS A CHILD

MOVING COUNTERS IN A GAME;

THE ROYAL POWER IS A CHILD'S.

And every child is a king. Just watch a child -- every child is simply a king, an emperor. Look at the movement: even if the child is naked, no emperor can compete with him. Why is a child so beautiful? Every child, without any exception, is beautiful. What is the beauty of a child? He is still uncontaminated by the mind, which seeks purpose, meaning, goal. He simply plays, he doesn't bother about the next day.

A small child came home. His mother was very angry and she said, "I have heard from neighborhood children that you threw mud in a small girl's mouth, and you have been punished -- you were standing outside the class the whole day!"

He said, "Yes."

His mother was horrified; she said, "Why? Why did you throw that mud?"

The small child shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, the mouth was open." The why is meaningless. It is enough: he had mud in the hand and the mouth was open, so what to do? It simply happened.

We are asking why. Why is irrelevant for a child -- it is how it happened! The mouth was open and he had the mud. He did not do it really. We punish him wrongly, he did not do it -- it happened, it simply happened this way. It was a coincidence that the girl was standing with an open mouth. He didn't mean anything, he didn't mean any harm, he didn't mean any insult. He simply welcomed the opportunity, he enjoyed it. But we ask why.

Between a child and a grownup exists an abyss; they are poles apart. The child cannot understand what the adults are saying because he lives in a totally different dimension -- the dimension of play. And the adults cannot understand what the child is doing because the adult is a businessman, he lives in the world of whys, reasons, causes. They never meet, they cannot meet, there is no possibility of understanding -- unless the adult again becomes a child. Only a saint, a real sage, can understand a child, because he is also a child. He can understand.

I was reading a small child's diary. On the twenty-fifth of December in the diary it is written: "Got an air-gun from Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe is the greatest uncle in the world. There has never been such an uncle and never will be, etcetera, etcetera. But it is raining and I can't go out. I would like to hunt immediately."

26th December: "It is still raining, and I am feeling very, very restless."

27th December: "It is still raining, and I am frustrated and feeling very aggressive and violent."

28th December: "It is still raining -- shot Uncle Joe."

This is a child's world. He moves without any purpose, playing. Playing in itself is enough.

If you can become a child again, you have achieved all. If you cannot become a child again, you have missed all. A sage is a twiceborn child. And firstborn children are not real children because they will have to grow up. The second birth is the real birth, because when somebody is twiceborn he has given birth to himself. It is a transformation, he has again become a child. He does not ask for reasons and whys, he simply lives. Whatsoever the moment presents, he moves with it; he has no plans, he has no projections. He lives without demanding anything, and that is the only way to live; otherwise, you simply appear to be living, you are not alive. For a child there is nothing bad, nothing good, there is no God, no Devil; a child accepts everything. Again, a sage accepts everything. That's why he can say God is winter and summer, God is peace and war, God is Devil and good -- both. For a sage, again all morality disappears, all distinctions fall down; everything is holy and every place is sacred.

I was staying with a family, a Christian family. The mother was talking to her child and she was saying, "This is not good, you need not pray so loudly -- you almost shout. Prayers don't have to be shouted. God can hear you, you need not shout so much."

But the child said, "But it says, `Hollered be thy name!'" A child lives somewhere else.

The mother was very, very angry. I told her, "Don't disturb him, don't disturb his childhood, it is too soon. Let him follow his own way of praying -- he is enjoying it, and that enjoyment is the real thing, not the form. He jumps and hollers the name of God, and it is beautiful! Why are you teaching him?... Because this is the way it should be: if you enjoy, it becomes a prayer. If you don't enjoy, if it becomes a discipline somebody else is forcing on you, then you feel imprisoned. Let him holler, let him jump -- and I can be a witness to him: God hears him. The point is not whether he hollers or not, but whether he enjoys."

A man who can be blissful need not pray -- prayer is a poor substitute. A man who is blissful need not meditate. A man who is blissful can live the moment blissfully, has done all that can be done. Everything is holy and sacred. You can eat your food in such a way that it becomes prayer. You can love a man in such a way that it becomes prayer. You can dig a hole in the garden in such a way that it becomes prayer. Prayer is not a formal thing -- it is the quality of prayerfulness that you bring to something.

... THE ROYAL POWER IS A CHILD'S.

Why? -- because the royal power means innocence. God comes to you when you are innocent. When you are cunning the door is closed. Never destroy anybody's innocence, never create doubts in somebody who is innocent, because innocence is the royal power. Never create doubt in anybody, because once trust is destroyed and innocence is broken, then it is very, very difficult -- it is just like a broken mirror.

This is the problem for a master: you are all like broken mirrors, because somewhere on the path of life your trust has been destroyed. You cannot believe, you have been raised to doubt; you have a very cultivated, sophisticated doubting mind. This is the problem. Nothing can happen to you -- not God, no! -- unless a trust is created again. You are like a broken mirror, and you insist on being a broken mirror. You think that to doubt is some great thing that you have -- that is your poverty.

A child's heart is the royal power. With innocence the power comes to you. And when I say trust, and when all the masters of the world say trust, they mean: Become innocent. But you insist that you will doubt and you will argue and you will first rationalize. You insist that you should be convinced first about something, then you will take a step -- and that is the very problem, precisely that is the problem. If you can take one step in darkness, trusting, everything becomes possible. But you cannot take that one step. And look: what have you achieved through doubting, where have you reached with this broken mirror? You have become addicted to it because it has remained with you so long.

Mulla Nasruddin was teaching his son the ways of the world -- a small child, a beautiful child -- and he told him to go up a ladder. The child followed. He always liked to climb, and he was surprised because Mulla was always saying, "Don't climb the tree, don't climb the ladder," so why...? But he was very happy. He climbed, he reached the top, and then Mulla said, "Now jump." The child hesitated a little, but the Mulla said, "I am your father, why are you worried? Jump!"

The child jumped... and Mulla moved away. The child fell down on the ground, started crying and weeping, and he said, "What have you done to me?"

Mulla said, "Now remember: don't believe anybody, not even your father. This is the way of the world, and I am making you ready. Don't believe anybody, not even if he is your father. You have learnt a good lesson: Don't trust!"

This is how every father, mother, teacher, schools, universities, are preparing you. Don't trust anybody because somebody may be dishonest; he may be a fraud, he may deceive you. But this is the problem: even if the whole world deceives you, you will not lose anything. But if you doubt, you will lose everything. Doubt is the real deceiver, because ultimately you will miss God. God comes through the door of innocence. Can you trust anything in your life? If you search you will find nobody, nothing you can trust.

It happened: A man came to a very great mystic, Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna said, "You love somebody, you trust somebody?"

The man said, "I don't trust anybody and I don't love -- except my cow."

Nagarjuna said, "That will do. Believe completely that your cow is God -- love her, trust her, feed her, care about her, and after three months you come to me."

But the man said, "How can it happen -- just loving the cow and trusting the cow?"

Nagarjuna said, "Don't you worry. After three months you come to me."

The man came back completely transformed. He said, "What miracle have you done? I cannot yet believe it, and it has happened: just trusting the cow and loving and caring, I have experienced something which has made me a completely different man. I am reborn! But how could it happen -- just trusting a cow?"

Nagarjuna said, "It is not a question of trusting a cow, it is a question of TRUSTING." If you can trust even a small thing, from that the door widens. And when you have tasted trust, you become more capable of trust. When you taste more, you become more and more capable, and then you can take the ultimate jump.

TIME IS A CHILD

MOVING COUNTERS IN A GAME;

THE ROYAL POWER IS A CHILD'S.

And about time, also, Heraclitus has no mathematical theory. About time, also, he says that it is just like a child moving counters in a game: the day and night, they move. Heraclitus does not believe that time is going somewhere. It is moving, it is moving in a circle. It is not linear, it is like a wheel. And this is something to be understood: all the scientists think that time is linear, that it is moving in a line; and all the knowers of the inner say it is a wheel -- it is not linear, it is circular. There seems to be some reason for it. Scientists cannot see the whole, they see just a part. The scientific mind is a specific mind, specialized. The scientist can see only a part, and he also divides the part to see an even smaller part. He goes on dividing -- the scientist cannot see the whole. The very discipline of science makes him capable of seeing the part more clearly. He goes on seeing more and more clearly, but less and less. His vision becomes clear and penetrating, but his object becomes smaller and smaller. He comes to the atom, the smallest; and in time also he comes to the moment, the smallest.

If you see a small sector of a circle it will look like a line, but the circle is vast -- just like on the earth. We are sitting here, and if we draw a line and you think it is a straight line then you are wrong -- because on a circular earth, how can you draw a straight line? If you go on drawing that line, continue it, it will become a circle, it will encompass the whole earth. So all straight lines are just parts, fragments of a vast, big circle.

Science cannot see the whole, that is why time seems to be linear. Religion sees the whole -- science misses the forest, it looks at the tree; religion misses the tree, looks at the forest. And when you look at the whole, everything is circular. All movement is circular, and time is also a circular movement. It is a game, not going anywhere, moving. If you can see that time is not going anywhere, but moving in a circle, then the whole tension of the mind to reach somewhere drops. Then to reach somewhere in the future becomes useless, meaningless -- then you start enjoying the moment.

Life is not an effort to attain, it is a celebration.

BIGOTRY IS THE SACRED DISEASE.

But even this you should not make into a theory, because the moment you make a theory and you say, "This is right," you will start converting people. The moment you say, "This is right," your ego has taken it. Now it is not a question of this being right -- you are right. How can you be wrong? -- then the sacred disease enters. With me also, remember this: whatsoever I say, don't make it a claim. Whatsoever I say, don't make it a belief, don't become closed by it. And whatsoever I say, the opposite of it is also true, remember -- because if you say the opposite is wrong, you will become bigoted. Then, bigotry enters.

If I say God is winter, God is summer also. And there are moments when I say God is winter because that will be helpful. There are moments when I say God is summer because that will be helpful. And to some I say God is winter, and to some I say God is summer -- don't create a theory around it. I am also a poet. You need not believe in what I say, you simply have to be something that I say. Let it become a transformation, not a theory in you. Don't make a sect out of it; make a life out of it, LIVE it! And if you live it, you will help others also to live it.

Only through living do you help; not through talking, not through converting, not through going around and making people more enlightened, no! This is a very subtle mischief. Be enlightened and you will have a light within you and people will come and drink out of it; there is no need to go out of the way. And if somebody is following his own way, don't try to pull him out of it. Who knows? -- that way may be exactly right for him. It may look wrong to you, but who are you to decide? Don't decide and don't judge, because bigotry is the sacred disease. Whenever a person becomes religious, this disease is possible. Whenever one becomes religious one becomes vulnerable to this disease, bigotry. It is very difficult to find a religious man and not bigoted.

It happened: I saw Mulla Nasruddin drinking in a bar and asked, "Nasruddin, what are you doing? Just yesterday you told me that you have left all drinking and you have become an absolute teetotaller, so what are you doing?"

Nasruddin said, "Yes I am an absolute teetotaller -- but not a bigoted one."

Whatsoever you are, remain flexible. Don't create a fixed frame around you, remain moving and flowing. Sometimes one has to go out of the discipline also. Life is bigger than your discipline and sometimes one has to go completely against one's own rules -- because God is both summer and winter.

Don't be a victim of bigotry. Be religious, but don't be a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. Let the whole earth be your church, let the whole existence be your temple. And when the whole God is available, why be satisfied with a fragment? Why say Christian, why say Hindu? When you can be a human being, why choose labels? Drop all labels and drop all beliefs. Trust -- and trust is totally different from beliefs. Trust life wheresoever it leads. Move with it, and help others to move on their own way. Do your thing and let others do theirs. Remain open.

If you can remain open, helping, caring, not forcing things on others, you will see that people have started drinking out of you, that people are being helped by you. Don't go directly to serve them, because service, compassion, love, care, are all indirect. Don't jump on them, don't force them towards heaven, because that violence has been the misery of the whole past. Because of that violence, Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans have been fighting, killing each other. Enough of it, no need of it now!

Now the earth has become one. The whole globe has become just like a small village. Let humanity also become one -- one in the search, not in the beliefs... one, because everything is divine.

Always remember Heraclitus:

HERE, TOO, ARE THE GODS.

I HAVE SEARCHED MYSELF.

THE ROYAL POWER IS A CHILD'S.

BIGOTRY IS THE SACRED DISEASE.