ALTHOUGH THIS LOGOS IS ETERNALLY VALID,

YET MEN ARE UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND IT --

NOT ONLY BEFORE HEARING IT,

BUT EVEN AFTER THEY HAVE HEARD IT.

WE SHOULD LET OURSELVES BE GUIDED

BY WHAT IS COMMON TO ALL.

YET, ALTHOUGH THE LOGOS IS COMMON TO ALL,

MOST MEN LIVE AS IF EACH OF THEM

HAD A PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE OF HIS OWN.

HUMAN NATURE HAS NO REAL UNDERSTANDING;

ONLY THE DIVINE NATURE HAS IT.

MAN IS NOT RATIONAL;

ONLY WHAT ENCOMPASSES HIM IS INTELLIGENT.

WHAT IS DIVINE ESCAPES MEN'S NOTICE

BECAUSE OF THEIR INCREDULITY.

ALTHOUGH INTIMATELY CONNECTED WITH THE LOGOS,

MEN KEEP SETTING THEMSELVES AGAINST IT.

HOW CAN ANYONE HIDE FROM THAT WHICH NEVER SETS?

The logos is the logic of the whole, the logic of the existence itself. The logos is the ultimate law. It is the same as what Lao Tzu calls tao, what the Upanishads and Vedas have called the RIT: the cosmic harmony where opposites meet and disappear, where two become one, where no polarity exists, where all paradoxes are dissolved, all contradictions disappear. What Shankara calls the brahma, Heraclitus calls the logos.

The human mind is logical, and human logic is based on the polarity. It is as if you are standing on one bank of the river and you cannot see the other bank, and whatsoever you think about the bank belongs only to this bank -- but the river flows with two banks, it cannot flow with one. The other may be hiding in mist, it may be so far away that you cannot see it, but the other is there. And the other bank is not opposite to this bank, because deep down in the river they meet. They are one land and they both support the river like two hands, or like two wings. The river flows between them, the river is a harmony of the two. But you are standing on one bank; you cannot see the other, so you simply believe in this bank -- and you create a system which is based on the knowledge of this bank. And when somebody talks about the other bank you think he is contradicting you, you think that he is bringing something irrational, mysterious. And the other is bound to be opposite because only the tension of the opposites can hold the river. But the oppositeness is not enmity, the oppositeness is a deep friendship; it is the peak of love.

This is the problem to be solved. If you can solve this you can understand Heraclitus and you can understand all those who have become awakened, who have known the other shore. Whatsoever they say will be contradictory because they have to comprehend both. They have to comprehend winter and summer both, day and night both, life and death both, love and hate both, the peak and the valley both.

When someone talks about the peak, not referring at all to the valley, his statements will be very rational; you can understand them, they are easy, they are consistent. When someone talks about the valley, never referring to the peak, he will also be rational. All philosophers are rational; you can understand them very easily. To understand them you need a little learning and training, that's all, a discipline. But all the mystics are difficult to comprehend. In fact, the more you try to understand them, the more they become mysterious -- because they talk about the peak and the valley together. They would like to talk about the valley and the peak simultaneously.

In the Upanishads it is said: "He is far and near." What type of statement is this? Either he is far or he is near. But immediately the seer says, "He is far," he adds, "He is near." He is the greatest and he is the smallest. He is the atom and he is the whole. He is within you and without. Heraclitus said God is summer and winter. Summer? -- it is okay; you can understand. Only winter? -- that too is okay, you can understand. But summer and winter both? Then you feel dizzy. Then the mind says, "This statement is contradictory."

Human logic seeks a noncontradictory statement -- and the logos is contradictory. It uses contradiction just as an architect uses opposite bricks to make an arch; he puts bricks in opposition. The opposition gives the tension and the strength, and on that arch you can raise a big building. But if you do not put bricks in opposition to each other -- logical, consistent, just like a peak or a valley, this bank or that, not both -- then the building will fall; the arch cannot be made. It needs the tension of the opposites to create strength. Hence there is man and woman -- they are the opposite bricks of life. Their very opposition creates the situation so that life can exist. They are the two banks so the river can flow. But the moment you talk about the peak and the valley together, then it becomes incomprehensible.

Human logic is consistent. The divine logos is contradictory yet consistent.

Human logic is partial. It tries to understand a part, and trying to understand a part it avoids all that contradicts it. It simply wants to forget all that is contradictory. But the divine is all. It doesn't choose, everything is involved. And it is vast; it is not partial, it is total. That's the difference between a religious approach and a philosophical approach. A philosophical approach is logical; that's why Aristotle says man is a rational being. And Heraclitus says man is irrational -- because your very reason makes you irrational. The moment you choose the part you have falsified the whole thing. Now this part is only in your mind. In existence this part is always with the opposite, never alone.

Human logic says God is male; then there are some believers in God who think God is female -- but the logos must comprehend both. So Hindus have a concept of ARDHANARISHWAR, that God is both male and female. And that is the true concept, that comes from the logos. It looks contradictory. You must have seen statues of Shiva as half man and half woman, half with one breast, half feminine, and half male. That statue looks absurd but that is the truth. And all your statues of God as male, or God as female, are irrational; they are not true because how can God be male? Then from where does the feminine arise? Then to whom will the feminine reach? Then in what source does the feminine exist?

You talk about God as he; that is wrong. Then there are people who talk about God as she; that too is wrong. He is he plus she -- but then the mind cannot understand. But mental understanding is not an understanding at all. You will be able to understand only when you try to understand from your own totality, not just from the mind, because inside you also these two opposite poles meet. You are also an ardhanarishwar; you are also he and she both. You are neither male nor female.

If you can understand your own totality, and if you bring your totality to the universe, to face the universe, you will be able to comprehend. That's a mystic vision. That is logos.

So what to do? Ordinarily you are trained to be a man or to be a woman. From the very beginning we teach children, "You are a boy -- behave like a boy"; and to a girl, "You are a girl -- behave like a girl." That creates the distinction more and more, and the poles are set apart.... In a better world we will teach each child, "You are both"; the difference is only of emphasis. "You are neither boy nor girl. You are both" -- the difference is only of emphasis. Then the whole concept of civilization will be different. Then there will be no question of enmity between man and woman. Then there will be no problem about who dominates whom. And then you will be able to see your totality of being -- and the totality is beautiful. The part is always ugly.

It is as if you have taken the tree and cut the roots. How long can the tree remain alive? You have taken the visible -- the tree is visible and the roots are invisible -- and you have cut the roots. And the tree goes upwards and the roots go downwards -- you have made a consistent thing. You say, "No! How can these two opposite dimensions exist simultaneously? The tree must go upwards, and if the roots go downwards then they are two separate things -- cut them!" This is what has happened.

Man is a visible tree, woman is like roots. That's why all the old teachings say woman is earth and man is sky. But they are together: man is rooted in the woman, and woman is reaching higher and higher through the man -- they are one. Hell and heaven are not two, just the same ladder.

Says Heraclitus: "The way up and the way down are the same." Then hell and heaven cannot be apart. This is logos: to see the whole ladder. Then God and the Devil are not two. But theologians will not agree because they will say that you are creating a confusion, that then people will be confused, then they will not know who is who. But people ARE confused, and they are confused because of the false logic of the partial human mind. In fact, everything is everything else.

It happened: In a local dogshow Mulla Nasruddin was awarding prizes, but he was very worried about a certain thing. He was worried about people's dress. So he said, "Look! What is happening in this world? Look at that man with cropped hair, pants and cigarettes, with two pups. Now I am at a loss as to how to decide whether that man is a man or a woman, a boy or a girl."

Just a bystander said, "She is a girl because she is my daughter."

Mulla Nasruddin said, "I am very, very sorry. Had I known that you were her mother, I would not have been so outspoken."

The woman said, "No, I am not her mother -- I am her father."

Now a meeting of the sexes is happening. In dress, in ways of living, a meeting is happening. That is a very good sign. In dress people are becoming unisex -- that's a very good sign! There is no need to make these distinctions. A nondistinct whole is the reality.

Distinctions are being made by the mind and it has created trouble, because you are both. But if you are fixed that you are a male, then what will you do with your woman inside? And the woman is there. Sometimes the woman wants to weep and cry, but you cannot weep and cry -- you are a man and you have to behave like a man. You don't listen to nature; you listen to manmade theories that you are a man. But nature has made tear glands in the eyes: if nature intended that a man should never weep and cry, then there should have been no tear glands. If nature intended that a man should not feel, then there should not have been any heart. But a man feels as much as a woman. Then he suppresses his femininity; he goes on suppressing it -- that creates an inner conflict. Rather than using the opposite polarities to flow, rather than using the two opposite polarities as a tension, which creates aliveness, you suppress the polarity, which deadens you, which kills your sensitivity; because a man, if he is not also a woman, is half, crippled, half his being is suppressed. And that suppressed being will take revenge. He will go mad sooner or later because a suppressed part will throw off the dominating part.

Politics is not only outside; politicians have created a politics within you. They have created a rift, they have made you to fight yourself. And then a woman is continuously suppressing the male part. It erupts. It comes up again and again because it is there! Rather than creating a harmony with these two opposite notes, you have been warring, you have been fighting, struggling. The situation would have been beautiful if you could have created a harmony; then a higher quality of being would have arisen within you.

Remember, all growth is dialectical.

This word dialectical has to be understood. It is against rational. Reason is a linear process, from one step to another step, but the plane remains the same: from A to B, but the plane remains the same. That's why reason is very, very boring. It has no qualities of the opposite; that's why it becomes boring.

You just watch: twenty persons are sitting, all male, and then suddenly a woman comes in -- there is immediately a change of climate. Those twenty persons were feeling a little bored: all male, bound to feel bored -- unless they are homosexuals. If they are healthy persons they are bound to feel bored. A woman enters and immediately the climate changes. You can see the change in the faces: they start smiling, they become more polite, they don't use ugly words, they behave. Just a woman entering and everything changes. A subtle phenomenon happens inside: the entry of the woman becomes a deeper entry inside of them, of their inner woman -- they become whole. For a moment they are parts no more. Look at twenty women sitting, chattering, chattering, and a man comes in -- immediately a difference happens.

If there is one, the same quality continues; it becomes a boring process. Dialectics means movement through the opposite. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: that is dialectics. One thing against another, then here is a challenge, a tension, and through that tension and challenge a third reality arises: synthesis. And the synthesis is always better; it goes on a higher plane.

Reason moves horizontally, dialectics moves vertically.

If you have no enemy, and if your life is such that you are not opposed to anything, you will lose all salt from your life. If you are not opposed to anything, you will be tasteless, you will be like a dead stone, not like a flower -- because from the opposite comes movement, energy, challenge... then you grow. When a man meets a woman there is a dialectical process starting. That's why love is so very beautiful and love is such a great growth situation. To be related to the other is to be constantly in a challenging situation. To be related to oneself only is a boredom -- no opposite -- unless you can find the opposite in your own inner being; then one can move alone.

That is the meaning: when a man becomes total within he doesn't need a woman. When a woman becomes total within she doesn't need a man. A moment comes when a Buddha moves alone, a Mahavira moves alone -- then there is no need. Not that woman is bad, but now they have found their inner feminine part, now the dialectics has entered their own being -- there is no need to create it outside. Now, inside, there is a continuous thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Now they grow alone -- but they also use the same dialectics.

The whole life is dialectical. Logos is dialectical -- and reason is a process of the same. You can think of it in terms like this: dialectics is heterosexual; reason, rationality, is homosexual. Rationality is homosexual. That's why in the West homosexuality is growing, because the West has accepted Aristotle, reason. Heraclitus is heterosexual -- he will include the opposite. If you listen to reason you will be homosexual. If you listen to reason then the whole quality that comes from the opposite, the tension, will be lost. And when it is lost life becomes a boredom. When it is lost life loses the zest, the enthusiasm, hope, possibilities. Everything is lost, because every possibility is opened by the opposite.

When for the first time you fall in love, you meet the opposite. Immediately, it is as if you have got wings, you can fly; poetry arises in your heart. What is happening? The opposite has created something in you. Silence alone is not very beautiful, sound alone is not very beautiful, but the meeting of sound and silence is very, very beautiful -- that is music. The meeting of silence and sound is music.

Watch when somebody is playing a sitar or a piano, or playing on some instrument. What is happening? What is he doing? He is doing a dialectical process. He creates sound, and between two sounds he gives a valley, a silence. The greater the peak, the deeper will be the valley. He creates sound, he creates a peak, he moves higher and higher and higher, he brings a climax, and then suddenly... the gap, the silence. If you listen only to sound and miss the silence between two sounds, you don't have a musical ear. When you listen to both the sound and the silence, the peak and the valley together, then you come to encounter a new phenomenon: every peak creates the valley, every valley creates the peak. They both move like yin and yang, they move in a circle -- and there is music, there is the hidden harmony.

Logos is dialectical, it is heterosexual. God creates the world because the other is needed -- God alone cannot be, the world alone cannot be. And if you listen only to the world you will not come to know the inner music of the existence. And then, being fed up with the world, you can go and leave the world and only listen to God -- then again you miss the harmony. When you listen to the world and when you listen to God, together, when the world becomes the opposite pole, when the world becomes one bank and God the other bank, then the river flows -- then it flows tremendously, then it flows beautifully, then you hear the harmony.

And one who hears the harmony between this world and that God is a sannyasin.

One who leaves this world, he is moving to the other extreme. He is logical, rational, but not dialectical. That's why in the shops, in the markets, go and see people -- just dull, because... only this world. Somehow they are working, pulling on, dragging, because they are there -- so what to do? So they are doing something. But you cannot hear the music in them: the opposite is not there, the prayer is not there, the meditation is not there, the silence is not there. That's why the marketplace has become simply sound -- it is a chaos.

Then go to the Himalayas and the monasteries and there also are people; the same shopkeepers who have left the world, they are sitting there. They, too, you will find, do not have any life; they will also be just dull, dirt collecting on them, dead. In the shops you will find dead people, and in the temples and monasteries also. They are the same people, just moved to the other extreme. Harmony is missing in the market and in the monastery.

A man who is harmonious is complex, his simplicity is very, very complex -- because in his simplicity the opposite is involved. He has deep compassion, but he can be angry also. He is absolutely detached, but he can love also; he loves and remains detached. In him, valley and peak meet. In him, sound and silence meet. And if you have a musical ear and a heart, then you will see the harmony in such a person. And such a person is rare, because he himself has become a logos. Such are Krishna, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Heraclitus, Jesus: they live in the logos, they are miniature logoi. The working of their beings is the same as existence; in their beings the same existence mirrors. They don't reject anything, they use everything.

A man who rejects anything does not know what he is doing. And if a man rejects sound he will reject silence also, because they exist together. Have you known any silence without sound? -- because silence has its own sound. If the night is completely silent, no traffic, nobody moving, everybody gone to sleep, watch and listen and you will find that the night has its own sound -- very subtle, but its own sound. And when one goes deeper inside, the inner night, where all the sounds of the day have stopped, there too a sound is heard. Hindus have called it AUMKAR, the sound of the ultimate, AUM. It is heard. It is there. When the ultimate silence descends on you, the ultimate sound also descends on you -- immediately! They are together, they cannot be apart. They are two aspects of the coin -- silence and sound. Yes, God is silence and sound also. This is the logos.

Now try to follow this sutra. This is very, very meaningful.

ALTHOUGH THIS LOGOS IS ETERNALLY VALID,

YET MEN ARE UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND IT --

NOT ONLY BEFORE HEARING IT,

BUT EVEN AFTER THEY HAVE HEARD IT.

... Because this is not a question of hearing or not hearing. It is a question of inner growth.

I can talk to you about logos, I can try to explain to you, you may even have an intellectual glimpse of it -- but that will not give you understanding. It is just like talking to a small child about sex. You can talk, you can bring all your Freuds and Wilhelm Reichs and talk, and the child may even listen, but can a child understand about it? If the child is very intelligent he will understand intellectually, but to understand sex a biological growth is needed, a certain maturity of the glands and hormones is needed. To understand sex the child must come to the point where he desires sex; only then can he understand, otherwise not.

I was passing through a street and two small children were walking just in front of me. One must have been seven and the other about eight. The smaller one was asking the elder one: "I go with a girl to the school. Seven times I have carried her bag and books and everything, and thrice I have gone to bring ice cream for her. What do you think? -- should I now kiss her or not?"

The other pondered over it and he said, "As I see it, you have already done enough for her. No need to do anything more." For a child, this is the thing exactly! You cannot talk about sex to a child. First the sexual desire must arise; first the child should become sexual. That is the problem about religion also. You cannot talk to anybody unless the desire arises.

Religion is just like sex. Sex is the desire to meet the opposite on the level of the body, and religion is the desire to meet the opposite on the level of being. It is a desire. It is a thirst. When it arises, only then can it be talked about. You may bring intellectual questions; that doesn't mean anything. You may ask whether God exists or not; that is not the point. Are you thirsty? Has the desire arisen to meet the opposite on the level of being -- neither on the level of body nor of mind, but at the level of being, your totality? Are you ready for that jump? Then understanding is possible.

That's why Heraclitus says:

ALTHOUGH THIS LOGOS IS ETERNALLY VALID....

The logos is everywhere present -- in the trees, in the stones, in the sky, everywhere! In you, all around you the logos is present, because the whole life is working through the opposite. It is dialectical, it gets enrichment through the opposite. It moves through the antithesis, it moves higher to the synthesis, and then again the synthesis becomes the thesis. Again antithesis is created, again a higher synthesis. Life goes on moving that way. It is everywhere that way. And it is valid because it is not an argument, it is the way existence is. Remember this: Heraclitus is not arguing, he is simply making a statement. I am also not arguing, simply making a statement of fact. It is how things are! That's why he says, "I have searched..." and he has found this dialectics, a dialectical process of existence. This is the deepest insight. It is valid -- no question of arguing about it. It is the way existence exists.

... YET MEN ARE UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND IT --

NOT ONLY BEFORE HEARING IT,

BUT EVEN AFTER THEY HAVE HEARD IT.

... Because hearing won't help.

Unless you change, unless you become open to the inside, unless you not only try to follow intellectually, understand intellectually, but to feel it, to exist through it, to imbibe it like food and digest it so that it flows in your bones, becomes part of your existence, only then....

These are not theories. And you need an inner growth before you can understand it.

WE SHOULD LET OURSELVES BE GUIDED

BY WHAT IS COMMON TO ALL.

Then what is to be done? If you cannot understand before hearing it, and you cannot understand after hearing it, then what is to be done? A very beautiful suggestion he makes. It can become really helpful  to you. He says:

WE SHOULD LET OURSELVES BE GUIDED

BY WHAT IS COMMON TO ALL.

YET, ALTHOUGH THE LOGOS IS COMMON TO ALL,

MOST MEN LIVE AS IF EACH OF THEM

HAD A PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE OF HIS OWN.

Logos is common to all, logos is the common ground, logos is the common continent. And you think of yourselves as islands, separate from everybody, and then you follow your own intelligence. That is the only foolishness that is possible: private intelligence is the foolishness, the greatest stupidity. Existence is total; intelligence is also total, it is of the whole, so you should look to the common.

That is what Zen masters say: "Become ordinary, become common. Don't try to become extraordinary." The more common you become, the more ordinary you become, the more capable you become of understanding the logos. Don't try to be very extraordinary, exceptional, because the more you try the more you will become like an island, closed, caved in upon yourself. Then you are losing your moorings in the existence. Then you are cutting your roots, you are getting uprooted. That has happened in the West: a feeling of uprootedness. Nobody knows where the roots are. And when you feel uprooted, then you become an egoist, then you exist as a selfsufficient entity -- and that is not possible!

Existence is interrelated, we move into each other. When I am talking to you, what am I doing? I am moving continuously in you. When you are listening to me, you are allowing, you are giving a door to me. You breathe and existence enters you; you open the eyes and the sun enters you -- every moment, twenty-four hours, you are a crossroad. Millions of points meet, millions of lines meet in you. You are not separate! Just think: can you exist separately? Can you exist totally insulated? You will die within seconds. You are a porous being; existence comes and moves through you. You are just like a room: air comes, the sun comes and goes continuously; that is why the room remains clean and fresh. If you are closed you will be dead.

The more open you are, the more existence will flow through you. And the more existence flows, the more you will be able to understand what logos is.

You are not. The whole is. You are a false entity. Hence the insistence of all the awakened ones on surrender. Don't fight with existence, because you don't know what you are doing, with whom you are fighting. How can you fight with existence? It is as if a wave is fighting with the ocean, a leaf is fighting the tree -- it is foolish! And don't try to move upstream; that will simply exhaust you. You will be tired and you will feel frustrated because you cannot succeed.

Against existence there is no success. That's why you and everybody are such failures. Ask your successful people and they are all failures; deep down, they have missed. Your Napoleons, your Hitlers, your Rothschilds, ask them -- they are failures, they have failed. What have they attained? They fought, they tried to move upstream, they wanted to become extraordinary in some way or other -- they simply destroyed themselves. To try to become extraordinary is suicidal; it is a gradual suicide, a slow poisoning of the whole system. Surrender to existence, flow with it, wheresoever it goes -- willy-nilly, wheresoever it goes.

This word willy-nilly is good. Willy means whether it goes according to your will or not; nilly means whether it negates you or not. Willy means will, and nilly means against the will. Willy-nilly, wherever it goes, you surrender, you float with it. Swimming, even swimming, is not needed.

Why have a private goal of your own? Why not move with the destiny of the whole? Why are you so much worried to achieve something on your own? And how can you achieve it? You cannot achieve -- this is simply not possible. Only the whole has a destiny, not you. Only the whole is going somewhere, not you. If you can surrender to the whole, everything is achieved -- because you become the whole, and the whole's destiny becomes your destiny, and the goal of the whole is your goal. And the goal is not somewhere else -- the whole is happy right now, the whole is blissful right now. Only you are worried. Only you are worried because you are not flowing with the river. You are trying to cut small corners for yourself. And who are you? And how do you think it can be possible? You will simply fail.

Man always fails, only God succeeds.

Listen:

WE SHOULD LET OURSELVES BE GUIDED

BY WHAT IS COMMON TO ALL.

Look to the commonness of things, and find the common: the more common, the truer; the more exceptional, the more false. Be ordinary -- then you are nearer the ground, then you are nearer the truth. If you can be absolutely ordinary, what else is needed? -- because every moment becomes such a benediction. What is the problem when you are absolutely ordinary? You eat and eating is a sacrament. You sleep and sleep is a sacrament. You walk in the sun, and what more do you need? You breathe -- what else is needed to be happy? You love -- what more are you asking? Everything is already given; you are just trying to be exceptional. Follow the rule, the common, and don't try to be the exception, otherwise you will be in misery.

Hell is for all extraordinary people. They may be in politics, in art, literature -- wherever they are, hell is for all geniuses, for all extraordinary people, all egoists. Ego is the hell, it gives you suffering -- because unnecessarily you start conflicting with everything. You are never at ease, unease becomes your style of life; with the ego you will always be at unease. Ego is a discomfort; it is a nail in the shoe, it continuously pinches, but you want to be extraordinary. Then....

I was sitting with Mulla Nasruddin and his wife came through and went out of the door. He said, "Look! There goes a great woman."

I said, "What do you mean by `great'?"

He said, "She is trying to have a size four shoe on size six feet -- there goes an extraordinary woman!" And she is suffering, but she is trying to be exceptional.

In China it happened for millions of women: just to make the feet small, so that it looks extraordinary, iron shoes were used. Chinese women suffered long, for their whole life, because they were almost crippled. But long feet belonged to laborers, poor people, not rich people. It seems life belongs to the poor, not to rich people. So the higher the status of the woman, the queen... the queens in China, for thousands of years, were not even able to walk because they had such small feet. It was impossible... because the feet exist in the right proportion to the body. You cannot have small feet because nature knows better than you. But they were trying, they were trying to improve nature, improve upon nature. They suffered long. And the whole misery of man is this, it can be reduced to a single law: if you try to be exceptional you will suffer. Then nothing will satisfy you; everywhere you will find discontent.

Mulla Nasruddin was admitted to hospital -- he was ill. And he created a hell around him there, because you cannot find a greater complaint-maker than Mulla Nasruddin; he is simply a continuous complaint. The whole hospital was in trouble -- the nurses, the doctors. Just to get rid of him, they treated him as carefully as possible so he would be okay and go away. Then he was okay and the day came when he was to be released, but he was again complaining. The doctor heard his noise so he asked the nurse, "Now what is he complaining about? Now there is nothing to complain about -- he is going to leave today."

The nurse said, "Now he is saying, `Before the medicines are finished, how can I be cured? Before all the medicines are finished, how can I be cured? There must be something wrong.'"

This type of mind automatically comes to an egoist. He is in search of finding something wrong. And when you are in search you will find -- more than you ask you will find. This is the trouble in the world: whatsoever you try to find you will find. If you are trying to find wrongs... and the ego always tries to find wrongs because an ego needs continuous discomfort, it exists in discomfort. When everything is okay the ego disappears. Says Chuang Tzu: "When the shoe fits, the body is forgotten, the feet are forgotten." And when everything is forgotten, how can you cling to the ego? Ego needs that shoes should continue pinching so that you can remember who you are. That's why an egoist cannot love, cannot meditate, cannot pray, because if he really prays, then everything fits -- then the ego disappears. Ego means a selfconsciousness. When something is wrong, only then is selfconsciousness there. When everything is right, there is no selfconsciousness.

Look to the common, watch for the common -- don't try to be exceptional.

But we want to be exceptional. People come to me. If I tell them, "You just sit silently, don't be too much bothered about meditation and prayer, and by and by it will grow," they say, "But just sitting?..." They need something exceptional. If I tell them, "Stand on your head," then it is okay. That's why there are so many teachers flourishing all over the world who teach people to stand on their heads -- something difficult, uncomfortable, appeals. Ridiculous postures people try in the name of Yoga. Simply ridiculous! The more ridiculous, the better; the more difficult... if you cannot do them, then ego gets a challenge. So do them! Make postures, absurd, and you think you are doing something great.

Life is simply great -- there is no need to improve upon it.

If nature wanted you to sit on the head or stand on the head, you would have been created that way. Listen to nature and follow nature and don't create any conflict with nature; just follow it and soon you will attain to a deep silence which comes when one becomes ordinary.

Just a few days ago -- and in India it is a constant problem -- a young man came and he asked, "Should I marry or not?"

I told him, "Just be ordinary. Why not marry?"

But he was not willing -- not marrying is something exceptional. Marrying is ordinary, having children is so ordinary, becoming a householder is so ordinary. He said, "But all great men have remained unmarried."

So I said to him, "If you want to be great, then go somewhere else. To me that is a disease. If you want to be ordinary, then only come to me." Whatsoever your nature and whatsoever your inner feeling.... Then I asked him, "Just look inside. Close your eyes and tell me what you would like."

He said, "Of course I would like to marry but that looks so ordinary: wasting your life in ordinary things." But the whole life consists of ordinary things. And greatness is not in things -- greatness is in the quality that you bring to your life, to ordinary things.

Just look at Jesus having supper with his friends: he looks more ordinary than a Buddha sitting under the bodhi tree. But the gesture of being ordinary is so beautiful; drinking, eating with the friends is so beautiful that nobody can be so beautiful just sitting under a bodhi tree. Jesus has a quality of being just ordinary.

Buddha remained a king even under the bodhi tree. He was born exceptional, extraordinary; he lived like a prince, he was brought up like a prince. That became his structure -- even under the bodhi tree he is not a beggar. If you go near him you can feel it. You can miss a Jesus if you meet him on the road -- you cannot miss Buddha. But I tell you: Jesus is nearer logos. It happened that way to Buddha because he was brought up that way; all his past just was that way. But how many people can be born as princes, and how many people can be taught that way? Jesus is more human, but in all his humanity he is divine, because this ordinariness is to follow the common.

Jainas and Buddhists come to me and they say, "But this Jesus -- he also drinks, eats, like ordinary people; stays with ordinary people. How can you tell that he is just of the same stature as Buddha and Mahavira?" But I tell you that he is exactly how one should be. Mahavira and Buddha may be exceptional, but not everybody can be exceptional, and there is no need. It may have been natural to them, so it is okay if they followed their nature. But millions of people, millions and millions, they cannot sit under bodhi trees just doing nothing. They will have to move in the world and work and do things, ordinary things.

And if there is no way to reach the logos ordinarily, then it will remain only for a chosen few. And that doesn't look just: then the whole existence seems to favor only a few. But remember, if the existence favors only a few, if it is partial, then what need is there to give you birth? No, nature never favors anybody -- it is for all, for all those who are ready to partake. The bliss is for all, if you are ready to participate. Jesus is a carpenter's son, a poor man. And that's how, for millions of people, it should be. Somebody is a carpenter's son, somebody is a goldsmith's son, and somebody is a shoemaker's son -- this is how life is! And we have lived too much according to the exceptional people, and because of that much misery has been unnecessarily created.

Live ordinarily, find the common and don't try to be uncommon; otherwise, the very effort will cut your roots from the logos. The logos is common to all yet most men live as if each of them had a private intelligence of his own. And if you live according to the common, if you follow the common and you don't try to become an individual, you will be nearer logos and you will be able to understand it.

This is the paradox: those who try to be exceptional individuals miss, miss all individuality and miss all extraordinariness; and those who remain with the ordinary, with such an ordinariness that there is nothing to claim about it, those who never strive to be individuals, attain to the greatest individuality this existence can offer to you. Those who remain ordinary become most extraordinary. But that extraordinariness comes as a gift; it is nothing on your part, you have not been striving for it. Human nature has no real understanding; only the divine nature has it. Yes, it is as it should be.

We come from the whole, we go back to the whole. Unknown we come, unknown we go... not knowing from where we are coming, not knowing to what we are going. The whole process is mysterious. How can you have a private intelligence?

This is a little difficult; has to be understood very deeply. And it is one of the most important points Heraclitus has given. Consciousness is also common. Just as fishes exist in the ocean, in the common ocean, we exist in a common consciousness. Your consciousness and my consciousness are not two, but just two centers of the same. All around you is consciousness. We are all forms, but within the forms flows the same, the one. That's why sometimes you also feel a common ground.

Somebody is sad. He has not said a single thing to you. You are sitting by his side, and suddenly you feel a sadness spreading in you. Somebody is happy, just happy, not saying anything to you -- but suddenly you feel a happiness entering you. If twenty persons are sitting happy and you bring a sad man there, within minutes he will feel a change; his climate is changing. With sad people you become sad. With long faces you become long faces. With happy people you become happy. That's why if you enjoy playing with children you become children again. Playing with a child you suddenly forget the whole worry and the world -- you become like a child. It is very refreshing. How does it happen? It happens because consciousness is a common phenomenon. When you play with a child you have to become a child because the child and you meet on the common ground.

Because of this, in the East they have insisted that just being near the master, just being near an awakened one, is very, very valuable -- just being near, in the presence. In the West they cannot understand: "What do you mean, `in the presence'?" In the East they say: "We are going for a DARSHAN." Darshan means just to see the master; nothing to ask, just being in the presence. They have a certain word for this being in the presence -- they call it SATSANG, being near the truth. If you sit silently with a master, sooner or later you dissolve into each other. The consciousnesses meet. The master enters into you, you enter into the master. If you don't do anything, just simply being near the master, one day you can attain -- not even making a single effort. That too is possible, but then you have to be very, very open. Just sitting silently, not doing, not creating any barriers, relaxing, you can attain. Many have attained -- because consciousness is the ocean and we are the fishes in it. And everything affects everybody else.

Whatsoever happens in this existence affects everybody else. Not only now -- whatsoever has happened in the past is affecting. And not only that -- whatsoever is going to happen in the future is also affecting, because at this moment the whole existence culminates. Past, future, present -- they culminate, they converge.

There is no possibility of a private intelligence. And those people we call very, very talented, geniuses, they also feel it. Ask Einstein or Madame Curie; they also feel it. Einstein says that whatsoever he discovered, he discovered in moments when he was not, when suddenly something possessed him -- the total consciousness. Ask the poets; they say whenever something happens, they are not. They become a vehicle -- the common consciousness possesses them.

Madame Curie got the Nobel prize. The Nobel prize should have been given to the common ground. She was making all efforts to find a solution to a particular mathematical problem, and she could not find the way. For two years she struggled and struggled, and then one night, tired, she fell asleep. And in sleep something happened -- because in sleep you are more open. In sleep you are not an egoist, in sleep you are a nobody, in sleep you don't cling to the identity.

That's why in the morning you also feel fresh, younger, rejuvenated, because you have been into the common ground. You moved into consciousness, the ocean. You were not clinging to the private intelligence. For a few seconds you dropped into the whole and the whole revived you, refreshed you.

In the night something happened. She got up, she went to her table and she wrote the solution that she had been working for years to find. Then she slept and in the morning she completely forgot what had happened in the night. She took her bath, her breakfast, everything, and then she went to the table... she was simply amazed -- the solution was there! "But who has done it? -- because there is nobody else." Only she was in the room; only the servant had come, and the servant could not have done it. She had been working hard -- "What is happening?" Then she looked minutely -- it was her own handwriting! a little different, because in the night, in the sleep.... Then she closed her eyes and tried to remember what had happened. Then she saw the whole thing like a dream: that she got up, she had something, she wrote it down....

Common consciousness -- you unnecessarily claim that it is yours. It has never been yours. It is always floating. It is all around you. Become more porous, become more allowing, a deep letgo -- because only the whole can understand the whole. How can the part understand the whole? How can an atomic part understand the whole? But the whole can flow through the part, and if the part allows it.... And that's what meditation is all about: allowing the whole to flow; you disappear completely from the scene... and then suddenly you have become the whole.

HUMAN NATURE HAS NO REAL UNDERSTANDING;

ONLY THE DIVINE NATURE HAS IT.

MAN IS NOT RATIONAL;

ONLY WHAT ENCOMPASSES HIM IS INTELLIGENT.

Not you, but the ocean around you, what encompasses, what surrounds you -- not you; what is within you and without you, but not you because "you" is just a fallacy.

MAN IS NOT RATIONAL;

ONLY WHAT ENCOMPASSES HIM IS INTELLIGENT.

WHAT IS DIVINE ESCAPES MEN'S NOTICE

BECAUSE OF THEIR INCREDULITY.

Because you doubt, because you cannot believe, because you cannot trust, that's why what is divine escapes men's notice -- because of their incredulity.

Only one barrier is there and that is doubt. And only one gate is there and that is trust. If you trust nature everything falls into its right place. If you distrust nature everything is disturbed.

But why is it so difficult to be natural? Only one difficulty: if you are natural you cannot be somebody -- there is no other difficulty. Sex arises, you follow it; BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy, becomes a fight against nature. You are hungry, you eat; fasting becomes a conflict with nature. When you don't feel hungry, then you go on forcing eating; that, too, is a fighting with nature. When you don't feel like making love and you go on making love -- because the wife needs, because the society... and this and that -- then you go against nature. Nature means just follow the inner being, whatsoever it feels, without any imposition from your ego on it. It will destroy and shatter your ego.

Live like an animal -- with only one difference: alert. That's all. Live like an animal -- with only one difference: aware.

Don't fight with nature; just be a witness to it and allow it. And wherever it leads, it is good. All your mind-projected goals are false. And whatsoever you do, you will not be able to succeed. Finally nature succeeds because finally, only the whole can succeed. So why in the beginning unnecessarily move into a fight? But I see people fighting in millions of ways -- they change extremes, but they fight.

In the East -- in the past, in the West also -- people were fighting against sex. They said something is wrong, in sex something is wrong -- because in sex you become natural like an animal, and all the preachers have been saying that you should not be like an animal. What is wrong in being animal? Look at the birds, look at the animals, go to the forest and see! Don't go to the zoo because there you will not see real animals; they are corrupted by human beings. Go to the wild.

What is wrong with animals? They look so beautiful, nothing is ugly around them, but all the moralists, all the so-called religious people, they have been teaching you: "Don't be an animal!" And your ego feels this is a good goal. How can you be an animal? And sex brings you to animality totally. In sex you feel so absolutely animal. You don't feel like that in anything else because everything you have changed, polished. Everything you have painted, cultured, cultivated -- everything! You eat, but you have made such a ritual of eating, around it, that it doesn't seem to be at all related with hunger -- does not seem to be related at all with hunger. What you eat is not nutritious; it is a show, a facade. Everything is false, plastic flowers all around. But when you move in love, you make love to a woman or to a man, you become absolutely animal.

You have tried to hide that too. That's why man makes love in the night. Only man makes love in the night; otherwise, animals make love in the day. And if you make love in the day it will be deeper, because with the sun in the atmosphere you are more vital. The night is for rest, but man makes love in the night because animals make love in the day and he has to make a distinction. What type of egoist effort is this? And then in the dark, not even with the light on, so that in the dark you don't face the reality that you are behaving like animals. Then you don't make any sound while making love. In fact you make love as if something has to be done and finished as soon as possible; within seconds it is finished. You have been taught to be against it -- and your ego feels good.

Now, in the West, the wheel has turned a complete circle. Since Freud and Wilhelm Reich they have been teaching sex more and more. Now a new thing is happening in the West: if you don't make love one day, you feel guilty. It seems you have to feel guilty whatsoever you do. Before you were making love and you were feeling guilty: Why do you make love? Why this animality? When will you transcend this? When will that day come when you will not need it? Now in the West, if one day you don't feel like making love, you are tired, then you feel guilty that you are doing something wrong -- you have to make it.

You have to do something, you cannot allow nature to have its own course. Both are the same to me, there is no difference.

In the past women were not allowed to have orgasm, because how can a woman, so pure, have orgasm? A woman is a goddess; she should behave like a goddess. So in the past women were simply tolerating sex, just lying like dead bodies, corpses. Even if you make love to a corpse, the corpse will move a little, but not women -- goddesses! So pure in nature, innocent, they don't know what is happening; it is just the man who is dragging them into it. So they would just lie down, with closed eyes -- because even if a woman looks with open eyes, that seems that she is curious, interested -- with closed eyes. Now, in the West, they have created the opposite. Now if a woman cannot achieve orgasm then it is a problem, then something is wrong. Now it is a sin not to achieve orgasm. Before, it was a sin to achieve orgasm.

So in the East, and in the past in the West also, women completely forgot that they can achieve orgasm. They completely forgot that a beautiful ecstasy is possible through sex, because if you don't move... and if nature is allowed, then while making love the lovers will go completely wild: they will scream, they will make noises, they will go mad -- and that is so animal-like. They will be so ecstatic. And if you can be ecstatic in love, soon that ecstasy opens a door for a higher ecstasy. Then you transcend, and then only does the real BRAHMACHARYA happen. And that is not anything you can force on yourself, that happens through nature itself.

If one follows nature, one reaches.

There is no need for you to make any arrangements for the ultimate goal to happen -- nature has already made everything. You are a seed, and the whole blueprint exists in you if you allow nature. It is just like a seed: we sow the seed in the ground and the seed has the whole blueprint -- the whole architecture of the tree, every leaf of the tree that will happen in the future, every flower that will happen in the future. The seed has every blueprint -- only nature has to be allowed.

You have to water, you have to take care, good soil, fertilizers -- finished! You need not do anything. You need not teach the seed: "Behave! Do this and that. And never do this, otherwise you will never be a tree." If you teach seeds, trees will not exist in the world because the seeds will go completely mad not knowing what to do. Seeds depend on the universal consciousness, not on a private intelligence.

Man has the blueprint to be a god, nothing less, just to be a god. Man is the seed of God -- because human consciousness is just the beginning. It has to grow and grow and grow, and come to a point where it becomes universal. Nothing is needed on your part to do it -- no discipline in fact, no creed, no dogma, no religion in fact. Nature is enough! You simply have to allow it. You have to be receptive to it and move in trust, because only in trust can you move.

If the seed asks, "What is the guarantee that if I leave my shell, which covers me and protects me, I will grow into a tree? What is the guarantee? And if there is no guarantee I will cling to my shell," then what will happen?

If the bird in the egg says, "How can I come out? Who is there to give me a guarantee that it will be a better world than I am already in?" then what will happen? The shell is a security, it protects. The bird is beautifully protected in the egg -- but this is not life. It is like death; protected completely, of course, but protected in a grave. And who can give the guarantee? There is nobody to give you a guarantee -- you have to trust.

The seed trusts and dissolves into the earth, sprouts into a beautiful tree, flowers, enjoys existence, becomes ecstatic.

The bird comes out of the egg, leaves the known for the unknown, takes wing and moves into the vast sky. Nobody knows what is going to happen. With no goal in view, with no purpose, plan, it just takes wing, feels ecstatic on the winds, moves, goes to the farthest corner of the sky -- moves into the unknown.

That is how it is going to happen to you also. You are a seed, you are an egg, you are a possibility. And Heraclitus hits exactly right, comes to the exact point where you miss:

WHAT IS DIVINE ESCAPES MEN'S NOTICE

BECAUSE OF THEIR INCREDULITY.

Because you doubt, you miss. Trust and you can reach. Nothing else is needed -- just trust, so that nature can unfold.

ALTHOUGH INTIMATELY CONNECTED WITH THE LOGOS,

MEN KEEP SETTING THEMSELVES AGAINST IT.

HOW CAN ANYONE HIDE FROM THAT WHICH NEVER SETS?

Existence is always, always and always. It never sets. How can you hide yourself from it? It ever, ever lasts. How can you fight with it? What you are doing is simply ridiculous, absurd. It is stupid to fight! The only wisdom consists in a letgo, a surrender. And then all that is beautiful starts happening. It is a happening, it is not a doing.

You can create barriers, but you cannot bring it. You can escape from it, you can close your eyes to it, but you cannot create it -- it is already there, it is already the case! Only you are missing because you are sitting with closed eyes... doubt closing your eyes, doubt closing your heart, doubt -- as if you are asleep, intoxicated in doubt.

Karl Marx has said: "Religion is the opium for the masses." Exactly the opposite is the case: doubt is the opium, not religion.

Through doubt you miss the truth. Through trust you allow it to reach you, and you allow yourself to reach it.

Meditate more and more on trust. Imbibe the feeling of trust. Vibrate with a trusting heart. Sing, dance, pray, with a trusting heart, and soon you will see that only trust pays finally.

Doubt can kill. It is negative, it cannot give you life. Doubt is death.

Trust is life. And as the trust grows more and more, more abundant life becomes available to you.