TECHNIQUES ARE SHORTCUTS, REVOLUTIONS, BUT ARE NOT THESE AGAINST TAO, SWABHAV, THE NATURE?

They are. They are against tao, they are against swabhav. Any effort is against shabhav, tao; effort as such is against tao. If you can leave everything to swabhav, tao, nature, then no technique is needed, because that is the ultimate technique. If you can leave everything to tao, that is the deepest surrender possible. You are surrendering yourself, your future, your possibilities. You are surrendering time itself, all effort. This means infinite patience, awaiting.

If you can surrender everything to nature then there is no effort, then you don't do anything. You just float. You are in a deep let-go. Things happen to you, but you are not making any effort for them -- you are not even seeking them. If they happen, it is okay; if they don't happen, it is okay -- you have no choice. Whatsoever happens, happens; you have no expectations and of course, no frustrations.

Life flows by, you flow in it. You have no goal to reach, because with the goal effort enters. You have nowhere to go, because if you have somewhere to go, effort will come in; it is implied. You have nowhere to go, nowhere to reach, no goal, no ideal; nothing is to be achieved -- you surrender all.

In this surrendering moment, in this very moment, all will happen to you. Effort will take time; surrender will not take time. Technique will take time; surrender will not take time. That's why I call it the ultimate technique. It is a no-technique. You cannot practise it -- you cannot practise surrender. If you practise, it is not surrender. Then you are relying on yourself; then you are not totally helpless; then you are trying to do something -- even if it is surrender, you are trying to do it. Then technique will come in, and with technique time enters, future enters.

Surrender is non-temporal; it is beyond time. If you surrender, this very moment you are out of time, and all that can happen, will happen. But then you are not searching for it, not seeking it; you are not greedy for it. You have no mind for it at all: whether it happens or not, it is all the same to you.

Tao means surrender -- surrender to swabhav, to nature. Then you are not. Tantra and Yoga are techniques. Through them you will reach to swabhav, but it will be a long process. Ultimately after every technique you will have to surrender, but with techniques it will come in the end; with tao, in tao, it comes in the beginning. If you can surrender right now, no technique is needed, but if you cannot, and if you ask me how to surrender, then a technique is needed. So, rarely in millions and millions of men, one can surrender without asking how. If you ask `how', you are not the right type who can surrender, because the `how' means you are asking for a technique.

These techniques are for all those who cannot get rid of this `how'. These techniques are just to get rid of your basic anxiety about `how' -- how to do it. If you can surrender without asking, then no technique is needed for you. But then you would not have come to me, you could have surrendered any time, because surrender needs no teacher. A teacher can teach only technique.

When you seek, you are seeking technique; every seeking is a seeking for technique. When you go to someone and ask, you are asking for a technique, for a method. Otherwise there is no need to go anywhere. The very search shows that you have a deep need for technique. These techniques are for you.Not that without technique it cannot happen. It can happen, but it has happened to very few persons. And those few persons are also really not rare: in their past lives they have been struggling with techniques, and they have struggled so much with techniques that now they are fed up, they are bored. A saturation point comes when you have asked again and again `How? How? How? -- and ultimately the `how' falls. Then you can surrender.

In every way technique is needed. A Krishnamurti, he can say that no technique is needed -- but this is not his first life. And he couldn't have said this in his past life. Even in this very life many techniques were given to him, and he worked on them. You can come to a point through techniques where you can surrender -- you can throw all techniques and simply be -- but that too is through techniques.

It is against tao, because you are against tao. You have to be deconditioned. If you are in tao then no technique is needed. If you are healthy then no medicine is needed. Every medicine is against health. But you are ill; medicine is needed. This medicine will kill your illness. It cannot give you health, but if the illness is removed, health will happen to you. No medicine can give you health. Basically every medicine is a poison -- but you have gathered some poison; you need an antidote. It will balance, and health will be possible.

Technique is not going to give you your divinity, it is not going to give you your nature. All that you have gathered around your nature it will destroy. It will only decondition you. You are conditioned, and right now you cannot take a jump into surrender. If you can take it, it is good -- but you cannot take it. Your conditioning will ask, `How?' Then techniques will be helpful.

When one lives in tao, then no yoga, no tantra, no religion is needed. One is perfectly healthy; no medicine is needed. Every religion is medicinal. When the world lives in total tao, religions will disappear. No teacher, no Buddha, no Jesus will be needed, because everyone will be a Buddha or a Jesus. But right now, as you are, you need techniques. Those techniques are antidotes.

You have gathered around yourself such a complex mind that whatsoever is said and given to you, you will complicate it. You will make it more complex, you will make it more difficult. If I say to you, `Surrender,' you will ask, `How?' If I say, `Use techniques,' you will ask, `Techniques? Are not techniques against tao?' If I say, `No technique is needed; simply surrender and God will happen to you,' you will immediately ask, `How?' -- your mind.

If I say, `Tao is right here and now: you need not practise anything, you simply take a jump and surrender,' you will say, `How? How can I surrender?' If I give you a technique to answer your `how', your mind will say, `But is not a method, a technique, a way, against swabhav, against tao? If divinity is my nature, then how can it be achieved through a technique? If it is already there, then the technique is futile, useless. Why waste time with the technique?' Look at this mind!

I remember, once it happened that one man, a father of a young girl, asked composer Leopold Godowsky to come to his house and give an audition to his daughter. She was learning piano. Godowsky came to their house; patiently he heard the girl playing. When the girl finished, the father beamed, and he cried in happiness and asked Godowsky, `Isn't she wonderful?'

Godowsky is reported to have said, `She is wonderful. She has an amazing technique. I have never heard anyone play such simple pieces with such great difficulty. She has an amazing technique. Playing such simple pieces with such great difficulty, I have never seen anyone do before!'

This is what goes on happening in your mind. Even a simple thing you will make complicated, you will make difficult for yourself. And this is a way of defence, this is a defence measure, because when you create difficulty you need not do it -- because first the problem must be solved and then you can do it.

If I say surrender, you ask how. Unless I answer your `how', how can you surrender? If I give you a technique, your mind immediately creates a new problem. `Why the technique? Swabhav is there, tao is there, God is within you, so why this endeavor, this effort?' Unless this is answered, there is no need to do anything.

Remember, you can go on in this vicious circle continuously for ever and ever. You will have to break it somewhere and come out of it. Be decisive, because only with decision is your humanity born. Only with decision do you become human. Be decisive. If you can surrender, surrender. If you cannot surrender, then don't create philosophical problems; then use some technique.

In both the ways the surrender will happen to you. If you can surrender right now, it is okay. If you cannot surrender, then pass through techniques -- that training is needed. It is needed because of you, not because of swabhav, not because of tao. Tao needs no training. It is needed because of you. And the techniques will destroy you. You will die through the techniques, and the innermost nature will evolve. You have to be shattered completely. If you can shatter it in a jump -- surrender. If you cannot, then piecemeal -- through techniques work on it.

But remember one thing: your mind can create problems which are tricks -- tricks to postpone, to postpone decision. If the mind is not settled, you don't feel guilty. You feel, `What can I do? Unless something is absolute, clearcut, transparent, what can I do?' Your mind can create clouds around you, and your mind will not allow you to be transparent ever -- unless you decide. With decision clouds disappear. Mind is very diplomatic, mind is political, and it goes on playing politics on you. It is very tricky, cunning.

I have heard, once Mulla Nasrudin came to visit his son and daughter-in-law. He had come for three days, but then he stayed for one week. Then the one week passed, and he stayed for one month. Then the young couple started worrying -- how to get rid of the old man? So they discussed how to get rid of him, and they hit upon a plan.

The husband said, `Tonight you prepare soup, and I will say that there is too much salt in it, it cannot be eaten, it is impossible to eat. And you have to say that there is not enough salt in it. We will argue and we will start quarrelling, and then I will ask my father what his opinion is, what he says. If he agrees with me, then you get mad and tell him to go away. If he agrees with you, I will get sore and I will tell him to go away immediately.'

The soup was prepared, and as it was planned, they started quarrelling and arguing. And then the climax came. They were just on the verge of hitting each other and Nasrudin was sitting silently watching. And then the son turned towards him and said, `Pa what do you say? Is there too much salt or not?'

So Nasrudin dipped his spoon in the soup, tasted it, meditated a moment upon the taste, and then said, `It suits me perfectly.' He didn't take any side. The whole plan was futile.

Your mind goes on working in this way. It will never take any side, because the moment you take a side, action has to be there. It will not take any side; it will go on arguing. It will never decide anything; it will be always in the middle. Whatsoever is said will be argued, but it will never become a decision. And you can argue ad infinitum; there is no end to it. Only decision will give you action, and only action will become transformation.

If you are really interested in a deep revolution within you, then decide -- and don't go on postponing. Don't be too philosophical; that is dangerous. For a seeker it is dangerous. For one who is not seeking really but just passing time, it is good, it is a good game. Philosophy is a good game if you can afford it. But I don't see that anyone can afford it because it is wasting time.

So be decisive. If you can surrender, then surrender. Then there is no `how' to it. If you cannot, then practise some technique, because only then through technique will you come to a point where surrender will happen.

Question 2

IN THE NATURAL COURSE, AFTER MILLIONS OF YEARS AND LIVES, ONE WILL BE ENLIGHTENED. BUT WE MIGHT HAVE ALREADY PASSED THROUGH MILLIONS OF YEARS AND LIVES AND YET ARE NOT ENLIGHTENED. WHY?

You cannot ask why. You can ask why only if you are doing something. If nature is dong something you cannot ask why; it is up to nature. And nature is not responsible; it is not going to answer you. It is completely silent. And for nature, millions of lives are nothing; for nature it may be just seconds. To you, millions of lives and years is a long history; for nature it is nothing. Nature is not worried, and nature is not interested in you particularly. Nature goes on working -- someday it will happen, but you cannot ask why, because nature is silent.

If you are worried about why it has not happened yet, then you have to do something. If worry has entered you, then you have to do something. Only your doing will help you to come to a point where enlightenment can happen. Nature's ways are very patient, slow. There is no hurry, because for nature there is no limit to time. It is eternal. There is no beginning and no end. But man has come to a point: he has become conscious, he has started asking.

A tree never asks -- even the Bodhi tree under which Buddha became enlightened. The tree will never ask, `Why have I not become enlightened? -- because I have also been existing for as many millions of years as you have existed, Gautam. Why?' The tree will never ask. The tree is absolutely natural. The questioning makes man unnatural. The unnatural has entered in you: you have started questioning why -- why it has not happened yet.

This questioning is good, because it can lead you to a decisive moment where you can start working upon yourself. And man cannot leave it to nature, because man has become conscious. You cannot leave it to nature now. That's why man has created religions. No animal has any religion. There is no need: they are not asking, they are not in a hurry. In nature everything is unhurried -- moving so slowly as if not moving at all; continuously repeating the same pattern, infinitely repeating the same circle.

Man has become conscious. Man has become conscious of time, and the moment you become conscious of time, you are thrown out of eternity. Then you are in a hurry. So as man's consciousness evolves more, he is more hurried, he becomes more and more time conscious. Go to a primitive society: they are not time conscious. The more civilized a society, the more time conscious. A primitive society is nearer nature: unhurried, it moves slowly. Just as nature moves, it moves. The more you become civilized, the more you become conscious of time. Really, time can be the criterion: how civilized a society is can be known by how time conscious it is. Then you are in a hurry, then you cannot wait, then you cannot leave it to nature. You have to take it in your own hands.

And man can take it in his own hands: he can do something and the process can be finished sooner. It can even be finished in a single moment. All that millions of years have not done, have not been able to do, you can do in a single moment. In that single moment you can become so intense that millions of years and millions of lives are travelled simultaneously.

That's possible -- because it is possible you are worried. Your worry is a symptom that something which is possible you are not making actual -- that is the worry, that is the human dilemma. You can do it and you are not doing it -- that creates an inner worry, anguish. When you cannot do it the question never arises, there is no worry. The worry shows that it is possible now that you can jump -- many lives which are unnecessary you can just by-pass -- and you are not by-passing. You have become conscious, and you have come above nature.

Consciousness is a new phenomenon. You have come above nature and now you can consciously evolve. Conscious evolution is revolution. You can do something about it. You are not just a victim, not just a puppet. You can take your destiny in your hands. That is possible, and because it is possible and you are not doing anything, it creates inner anxiety. And the more you become aware that this is possible, the more the anxiety will be felt.

A Buddha is very worried; you are not so worried. Buddha was very worried, in deep anguish, suffering. Unless he attained he would live in hell, because he was perfectly aware that something was absolutely possible, was just at hand, just by the corner, and he felt, `Still I am missing it. If I just stretch my hand it will happen -- and my hand is paralyzed. Just a step and I will be out of it -- and I cannot take that step. I am afraid of taking a jump.'

When you are near the goal, and you can feel it and you can see it and still you go on missing, then you feel anguish. When you are very far away and you cannot feel it, you cannot see it, you are not even aware that there is a goal, you are perfectly unaware of any destiny, then there is no anxiety.

Animals are not in anguish. They appear happy -- happier then man. What is the reason? Trees are even more happy than animals. They are perfectly unaware of what can happen, of what is possible, of what is just near at hand. They are blissfully unaware. There is no anxiety. They drift. Man becomes anxious, and the greater a man, the more anxiety will be there.

If you simply live, you are living an animal existence. Religious anguish arises the moment you become aware that something is possible -- 1The seed is there and I have to do something. I have to do something and the seed will sprout. The flowers are not very far away, and I can reap this crop' -- but still nothing is happening. A very impotent state is felt.

That was the Buddha's condition before he became a Buddha. He was just on the verge of committing suicide. You will have to pass through that. And you cannot leave it to nature; you have to do something about it -- and you can do. And the goal is not very far.

So don't be depressed if you feel anxiety. If you feel a very tense anguish within you, a suffering, agony, don't feel depressed about it -- that's a good sign. That shows you are becoming more and more aware of that which is possible, and now you will never be at ease unless it becomes actual.

Man cannot leave it to nature because man has become conscious. Only a very minor part of his being is conscious, but that changes everything. And unless your total being becomes conscious, you cannot know again the simple happiness of the animal or of the trees. There is only one way to know it now: to become more and more alert, more and more aware, and more and more conscious. You cannot regress. There is no process for going back; no one can go back. You can either remain where you are and suffer, or you have to go forward and go beyond suffering. You cannot go back.

Total unconsciousness is blissful, total consciousness is blissful -- and you are in between. A part of you has become conscious, and the major part of you is still unconscious. You are divided. You have become two, you are not one. The integration is lost. Animals are integrated and then saints are integrated. Man is disintegrated: a part remains animal and a part has become saintly. There is a struggle, conflict, and whatsoever you do you can never do with one heart.

So there are two ways. One is just to deceive yourself -- that is to become totally unconscious again. You can take drugs, you can take alcohol, you can take intoxicants -- you fall back to the animal world. You drug the part that has become conscious; you become totally unconscious. But this is a temporary deception; you will arise again. The effect of the chemical will be lost and your consciousness will become conscious again. The part which you have forcibly suppressed with alcohol or drugs or something else will arise again, and then you will feel more suffering, because then you can compare. You will feel more suffering.

You can go on drugging yourself. There are many methods -- not only chemical. There are religious methods. You can use a japa, a mantra: you can chant it and create an intoxicating effect. You can do many things which can make you unconscious again, but that is going to be temporary, you will have to come out -- and you will come out with a deeper suffering with you, because then you will be able to compare. If in unconsciousness this is possible, what will be possible in total consciousness? You will become more hungry for it, you will feel more starved.

Remember one thing: totality is bliss. If you are unconscious totally then too it is bliss, but you are not aware of it. Animals are happy but they are not aware of their happiness. So it is futile. It is just like when you are asleep you are happy, and whenever you are awake you are unhappy. Totality is bliss.

You can be total in consciousness also. Then there will be bliss and you will be perfectly aware of it. This is possible through sadhana, through methods, through practising techniques which increase your consciousness. You are not enlightened because you have not done anything for it, but you have become aware that you are not enlightened. This has been done by nature; in millions of years nature has made you aware.

You may not be aware of the fact that man has stopped growing as far as body is concerned. We have skeletons that are millions of years old, but there is no visible change; they are similar to our skeletons. So for millions of years there has been no growth in the body, it has remained the same. Even the brain has not grown; it has remained the same. As far as body is concerned, evolution has done whatsoever could have been done. In a sense, man is now responsible for his own growth. And the growth is not going to be of the physical; the growth is going to be of the spiritual.

The skeleton of a Buddha and your skeleton are not basically different, but you and Buddha are absolutely different. Evolution is working horizontally; methods, techniques, religions, they work vertically. Your body has stopped: it has come to a point, an omega point. Now there is no further growth for it. Horizontally, evolution has stopped; now a vertical evolution starts. Now, wherever you are, you have to take a jump vertically. That vertical evolution will be of consciousness, not of body. And you are responsible for it.

You cannot ask nature why, but nature can ask you why you are not enlightened yet, because everything is provided now. Your body has all that which is needed; you have a Buddha's body. Exactly whatsoever is needed for the buddha to happen to you, you have got. Only a new arrangement, a new synthesis of all the elements that are given, and the buddha will happen to you. Nature can ask you why you are not enlightened yet, because nature has provided you with everything.

And nature asking you will not be irrelevant, but you asking nature is absurd. You cannot be allowed to ask. Now you are aware and you can do something. All the elements are given to you. The hydrogen is there, the oxygen is there, the electricity is there; you have to just make certain efforts and experiments and the water will happen.

All that is needed for you to be enlightened is with you, but it is scattered. You have to combine it, synthesize it, you have to make a harmony of it, and suddenly the flame will arise which becomes enlightenment. All these techniques are for that. You have got everything; just a know-how is needed, what to do, so that enlightenment happens to you.

Question 3

YOU SAY THAT MILLIONS OF LIVES AND MILLIONS OF YEARS OF NATURAL EVOLUTION CAN BE AVOIDED THROUGH REACHING TOTAL AWARENESS AND TOTAL FREEDOM CAN IT NOT BE ARGUED THAT KARMA, WITH ITS NATURAL FORCES OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, SHOULD NOT BE INTERFERED WITH BY ANY SHORTCUTS, OR IS IT ALSO THE WAY OF DIVINITY TO BRING SUCH A POSSIBILITY WITHIN THE REACH OF THE EVOLVING WORLD, THE EVOLVING SOUL?

Everything can be argued, but argument leads nowhere. You can argue, but how is that argument going to help you? You can argue that the natural process of karma should not be interfered with -- don't interfere then. But then be happy in your misery -- and you are not. You want to interfere. If you can rely on the natural process, it is just wonderful -- but then don't make any complaint. Don't ask, `Why is this so?' It is so because of the natural process of karma. You are suffering? -- you are suffering because of the natural process of karma, and otherwise is not possible; don't interfere.

This is what the doctrine of fate, of kismat is -- the doctrine of believing in fate. Then you are not to do anything: whatsoever is happening is happening, and you have to accept it. Then too it becomes a surrender, and you need not do anything. But the total acceptability is needed. Really there is no need to interfere, but can you be in such a state where you don't interfere? You are constantly interfering with everything. You cannot leave it to nature. If you can leave it, then nothing else is needed and everything will happen to you. But if you cannot leave it, then interfere. And you can interfere, but the process has to be understood.

Really, meditating is not interfering in the process of karma; rather, it is taking a jump out of it. Exactly it is not interfering; it is taking a jump out of the vicious wheel, out of the vicious circle. The circle will go on, and the process will come to an end by itself. You cannot put an end to it, but you can be out of it, and once you are out of it, it becomes illusory.

For example, Raman died of cancer. His disciples tried to persuade him to go for treatment. He said, `Okay. If you like it and if it will make you happy, then treat me. But as far as I am concerned it is okay.' The doctors were surprised, because his body was suffering, it was in deep pain, but his eyes were without any pain. His body was suffering deeply, but he was not suffering.

The body is part of the karma, it is part of the mechanical circle of cause and effect, but the consciousness can be beyond it, it can transcend it. He was just a witness. He was seeing that the body was suffering, that the body was going to die, but he was a witness. He was not interfering with it, not interfering at all. He was just watching whatsoever was happening, but he was not in the vicious circle, he was not identified, he was not within it then.

Meditation is not an interference. Really, without meditation you are interfering every moment. With meditation you go beyond; you become a watcher on the hill. Deep down in the valley things go on, they continue, but they don't belong to you. You are just an onlooker. It is as if they are happening to somebody else, or as if they are happening in a dream, or in a film on the screen. You are not interfering. You are just not within the drama itself -- you have come out. Now you are not an actor, you have become a spectator. This is the only change.

And when you are just a witness, the body will complete immediately whatsoever, has to be completed. If you have many karmas for suffering, and now that you have become a witness you are not going to be reborn again, the body will have to suffer in this life all the suffering that would have been in many lives. So it happens many times that an enlightened man has to suffer many bodily ills, because now there is no future birth, no future life. This is going to be the last body, so all the karmas and the whole process has to be completed, finished.

So it happens that if we look at Jesus' life through eastern eyes, then the crucifixion is a different phenomenon. To the western mind there is no succession of lives, no rebirth, no reincarnation, so they don't really have a very deep analysis of the crucifixion. They have a myth that Jesus suffered for us, his suffering was a salvation for us. But this is absurd; and this is not true to the facts also, because if Jesus' suffering has become a salvation for you, then why is humanity still suffering? It is suffering more than it ever suffered before.

After Jesus' crucifixion humanity has not entered into the kingdom of God. If he suffered for us, if his crucifixion was a repentance of our guilt and sin, then he is a failure, because the guilt continues, the sin continues, the suffering continues. Then his suffering was in vain, then the crucifixion didn't succeed.

Christianity has simply a myth. But the eastern analysis of human life has a different attitude. Jesus' crucifixion was all his suffering accumulated through his own karmas. And this was his last life, he would not enter the body again, so the whole suffering had to be crystallized, concentrated, in a single point. That single point became the crucifixion.

He did not suffer for anyone else -- no one can suffer for anyone else. He suffered for himself, for his past karmas. No one can make you free, because you are in the bondage because of your karmas, so how can Jesus make you free? He can make himself a slave, he can make himself a free man, he can liberate himself. Through the crucifixion the account of his own karmas closed. He was finished, the chain had come to an end. Cause and effect -- they had come to an ed. This body would not be born again; he would not enter into another womb. If he was not an enlightened person, then he would have had to suffer all this for many lives. It became concentrated in one point, in one life.

You cannot interfere, and if you interfere you will create more misery for yourself. Don't interfere with karmas, but go beyond, be a witness to them Take them as a dream, not real; just look at them and be indifferent. Don't get involved. Your body suffers -- look at the suffering. Your body is happy -- look at the happiness. Don't get identified -- that's all that meditation means.

And don't find alibis, don't find excuses. Don't say that this can be argued. You can argue anything, you are free to, but remember that your argument may be suicidal. You can argue against yourself, and you can create an argument which is not going to help you, which is not going to transform you, rather, which is going to become a hindrance. We go on arguing.

Just today one girl came to meet me. She asked me, `Tell me, is there really a God?' She was ready to argue that there is no God. I looked at her face, her eyes. She was tense, filled with argument; she wanted to fight about the point. Really deep down she wanted that there is no God, because if there is God you are in trouble. If there is God then you cannot remain whatsoever you are; then a challenge comes. God is a challenge. It means you cannot be satisfied with yourself; something higher than you is possible. A higher state, an absolute state of consciousness is possible. That's what God means.

So she was ready to argue, and she said, `I am an atheist and I don't believe in God.'

I told her, `If there is no God, how can you not believe in him? And God is irrelevant. Your belief and your disbelief, your argument for and your argument against is related to you; it is not related to God. Why are you concerned? If there is no God, why have you travelled so long, and why have you come to me to argue about something which is not? Forget and forgive him. Go to your home, don't waste your time. If he is not, then why are you worried? Why this effort to prove that he is not? This effort shows something about you. You are afraid. If God is, then it is a challenge. If God is not, then you can remain whatsoever you are; there is no challenge to life.'

A person who is afraid of challenges, risks, dangers, of changing himself, of mutation, will always deny that there is God. The denial is his mind; the denial shows something about him, not about God.

I told her that God is not a thing which can be proved or disproved. God is not an object about which we can take some opinion for or against. God is a possibility within you. It is not something without; it is a possibility within you. If you travel to that possibility, he becomes real. If you don't travel up to that point, he is unreal. And if you argue against him then there is no point in travelling; you remain the same. And this becomes a vicious circle.

You argue that God is not, and because of it you never travel towards him -- because it is an inner travel, an inner journey. You never travel, because how can you travel towards the point which is not? So you remain the same. And when you remain the same you never meet, you never encounter God. You never come to any feeling, to any vibration from him. Then it is proved more for you that he is not. And the more it is proved, the more you are far away, the more you are falling, the more the gap increases.

So it is not a question of whether God is nor not, I told her. It is a question of whether you want to grow or not. If you grow, your total growth will be the meeting, your total growth will be the communion, your total growth will be the encounter. I told her one anecdote.

One windy morning, just as the spring was ending, a snail started travelling upwards on a cherry tree. Some sparrows which were just on a neighboring oak started laughing, because it was not the season and there were no cherries on the tree, and this poor snail was making so much effort to reach the top. They laughed at his expense.

Then one sparrow flew down, came near to the snail and said, `Darling, where are you going? There are no cherries yet on the tree.'

But the snail never even paused; she continued her upward journey. Without pausing, the snail said, `But they will be there when I reach. They will be there when I reach there. It will take a long time for me to reach to the top, and by that time cherries will be there.'

God is not, but he will be there by the time you reach. It is not something which is already there -- it is never there. It is a growth. It is your own growth. When you reach to a point where you are totally conscious, God is. But don't argue. Rather than wasting your energy in arguing, use your energy in transforming yourself.

And energy is not much. If you divert your energy into argument you can become a genius in arguing. But then you are wasting, it is at a great cost, because the same energy can become meditation. You can become a logician: you can make very logical arguments, you can find very convincing proofs or disproofs, but you will remain the same. Your arguments are not going to change you.

Remember one thing: whatsoever changes you is good. Whatsoever gives you growth, expansion, increase in consciousness, is good. Whatsoever makes you static and whatsoever protects your status quo is not good; it is fatal, suicidal.

Question 4

SOMETIMES I FEEL IN A STATE OF NON-DOING, VERY PASSIVE, BUT MAY AWARENESS OF WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND ME SEEMS LESS. IN FACT, I FEEL DETACHED FROM THINGS AROUND ME. THIS SOMEHOW MEANS FALSE PASSIVITY, AS I IMAGINE ON-DOING SHOULD BE SYNONYMOUS WITH INCREASED AWARENESS. CAN YOU PLEASE DEFINE THIS STATE?

Ordinarily we are in a feverish state -- active, but feverishly. If you become passive the fever will be lost. If you become passive, non-doing, if you relax within yourself, activity will be lost, fever will be lost, and the intensity that comes through fever will not be there. You will feel a little dull, you will feel as if your awareness is decreasing. It is not decreasing; only the feverish glow is decreasing.

And it is good, so don't be afraid of it, and don't think that this passivity is not real. This is being said by your mind which needs and wants the feverish activity and the glow that comes through fever. Fever is not awareness, but in fever you can have a very unhealthy awareness, alertness. That is diseased; don't hanker for it. Allow it to go, fall into passivity.

In the beginning it will look like your awareness is decreasing rather than increasing. Allow it to decrease, because whatsoever decreases with passivity was feverish, that's why it decreases. Allow it to decrease. A moment will come when you will gain a balance. In that point of balance there will be no increase and no decrease. That is a healthy point; now the fever has gone.

On that point of balance, whatsoever awareness you have, that is real, that is not feverish. And if you can wait for that moment to come.... It is difficult, because in the beginning you feel that you are losing grip, you are becoming really dead; your activity, your alertness, everything has gone -- you are relaxing into death. It appears that way because whatsoever you know about life is feverish. It is not really life but just a fever, just a state of tension, just a state of hyper-activity. So in the beginning.... And you know only one state -- this state of fever. You don't know anything else so how can you compare?

When you become passive, relaxed, you will feel that something is lost. Allow i to be lost. Remain with passivity. A balancing point will come soon when you will be right at the point where there is no fever. You will be simply your own self -- not pushed by someone else into activity, not pulled by someone else into activity. Now activity will start happening to you, but it will be spontaneous, it will be natural. You will do something, but you will not be pulled and pushed.

And what is the criterion by which to know whether this activity is not forced on you, is not feverish? This is the point: if the activity is spontaneous you will not feel any tension through it, you will not feel any burden. You will enjoy it. And the activity will become an end unto itself; there will be no end. This will not be a means to reach somewhere else; it will be just an overflow of your own energy. And this overflow will be here and now; it will not be for something in the future. You will enjoy it.

Whatsoever it is -- digging a hole in the garden, or pruning the trees, or just sitting, or walking, or eating -- whatsoever you are doing will become absolute in itself, total action. And after it you will not be tiered; rather, you will feel refreshed. A feverish activity tires you; it is ill. A natural activity nourishes you; you feel more energetic, more vital after it. You feel more alive after it. It gives you more life.

But in the beginning when you start becoming passive and you fall into non-doing, it is bound to be felt that you are losing awareness. No, you are not losing awareness. You are simply losing a feverish type of mentation, a feverish type of alertness. You will settle into passivity and a natural awareness will happen.

This is the difference between a feverish alertness and natural awareness; this is the difference: in feverish alertness there is a concentration; it excludes everything. You can concentrate on a thing. You are listening to me. If it is a feverish alertness then you listen to me and you are totally unaware of anything else. But if it is a passive awareness, not feverish, but balanced, natural, then if a car passes by, you hear that car also. You are simply aware. You are aware of everything; of whatsoever is happening around you. And this is the beauty of it -- that the car passes by and you hear the noise but it is not a disturbance.

If you are feverishly attentive and you hear the car, you will miss listening to me; it will be a disturbance, because you don't k now how to be totally, simply aware of everything that is happening. You know only one way: how to be alert of one thing at the cost of everything else. If you move to something else then you lose the contact with the first thing. If you are listening to me in a feverish mind, then anything can disturb you. Because your alertness goes there, then you are cut off from me. It is one-pointed; it is not total. A natural, passive awareness is just total; nothing disturbs it. It is not concentration, it is meditation.

Concentration is always feverish, because you are forcing your energy to one point. Energy by itself flows in all directions. If has no direction in which to move; it simply enjoys flowing all over. We create conflict because we say, `This is good to listen to; that is bad.' If you are doing your prayer and a child starts laughing, it is a disturbance -- because you cannot conceive of a simple awareness in which the prayer continues and the child goes on laughing and there is no conflict between the two; they both are part of a bigger whole.

Try this: be totally alert, totally aware. Don't concentrate. Every concentration is tiring, you feel tired, because you are forcing energy unnaturally. Simple awareness is inclusive of all. When you are passive and non-doing then everything happens around you. Nothing disturbs you and nothing by-passes you. Everything happens and you know it, you witness it.

A noise comes: it happens to you, it moves within you, then it passes, and you remain as you were. Just as in an empty room: if there was no one here the traffic would go on passing, the noise would come into this room, then it would pass==and the room would remain unaffected, as if nothing had happened. In passive awareness you remain unaffected. Everything goes on happening; just passes you, but never touches you. You remain unscarred. In feverish concentration everything touches you, impresses you.

One more point about this. In the eastern psychology we have a word, SANSKAR -- conditioning. If you are concentrating on something you will be conditioned, you will get a sanskar, you will get impressed by something. If you are simply aware -- passively aware, not concentrating, not focusing yourself, just being there -- nothing conditions you. Then you don't accumulate any sanskar, you don't accumulate any impressions. You go on remaining virgin, pure, unscarred; nothing touches you. If one can be passively aware, he passes through the world but the world never passes through him.

One Zen monk, Bokuju, used to say, `Go and cross the stream, but don't allow the water to touch you.' And there was no bridge over the stream near his monastery.

Many would try, but when they crossed, of course the water would touch them. So one day one monk came and he said, `You give us puzzles. We try to cross that stream; there is no bridge. If there was a bridge, of course we could have crossed the stream and the water would not have touched us. But we have to pass through the stream -- the water touches.'

So Bokuju said, `I will come and I will cross and you watch.' And Bokuju crossed. Of course, water touched his feet, and they said, `Look, the water has touched you!'

Bokuju said, `As far as I know, it has not touched me. I was just a witness. The water was touching my feet, but not me. I was just witnessing.'

With passive alertness, with witnessing, you pass through the world. You are in the world, but the world is not in you.