YOU SAID THAT REALLY THERE IS NO ONE INSIDE US, THERE IS ONLY A VOID, AN EMPTINESS, BUT THEN WHY DO YOU OFTEN CALL IT THE BEING, THE CENTER?

Being or non-being, nothing or all -- they look contradictory but they both mean the same. All and nothing mean the same. In dictionaries they are opposites but in life they are not.Nobody understands. Look at it in this way: if I say that I love all, or if I say that I love no one, it means the same. If I love someone, then only is there a difference. If I love all, it means the same as loving no one. There is no difference then. The difference is always in degrees, relative. And these are both two extremes, they have no degrees: the total and the zero have no degrees. So you can call the total a zero, or you can call a zero the total. That's why some enlightened persons have called the inner space emptiness, SUNYA, the void, nothingness, non-being, ANATMA -- and some have called it the inner being, the absolute being, the BRAHMA, ATMA, the supreme self. These are the two ways to describe it. One is positive, the other is negative. Either you have to include all or have to exclude all -- you cannot describe it with any term which is relative. An absolute term is needed. Both the contradictory poles are absolute terms.

But there have been some enlightened persons who have remained totally silent. They have not called it anything, because whatsoever you call it -- whether you call it being or non-being -- the moment you give it a name, a term, a word, you have erred, because it includes both.

For example, if you say, "God is alive," or "God is life," it is meaningless, because then who will be death? He includes all. He must have death in him as completely as life, otherwise to whom will death belong? And if death belongs to someone else and life belongs to God -- then there are two Gods, and then there will be many problems which cannot be solved. God must be both life and death. God must be both the creator and the destroyer. If you say God is the creator, then who is the destroyer? If you say God is good, then who will be evil? Because of this difficulty, Christians, Zoroastrians, and many other religions have created a Devil side by side with God, because to whom will the evil belong? They have created a Devil. But nothing is solved -- the problem is only pushed one step back because then it can be relevantly asked, "Who has created the Devil?" If God himself creates the Devil, then he is responsible. And if the Devil is something independent, not related to God, then he himself becomes a God, a supreme power. And if God has not created the Devil, how can God destroy him? It is impossible. Theologians go on giving some answers to a question but that answer again creates more questions.

God created Adam, then Adam became evil. He was expelled. He disobeyed God and he was expelled from the heavenly world. It has been asked again and again, and relevantly, why did Adam become evil? The possibility must have been created by God in him -- the possibility to be evil, to go wrong, to disobey. If there was no possibility, no inherent tendency, then how could Adam go wrong? God must have created the tendency. And if the tendency for evil was there, another thing is also certain: the tendency to overcome it was not so strong. the tendency to fight it was not so strong. The evil tendency was stronger. Who created this strength? No one except God can be responsible. Then the whole thing seems to be a hoax. God creates Adam: he creates an evil tendency in him, a strong evil tendency which he cannot control; then he goes wrong; then he is punished. God should be punished, not Adam! Or, you have to accept that some other force exists side by side with God. And that other force must be stronger than God, because the evil can tempt Adam and God cannot protect him. The Devil can provoke and seduce and God cannot protect. The Devil seems to be a stronger God.

There is a church, recently born in America, called the church of Satan, the church of the Devil. They have a high priest, just like the pope of the Vatican. And they say that history proves that the real God is the Devil. And they look logical. They say, "Your God, the God of good, has always been defeated, and the Devil has always been the victorious. The whole of history proves it. So why worship a weak God who cannot protect you? It is better to follow a strong God who can seduce you but who can protect you also -- because he is stronger." The church of the Devil is now a growing church. And they seem logical. This is what history proves.

This duality -- to save God from the negative pole -- creates problems. In India we have not created the other pole. We say God is both: the creator and the destroyer, the good and the bad. This is difficult to conceive of because the moment we say "God" we cannot conceive of him being bad. But in India we have tried to penetrate the deepest mystery of existence -- that is, oneness. Somehow, good and bad, life and death, negative and positive, meet somewhere, and that meeting point is existence, oneness. What will you call that meeting point? Either you will have to use a positive term, or a negative one, because we don't have any other terms. If you use positive terms, then you call it "Being" with a capital B -- God, Absolute, BRAHMA. Or if you want to use s negative term, then you call it nirvana, nothingness, SUNYA, non-being, ANATMA. Both indicate the same. It is both and your inner being is also both. That is why sometimes I call it being, and sometimes I call it non-being. It is both. It depends on you. If the positive appeals to you, then call it being. If the negative appeals to you, then call it non-being. It depends on you. Whatsoever feels good, whatsoever you feel will give you maturity, growth, evolution, call it that.

There are two types of persons: one who cannot feel any affinity with negativity and the other who cannot feel any affinity with the positive. Buddha is the negative type. He cannot feel affinity with the positive, he feels affinity with the negative. He uses all negative terms. Shankara doesn't feel affinity with the negative. He talks about the ultimate reality in positive terms. Both say the same thing. Buddha calls it SUNYA, and Shankara calls it BRAHMA. Buddha calls it the void, nothing, and Shankara calls it the Absolute, the All. But they are saying exactly the same thing.

Ramanuja, one of Shankara's greatest critics, says that Shankara is just a hidden Buddhist. He is not a Hindu, he only appears to be because he uses positive terms. That is all the difference there is. Wherever Buddha says nothing, he says BRAHMA -- all else is the same. Ramanuja says that Shankara is the great destroyer of Hinduism because he has brought Buddhism in from the back door by just using a trick -- wherever a negative term is used, he uses a positive term, that's all. He calls him a "PRACHANNA-BOUDDHA", a crypto-Buddhist. And he is right in a way because there is no difference. The message is the same.

So it depends on you. If you feel an affinity with silence, nothingness, then call that great being Emptiness. If you don't feel an affinity, if you feel afraid, then call that emptiness The Great Being. But then your techniques will be different. If you feel scared with emptiness, aloneness, nothingness, then the four techniques I talked about last night will not be of much use to you. Forget them. There are other methods about which I have been talking. Use positive techniques.

But if you are ready and have the courage to be supportless, to move into emptiness, alone, ready to cease completely, then these four techniques will help you tremendously. It depends on you.

The second question:

IF THERE IS ABSOLUTE EMPTINESS INSIDE AN ENLIGHTENED ONE, THEN HOW IS IT THAT HE SEEMS TO BE MAKING DECISIONS, DISCRIMINATING, LIKING THIS OR DISLIKING THAT, SAYING YES OR NO?

This will really look a paradox. If an enlightened one is simply emptiness, then for us it becomes a paradox. Then why does he say yes or no? Why does ht choose? Why does he like some things and dislike other things? Why does he talk? Why does he walk? Why does he live at all?

For us this is a problem; but for the enlightened one it is not a problem. Everything is done out of emptiness. The enlightened one is not choosing. It looks like choice to us but the enlightened one simply moves in one direction -- that direction comes from the emptiness itself.

It is just like this. You are walking. Suddenly a car comes in front of you and you feel that an accident will happen. You don't decide what to do. Do you decide? How can you decide? There is no time. A decision will take time. You will have to ponder and think, weigh up the pros and cons, decide whether to jump this way or that. You don't decide. You simply jump. From where does that jump com? Between the jump and you there is no thinking process. Suddenly you become aware that the car is in front of you and you jump. The jump happens first. Then later on you can think. In that moment you jump through hastiness; your whole being jumps without any decision.

Remember, decision is always of the part, it can never be of the whole. Decision means that there was a conflict. One part of your being was saying, "Do this," another part was saying, "Don't do this." That's why the decision was needed. You had to decide, argue, and one part had to be pushed aside. That's what decision means. When your totality is there, there is no need to decide. There is no alternative. An enlightened one is total within himself, total emptiness. So whatsoever comes out, it comes out of his totality, not out of any decision. If he says "yes" it is not a choice: there was no "no" to be chosen, there was no alternative. "Yes" is the response of his total being. If he says "no", then "no" is the response of his total being. That's why an enlightened man can never repent. You will repent always. Whatsoever you do, it makes no difference -- whatsoever you do, you will repent. If you want to marry a woman, if you decide "yes", you will repent, if you decide "no", you will repent. Because whatsoever you decide is a partial decision, the other part is always against. If you decide, "Yes, I will marry this woman," one part of your being is saying, "Don't do this, you will repent." You are not total.

When difficulties arise.... They are bound to arise because when two different persons start living together, difficulties are bound to arise. There will be conflicts, there will be a struggle to dominate, there will be power politics. Then the other part will say, "Look! What did I say? I was insisting that you shouldn't do this, and you have done it." But that doesn't mean that if you had followed the other part, there would have been no repentance. No! The repentance would have been there, because then you would have married some other woman, and the conflict and the struggle would have happened. Then the other part would go on saying, "I was saying marry the first woman. You have missed an opportunity. A heaven is lost, and you are married to a hell."

You will repent, whatsoever the case, because your decision cannot be total. It is always against a part, and that part will take revenge. So whatsoever you decide, if you do good you will repent, if you do bad you will repent. If you do good, then your mind, the other part, will go on saying that you have missed an opportunity. If you do bad, then you will feel guilty. An enlightened being never repents. Really he never looks backwards. There is nothing to look backwards at. Whatsoever is done is done with his totality.

So the first thing to be understood is that he never chooses. The choice happens to his emptiness; he never decides. That doesn't mean that he is indecisive. He is absolutely decisive, but he never decides. Try to understand me. The decision happens in his emptiness. This is how his whole being acts: there is nothing more to it. If you are walking and a snake crosses your path, you jump suddenly -- that's all. You don't decide. You don't consult a master and a guide. You don't go to look into books in the library about what to do when a snake crosses the path -- how to do it, what the technique is. You simply jump. And remember, that jump is coming from your total being, it has not been a decision. Your total being has acted that way. That is all. There is nothing more to it. To you it seems as if an enlightened one is choosing, deciding, discriminating, because you are doing that every moment. And you cannot understand something which you have not known at all. An enlightened one happens to be doing things without any decision, without any effort, without any choice -- he is choiceless. But that doesn't mean that if you give him food and stones, he will start eating stones. He will eat the food. To you it will look as if he has decided not to eat the stones, but he has not decided. That is simply foolish. It doesn't occur to him. He eats the food. This is not a decision -- only an idiot person would decide whether to eat stones or food. Stupid minds decide; enlightened minds simply act. And the more mediocre the mind, the more effort has to be made for a decision.

That's what worry means. What is worry? There are two alternatives and no way to decide between them -- and the mind goes on, one moment this side, another moment that side. This is what worry is. Worry means you have to decide and you are trying to decide, but you cannot decide. So you are worrying, puzzled, moving in vicious circles. An enlightened one is never worried. He is total. Try to understand this. He is not divided, he is not split, there are not two beings in him. But in you there is a crowd: not only two, there are many, many persons living in you, many voices, just a crowd. An enlightened one is a deep unity, he is a universe. You are a "multiverse". This word "universe" is beautiful. It means one -- "uni". You are a "multiverse", there are many worlds in you.

The second thing to be understood is that whatsoever you do, before doing it, there is thinking, thought. Whatsoever an enlightened person is doing, there is no thinking, no thought. He is doing it.

Remember, thinking is needed because you have no eyes to see. Thinking is a substitute. It is just like a blind man groping his way on a path with a stick. A blind man can ask people who have eyes how they grope, what type of sticks they use to grope their way on the path. And they will simply laugh; they will say that they don't need sticks. They have eyes. They simply see where the door is, they need not grope for it. And they never think about where the door is. They see and they pass through it. But a blind man cannot believe that you can simply pass through a door. First you will have to think about where the door is. First you will have to inquire. If someone is there you will have to ask where the door is. And even if the direction is given, you will have to grope for it with your stick -- and then too there may be many pitfalls. But when you have eyes, if you want to go out, you simply look... you don't think about where the door is, you don't decide. You simply look, the door is there, you pass through it. You never think that this is a door -- you simply use it and you act.

The same is the situation with unenlightened minds and enlightened minds. An enlightened mind simply looks. Everything is clear. He has a clarity. His whole being is light. He looks around and he simply moves, acts -- he never thinks. You have to think because you don't have eyes. Only blind men think; they have to think because they don't have eyes. They need substitute eyes, and thinking provides that.

I never say that Buddha or Mahavira or Jesus are great thinkers. That would be just nonsense. They are not thinkers at all. They are knowers, not thinkers. They have eyes, they can see, and through their seeing they act. Whatsoever comes out of a Buddha comes out of emptiness, not out of a mind filled with thoughts. It has come out of an empty sky. It is the response of emptiness.

But for us it is difficult because nothing comes to us in that way. We have to think about it. If someone asks a question, you have to think about it. And even then you can never be certain that whatsoever you are saying is the answer. A Buddha answers; he doesn't think. You question him, and the emptiness simply responds. That response is not a thought-over thing. It is a total response. His being behaves that way. That's why you cannot ask for consistency from a Buddha. You cannot. Thought can be consistent, a thinker is bound to be consistent -- but an enlightened person cannot be consistent, because each moment the situation changes. And each moment things come out of his emptiness. He cannot force. He cannot think. He does not really remember what he said yesterday. Every question creates a new answer. And every question creates a new response. It depends on the questioner.

Buddha enters a village. One man asks, "Is there God?" Buddha says, "No." In the afternoon, another man asks, "Is there God?" Buddha says, "Yes." Then in the evening, a third one asks, "Is there God?" Buddha remains silent. In just one day: in the morning, no; in the afternoon, yes; in the evening, silence -- neither yes nor no.

Buddha's disciple, Anand, became puzzled. He had heard all three answers. In the night when everyone had retired, he asked Buddha, "Can I ask you a question? Just in one day you have answered one question in three ways, not only differently, contradictorily. My mind is puzzled. I cannot sleep if you don't answer. What do you mean? In the morning you say yes, in the afternoon no, in the evening you remain silent. And the question was the same." Buddha said, "But the questioners were different. And how can different questioners ask the same question?" This is really beautiful, very deep. He said, "How can different questioners ask the same question? A question comes out of a being, it is a growth. If the being is different, how can the question be the same? In the morning when I said yes, the man who was asking was an atheist. He had come to get my confirmation that there is no God. And I could not confirm his atheism, because he was suffering because of it. And because I could not be a part in his suffering, and I wanted to help him, I said, "Yes, God exists." That's how I tried to destroy his so-called atheism. In the afternoon, when the other person was there, he was a theist and he was suffering through his theism. I couldn't say yes to him because that would have been a confirmation -- which he had come for. Then he would go and say, `Yes, whatsoever I was saying is right. Even Buddha says so.' And the man was wrong. I could not help a wrong man in his wrongness so I had to say no to destroy whatsoever he is, to shatter his mind. And the man who came in the evening was neither. He was a simple, innocent man and he was not asking for any confirmation. He had no ideology; he was really a religious person. So I had to be silent. I said to him, "Be silent about this question. Don't think about it." If I had said yes, it would have been wrong because he was not there to find a theology. If I had said no, it would have been wrong, because he was not to be confirmed in any atheism. He was not interested in thoughts, in ideas, in theories, doctrines, no; he was a real religious man. How can I utter any word before him? I had to be silent. He understood my silence. When he went away, his religiousness had deepened."

Buddha said, "Three persons cannot ask the same question. They can formulate it in a similar way -- that is another thing. The questions were all "Does God exist?" Their formulation was the same, but the being from where the question was coming was totally different. They meant different things by it; their values were different; their associations with words were different."

I remember, once it happened that Mulla Nasruddin came back to his house one evening. The whole day he had been involved in a football match. He was a fan. IN the evening when he entered the house, his wife was reading a newspaper, and she said, "Look, Nasruddin, there is something for you. It is reported here that a man has given his wife in return for a season ticket for the football matches. You are also a fan, a mad fan, but I cannot conceive that you would do the same. Or would you? Could you exchange me just to get a season ticket for the football matches?"

Nasruddin thought hard, and then he said, "Of course I would not -- because it is ridiculous and criminal. The season is half over."

Every mind has its own orientation. You may use the same words but because you are different, those same words cannot be the same.

Then Buddha said another thing, and that is even more significant. He said, "Anand, why are you disturbed? You were not a party. You should not listen, because not a single answer was given to you. You should remain indifferent, otherwise you will go mad. Don't move with me because I will be involved with many, many types of persons. And if you listen to everything that is not said to you, you will get confused and crazy. You just leave me. Otherwise remember to listen only when I speak to you; at other times don't listen. Whatsoever I say is not your business. It was not said to you and it was not your question at all. So why should you be worried? You were not related. Someone asked, someone else replied. Why are you unnecessarily worried about it? If you have the same question, ask, and then I will answer. But remember, my answers are not to the questions, but to the questioners. I respond. I look at the man, I see through the man, the man becomes transparent -- and this is my response. The question is irrelevant; the questioner is relevant."

You cannot ask for consistency from an enlightened person. Only unenlightened, ignorant persons can be consistent, because they don't have to look. They just follow some ideas. They carry dead ideas, consistently. For their whole life they will carry something and they will remain consistent to it. They are stupid, that's why they can remain consistent. They are not alive. They are dead. Aliveness cannot be consistent. That doesn't mean that it is wrong -- aliveness is consistent, but very deeply, not on the surface. Buddha is consistent in all the three answers, but his consistency is not in the answers -- his consistency is in his effort to help. He wanted to help the first man. He wanted to help the second man. He wanted to help the third man. For all three, compassion was there, love was there. He wanted to help them -- that is his consistency. But it is a deep current. His words are different, his answers are different, but his compassion is the same.

So when an enlightened person speaks, answers, that answer is a total response of his emptiness, of his being. He echoes you, he reflected you, he is a mirror. He has no face of his own. Your face is mirrored in his heart. So if an idiot comes to meet a Buddha, he will meet an idiot -- Buddha is just a mirror. And that man will go and spread the rumor that Buddha is an idiot. He has seen himself in Buddha. If someone sensitive, understanding, mature, grown up comes, he will see something else in Buddha: he will see his own face. There is no other way -- you go on seeing mirrors in persons who are totally empty. Then whatsoever you carry is your interpretation.

It is said in old scriptures that when you reach an enlightened person, remain totally silent. Don't think, otherwise you will miss the opportunity of meeting him. Just remain silent. Don't think. Absorb him, but don't try to understand him through your head. Absorb him, drink him, allow your total being to be open to him, let him move within you, but don't think about him -- because if you think, then your mind will be echoed. Let your total being be bathed in his presence. Only then will you have a glimpse of what type of being, of what type of phenomenon you have come in contact with. Many came to Buddha. They came and went. They carried their own opinions, and they went out and they spread them. Very few, really very few, understood -- and that is how it should be, because you can understand only according to you. If you are ready to melt and change and be transformed, only then can you understand what an enlightened person, what an enlightened being is.

The third question

YOU SAID THAT NOISE AND DISTURBANCES ARE NOT OUTSIDE IN THE WORLD, BUT ARE BECAUSE OF YOUR OWN MINDS AND EGO. BUT WHY DO THE SAINTS AND MYSTICS ALWAYS LIVE IN UNNOISY, UNCROWDED PLACES?

Because they are still not saints and mystics. They are still endeavoring, still working. They are seekers, not SIDDHAS. They have not reached. Noise will disturb them, the crowd will disturb them. The crowd will pull them back to its own level. They are still weak, they need protection. They are still not confident. They cannot move into temptation. They have to protect themselves in the lonely solitude where they can grow and become strong. When they are strong there will be no problem. Mahavir moved into the wilderness. For twelve years he was alone, silent, not talking, not moving in villages or cities. Then he became enlightened. Then he came back to the world. Buddha was in total silence for six years. Then he came back to the world. Jesus or Mohammed, or anyone -- when they are growing they need protected conditions. When they have grown, then there is no problem.

So if you find a mystic afraid of moving in a crowd, then know well that he is still a child, growing. Otherwise why should a mystic be afraid of moving in crowds? Nothing can be done to him by the crowd, by the noise, by the world, by the objects of the world. With all this madness around him, nothing can be done to him. He cannot be touched. He can move and he can live -- anywhere it happens for his emptiness to live, he can live.

But in the beginning it is good to be alone, to be in a harmonious, natural surrounding. So remember, don't think that because you live in a noisy Bombay you are a mystic, or you have grown up and have become a SIDDHA. If you want to grow you will also have to move sometimes, for some definite periods, into loneliness -- out of the crowd, out of the concerns of the world, relations of the world, objects of the world -- into such a place where you can be alone and not disturbed by others. As you are now you can be disturbed, but once you have the strength, once you have the inner power, once you are crystallized and you know that now no one can shatter your inner center, you can move anywhere. Then the whole world is lonely. Then wherever you are is wilderness. Then the space of silence moves with you because you are the creator of it. Then around you, you create your own inner silence, and wherever you move, you are in silence. No one can penetrate that silence. No noise can disturb it.

But unless the crystallization has happened, don't believe that you will not be disturbed. You are disturbed, whether you know it or don't know it. Really, you are so disturbed that you cannot know it. You have become accustomed to disturbance. Every nerve is on edge; you are continuously disturbed. Right now you don't feel the disturbance -- to feel the disturbance sometimes you need to be not disturbed. Only then can you feel it in contrast. You are continuously disturbed but you have become accustomed to it, habituated to it. You think this is how life is. It would be good if you move into the Himalayas for some time. It would be good to go into some remove village, a remote forest, and be alone for a few days' silence -- as if the whole of humanity has disappeared. Then come back to Bombay. Then you will know what disturbance you have been living in. You will be suddenly disturbed. Now you have a contrast. You had an inner music, now it is shattered. For seekers solitariness is good; for SIDDHAS it is irrelevant.

And there are two types of wrong people. With the first type, if you say to them that it is they who are disturbed, the situation is irrelevant, then they will never go into solitariness to have a glimpse of what silence is. Then they will remain here and they will say, "Nothing disturbs us. It is us really, not the surrounding. So we remain here." And they are disturbed but their theory will become a rationalization. Then there are other people, the other type of wrong people, who, if you tell them to move into silence, to solitude, because it will help, they will move -- but then they will never come back. Then it becomes an addiction and they will remain weak forever, they will always feel afraid of coming back to the world. Then their solitariness has not been a help; rather, it has become a hindrance. They are not stronger through it, they have become weaker. Now they cannot move in the world. Both these types are wrong.

Be the third type, which is the right type. In the beginning, know well that you are disturbed by circumstances; so sometimes try, manage, to move out of them. Then when you are out of them, whatsoever silence you attain, bring it back to your circumstances and try to preserve it. If you can preserve it in the circumstances, then only will the theory have become an experience. Then you know that nothing disturbs. Then you know it is you ultimately who are disturbed or not disturbed. But make it an experience -- just as a theory it is useless.

The fourth question

IT IS ONE THING TO REALIZE COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS ON EARTH, AND TRANSCEND BODY. BUT HOW DO REALIZED ONES KNOW FOR SURE THAT THIS CONSCIOUSNESS IS ETERNAL AND WILL REMAIN AFTER THE DEATH OF THE BODY?

The first thing is they don't bother about it. They are not worried about whether it will remain or not. It is you who are worried. They don't think of the next moment. The next life is just irrelevant; even the next day, the next moment, is not a point of concern. It is you who always ask about something in the future, something of the future. Why? Because your present is just empty, your present is just nothing, your present is just rotten, your present is such a suffering that you can tolerate it only if you go on thinking of the future and the paradise and the life ahead. Just here now there is no life so you pitch your mind into the future just to escape from the present, the ugly present. One who is realized is here and now, totally alive. All that can happen has happened. There is no future to it. Whether death is going to kill him or not is not a concern at all. It is the same. Whether he disappears or remains, it makes no difference. This moment is so rich, so absolutely rich, this moment is so intense, that his whole being is here and now.

Anand asked Buddha again and again, "What will happen to you when your body dies?" And Buddha insisted again and again, "Anand, why are you so concerned about the future? Why don't you look at me, at what is happening now?" But again, after a few days, he will ask, "What happens to an enlightened one when his body dies?" He is afraid about himself. He is afraid. He knows that when the body dies there is no possibility of reviving it, there is no possibility of remaining, there is no possibility of being. And he has not attained anything. The light will just go out -- it has been a futile thing. If that happens without his attaining anything, he will simply disappear. So the whole thing was meaningless, the whole suffering was meaningless, leading nowhere. He was concerned; he wanted to know if something survives after the body. But Buddha says, "I am here and now. What will happen in the future is not a concern at all."

So the first thing is that a realized one is not bothered. That is one of the signs of a realized one -- he is not bothered by the future.

And the second thing -- you asked, how does he know for sure? Knowledge is always sure. Certainty is inherent, intrinsic, to knowledge. You have a headache. Can I ask you, "How can you say for sure that you have a headache?" You will say, "I know." I can ask, "But how are you sure that your knowledge is right and not wrong?" But no one asks such nonsensical questions. When the headache is there, it is there -- you know it. Knowledge is intrinsically certain. When one is enlightened, he knows he is enlightened; he knows that he is not this body; he knows that inside he is just a vast space. And space cannot die. Things can die, space cannot die.

Just think about this room. We can destroy this building, this "Woodlands", but we cannot destroy the roominess in this room. Can you destroy it? The walls can be destroyed, but we are sitting here in this roominess, space. The walls can be destroyed, but how can you destroy this room -- not the walls, the space here? The whole of "Woodlands" may disappear -- it will disappear one day -- but this space will remain. Your body will disappear and because you don't know the inner space, you are afraid. You want to know it for sure. But an enlightened man knows that he is the space -- not the body, not the walls, but the inner space. The walls will drop, they have dropped many times, but the inner space will remain. It is something he has to find proofs for, it is his immediate knowledge. He knows it, that's all. Knowledge is intrinsically certain.

If your knowledge is uncertain, then remember it is not knowledge. People come to me and they say, "Our meditation is going very well. We are feeling very happy." And then suddenly they ask me, "What do you say about it? Is our happiness really there? Are we really happy?" They ask me! They are not certain about their happiness. What type of knowledge is this? They are simply pretending. But they cannot deceive themselves. They are thinking, they are hoping, they are wishing -- but they are not happy. Otherwise what is the need to ask me? I will never go to ask anybody whether I am happy or not. Why should I? If I am happy, I am happy. If I am not, I am not. Who else can give proof of it? If I cannot be a witness, who will be a witness for me, and how can the other be a witness? So sometimes I play games. Sometimes I say, "Yes, you are happy. You are absolutely happy." And they become more happy just by hearing me. And sometimes I say, "No, you don't show anything. There is no indication. You are not happy. You must have been dreaming." And they drop, their happiness disappears, they become sad. What type of happiness is this? Just by saying that you are happy it increases; and just by saying that you are not, it disappears! They are just trying to be happy but they are not. This is not knowledge, this is just wish-fulfillment. They hope, and they think they can deceive themselves. By thinking that they are happy, believing that they are happy, finding some proof, finding some certificate from somewhere that they are happy, they think that they will create happiness. It is not so easy. When something happens in the inner world, you know it has happened. You don't need any certificate, you don't need one! The very search for someone to approve is childish. It shows that you long for happiness, but you have not attained it. You don't know it. It has not happened to you.

One who has realized is always certain, and when I say certain, sure, absolutely sure, I don't mean that he feels some uncertainty somewhere, and against that uncertainty he feels certain -- no. He is simply certain. There is no question of uncertainty. I am alive. Am I certain about it, sure about it? There is no question. There is no question of certainty. It is absolutely certain. It does not have to be decided. I am alive.

Socrates was dying and someone asked him, "Socrates, you are dying so easily, so happily. What is the matter? Are you not afraid? Are you not scared?" Socrates said a very beautiful thing. He said, "Only two things are possible after I am dead: either I will be or I will not be. If I am not, then there is no question. No one is there to know it, to know that `I am not'. The whole thing simply disappears. And if I am there, then there is no question -- `I am'. Only two are the possibilities: either I will be, or I will not be, and both are okay. If I am, then the whole thing continues. If I am not, then there is no one to know, so why be worried?"

He is not an enlightened one, but he is a very wise man. Remember, this is the difference between a wise one and an enlightened one. A wise one thinks deeply, penetrates intellectually into everything, and comes to a conclusion. He is a very wise man. He says that there are two alternatives. Logically he penetrates into the phenomenon of death: "only two are the possibilities: either I simply disappear, I am no more; or I will remain." Is there any third alternative? There is no third alternative. So Socrates says, "I have thought about both. If I remain, then there is no question to be worried about. If I am no more, there is no one to worry. So why be worried now? I will see what happens." He is not in the know, he doesn't know what is going to happen, but he has thought about it wisely. He is not a Buddha, he is the keenest intellectual possible. But if you can become wise -- not enlightened, because enlightenment is neither wisdom nor ignorance, the duality has been transcended -- even if you can become wise, you will feel relaxed; even if you can become wise, you can feel very contented.

But wisdom is not the goal of Tantra or yoga. Tantra and yoga aim for the superhuman, the point where wisdom and ignorance are both transcended: where one simply knows and does not think, where one simply looks and is aware.

The last question:

I CERTAINLY WANT TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED. BUT IF I DO, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD?

But why are you worried about the rest of the world? Let the world worry about itself. And you are not worried about what will happen to the rest of the world if you remain ignorant....

If you are ignorant, what happens to the rest of the world? You create misery. Not that you knowingly do it, you are misery -- so whatsoever you do, you sow seeds of misery all around. Your hopes are meaningless; your being is significant. You may think you are helping others -- you hinder them. You may think you love others -- you may be simply killing them and murdering them. You may think you are teaching others, but you may be simply helping them to remain ignorant forever -- because what you hope, what you think, what you wish, is not significant. What you are is significant.

Every day I see people around who are loving to each other -- but they are killing each other. They think they are loving, and they think they are living for the other, and without them the life of their family, their beloveds, their children, their wives, their husbands, will be miserable -- but it is miserable with them. And they try in every way but whatsoever they do, it goes wrong. It is bound to be so, because they are wrong. Doing is not of much importance, the being from where it comes, originates, is. If you are ignorant, you are helping the world to become a hell. It is already. This is what has happened through you. Wherever you touch, you will create hell.

If you become enlightened, whatsoever you do -- or you need not do anything -- just your being, your presence will help others to flower, to be happy, to be blissful.

But that should not be your concern. The first thing is how to be enlightened. You ask me, "I want to be enlightened." But that wanting seems to be very impotent because immediately you say "but". Whenever "but" comes in, it shows the desire is impotent. "But what will happen to the world?" Who are you? What do you think about yourself? Does the world depend on you? Are you running it? Managing it? Are you responsible? Why give so much importance to yourself? Why feel so important?

This feeling is part of the ego and this worrying about others will never allow you to move to a peak of realization, because that peak is achieved only when you drop all worries. And you are so efficient in accumulating worries that you are simply wonderful. Not only your own, you go on accumulating others' worries -- as if yours are not enough. You go on thinking about others, and what can you do? You can only get more and more worried and mad.

I was reading a viceroy's journal. Lord Wavell's journal. The man seems to be very sincere, deeply honest, because some remarks he makes are just superb. One remark he makes in a journal is, "Unless these three old men, Gandhi, Jinnah, and Churchill, die, India will be in trouble." These three men, Gandhi,Jinnah, Churchill -- and these three were helping in every way! Churchill's own viceroy writes in a journal that these three men should die soon. And he hopefully even gives their ages: Gandhi, 75,Jinnah, 65, Churchill, 68. Because these three are the problems. Can you think of Gandhi imagining that he is the problem -- or Jinnah, or Churchill? All are doing their best to solve the problem of this country! And Wavell said that these three are the problem, because all the three are adamant, stubborn; every one of these three has the absolute truth and the other two are absolutely wrong. These three absolutes cannot meet anywhere -- the other two are simply wrong. There is no question about it.

Everyone thinks as if he is the center and he has to worry about the whole world, and change the whole world, transform the whole world, create a utopia. All that you can do is just change yourself. You cannot change the world. You can create more mischief trying to change it; you can create more chaos; you can harm; and you can puzzle. Already the world is too puzzled. You can puzzle it more and confuse it more.

Please leave the world to itself. You can do only one thing, and that is, you can achieve inner silence, inner bliss, inner light. If you achieve this, you have helped the world very much. Just by changing one ignorant spot into an enlightened flame, just by changing one person from darkness into light, you have changed apart of the world. And this changed part will have its own chain reactions. Buddha is not dead. Jesus is not dead. They cannot be dead because there is a chain reaction -- from one lamp, from one flame, another flame takes over. And a successor is created, and they go on living.

But if your light is not there, if your lamp is without a flame, you cannot help anyone. The first basic thing is that you must attain your inner flame. Then others can share. Then you can kindle others' light also. Then it becomes a succession. Then you may disappear from the body but your flame goes on passing from hand to hand. Up to eternity it goes on and on. Buddhas never die, enlightened persons never die, because their light becomes a chain reaction. And unenlightened persons never live, because they cannot create any chain, they don't have any light to share, no flame to kindle someone else's flame.

Please be concerned with yourself only. Be selfish, I say, because that is the only way you will become selfless, that is the only way you can become a help and a blessing to the world. Don't be worried about it; that is not your concern. The greater your worries are, the greater you think your responsibilities are. And the greater your responsibilities, the more you feel yourself as being great. You are not. You are simply mad. Get out of this madness of helping others. Just help yourself. That's all that can be done.

And then many things happen... but they happen as a consequence. Once you become a source of light, things start happening. Many will share it, man will be enlightened through it, many will attain life, more life, abundant life through it. But don't think about it. You cannot do anything about it consciously. Only one thing can be done and that is: you can become conscious. Then everything follows.

Jesus says somewhere, "Enter into the kingdom of God first. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, then all else shall be added unto you." I repeat the same.