despre nimic

Question 1

WHO ARE YOU? WHY HAVE YOU COME INTO THE WORLD? WHAT IS YOUR WORK HERE, AND HOW WILL YOUR WORK BE ACCOMPLISHED?

It makes no difference whether these questions are personal or not because to me the person does not exist. You cannot ask any personal questions because there is no one to be related to as a person. In fact, it is not presumptuous to ask personal questions, but to assume that a person is is certainly presumptuous. The person is non-existent, a non-entity. In fact, there is no person, or there is only one person. Only God can be said to have a personality, because only God can have a center. We have no centers at all.

The center is non-existent, but we assume a center. The center is hypothetical, illusory. We feel that without a center life is not possible. This assumed center is the ego.

You can think that this question is personal. As far as the question is arrowed toward me, it is arrowed toward a non-entity. As far as I am concerned, I do not feel at all to be a person. The deeper one goes the lesser one is. And once some one reaches to the ultimate core of himself, there is no self at all.

Secondly, you ask, who am I? I say, "I am not." I always ask seekers to ask, "Who am I?" not in order that they will come to know who they are, but only in order that a moment will come when the question is asked so intensely that the questioner is not there; only the question remains. A moment is bound to come when the question is absolutely intense, as deep as it can go; then the absurdity of it is revealed. You come to know that there is no one who can ask "Who am I?" or who can be asked "Who are you?" The question is asked not to get any answer, but to transcend the question.

There is no one inside; in fact, there is no inside at all and the moment the inside falls, there is also no outside. The moment you are not, inwardly, then there is no outwardness. Then the whole world becomes one whole. Then existence is one whole, not divided into the dichotomy of I and thou.

So to me, the question "Who are you?" makes no sense at all. Rather, "What is?" is the only relevant question -- not who? but what? because the what can be the whole. It can be asked about the totality, about all that exists.

The question "What is?" is existential, and there is no dichotomy in it; it does not divide. But the question "Who?" divides from the very start. It accepts the duality, the multiplicity, the duality of beings.

There is only being, not beings.

When I say there is only being it means there is only beingness, because one cannot exist apart from the other. If there is no other, then to say that one exists is meaningless.

So there is not really being, but beingness. I always say that there is no God, but divineness, because the very word 'being' carries a limitation around it. The very word 'God' carries a finitude; it cannot be infinite. But beingness or divineness becomes infinite; it comprehends all that is. It is all inclusive, nothing is excluded. So when you ask, "Who are you?" the question to me means "What is?" To me it cannot mean anything else except that.

You have asked through me a very fundamental question. What is, is not me but the very being, the very existence. If one goes deep into a single drop, one will find the ocean. Only on the surface a drop is just a drop. Being the existence itself, the ultimate nature of the single drop of water is the same as that of the ocean. It is oceanic. So only in ignorance is one a drop of water. The moment one knows, there is an ocean.

You have asked me a question about the ocean. So when I answer it, I am not answering about myself but about you also. When I am answering I am not answering about me, but about all that exists.

What exists? There are so many layers. If one is only aware of the surface, then matter exists. Matter is the surface of existence. Science has been only on the surface, in search; to science only matter is real, and all else is not. But now science has taken a step further and says matter is not, but energy is. Energy is the second layer; it is deeper than matter. If one goes deep in matter, then there is no matter but energy. But that too is not yet enough, because beyond energy consciousness exists.

So when you ask, "Who are you?" I say, "I am consciousness." And this answer is all inclusive -- everything is consciousness. I answer only as a representative of all. You may not have heard that you are consciousness, you may not have known that you are consciousness, but I am answering even for you. Consciousness exists, and when I say something exists, it carries for me a particular, definite meaning. When I say something exists, it means it will never be in nonexistence. If something can go into nonexistence, it would mean that it never really existed. It was only phenomenal, it just appeared to exist.

So all that changes is phenomenal; it is not really existential. All that changes is only the surface. The innermost, the ultimate core, never changes. It is and is always in the present. You can never say it was, you can never say it will be. Whenever it is, it is. Only the present is applicable to it.

There is no past and no future, because the past and future become relevant only when something changes. When something is, then there is no past and future, but only the present. Of course, the meaning of present will be different, quite different. For us, present means something which exists between the past and the future. But if there is no past and no future, then the present will be something very different. It is not something in between the past and future. The present is just a moment -- a moment between two nonexistentials: the past that has gone and is no more and the future that has not yet come. Between these two nonexistentials, one present moment exists. That is impossible. Between two nonexistentials there can be no existence. It only appears so.

When I say consciousness exists, I do not mean something of the past and future, but something eternal -- not everlasting, because the word 'everlasting' carries the sense of time. When I say it always exists in the present, I mean it is nontemporal; existence means it is nontemporal. It is beyond time and, simultaneously, beyond space, because all that is in space will become nonexistential. Similarly, all that is in time will become nonexistential. And time and space are not two things. That is why I relate them. They are one. Time is only a dimension of space. The movement in space is time; nonmoving time is space. Existence is nontemporal and nonspatial.

So I think you will understand when I say I am someone who is nontemporal and nonspatial. But my I is all-inclusive. You are included, the questioner is included. Nothing is excluded. Then it will be easier to answer your inquiry. All that changes is purposive; there is something to be done, it exists for a purpose. The moment the purpose is fulfilled, it goes into nonexistence.

But all that is really existential is nonpurposive, because there is no purpose which can be fulfilled. And if there is any purpose and it is fulfilled, then existence will become meaningless. So only temporal things have purposes. They are meant for something. You can say it in this way: they are means to some end. That is what is meant by purposive. They exist for something to be fulfilled. The moment it is fulfilled, they go. But I will be needed always, and when I say "I," that is all inclusive. There is no purpose in it.

Existence is nonpurposive. That is why it is called a leela, a play. The existence itself has no purpose to fulfill. It is not going somewhere. There is no end to it. But still it is going, still much is going. So it must be a leela, a play -- only outflowing energy. This can be related to me. I am not to be anything at all. Even then, I talk of doing things.

Once you have known that you are a part of the cosmic consciousness, you will realize there is no purpose. You just exist as a play; of course the play becomes cosmic, multidimensional. You do much, and still there is no doer and there is no purpose; those things are not there. It then becomes a play.

And this must be noted: that a doer cannot exist without a purpose, and a purpose cannot exist without a doer. They are two polarities of one ego, and ego feels very uncomfortable if there is no purpose. Ego is fulfilled through purposes. Something is to be done, one is to succeed in doing that, one is to reach somewhere, one is to make something. One has to make a signature. Thus the ego is purposive. Existence, on the other hand, is not purposive. And unless you know that which is beyond the ego, you have not known at all.

So to me, everything is just a play. Neither I am nor is there any purpose. Yet things are going. So it can be asked, "Why are they going?" They are going because there is no purpose in stopping, and there is no one to stop them. You understand me? There is no one to stop, and there is no purpose to stop. So it is there in nature to go. You become a passage. Actively you cannot be a passage, you can never be a medium. Only passivity makes you a medium, and passivity means that you are not. Otherwise, you are verbally passive. The ego is always active. The moment you are passive, the ego is not. Passivity means egolessness.

So I am totally passive. Whatever happens, happens. I never question "Why?" because there is no one to be asked. And even if you find someone, God himself, he will just laugh. Even he cannot answer it. He cannot answer it because the concept of causality, the concept of why, is meaningful only in a divided flux. If you take a beginning and an end, then causality becomes meaningful. If you understand the whole flux as endless, beginningless, then all things go into other things and all things come from other things. Just like waves in the ocean, every wave has some wave behind and every wave has something in front, something ahead, another wave. And the whole ocean has waves. The waves are eternal.

No one asks, "Why?" except human beings. So no one else is in any anxiety at all.

When the human mind becomes anxious, it creates questions and then supplies the answers. The questions are meaningless, hence the answers are more so. But because we fabricate questions, we cannot be at ease unless we find the answers. Therefore, we go on finding answers and creating questions. If you see this whole nonsense of asking questions and answering them, you may find that you are carrying on a monologue with yourself. Even if you are asking and I am answering, it is the human mind asking and the human mind answering. It is just a hide-and-seek of the same mind. It makes no difference who is asking and who is answering.

The human mind questions, and the human mind answers, and we have created such a great mess of answers and questions, but not a single question has been answered. The questions remain where they were always. If you can see this whole procession of questions and answers, this meaningless, fruitless effort leading nowhere -- if you become aware of this whole nonsense as if in a flash of lightning -- then you can laugh at the absurdity of the human mind. And the moment there is laughter, you transcend the human mind completely. Then there is no question, and then there is no answer. Then you love. There is no purpose, and there is no cause. Then living itself is enough.

You ask and I answer you, but I myself cannot ask any questions. As far as I am concerned there is no answer, and there is no question. I go on living just like the waves in the ocean or just like leaves of the tree or just like clouds in the sky, without any question and without any answer. And the moment I became aware of this whole absurdity of questions, something fell down completely, totally. It was a resurrection. I was reborn, reborn in a cosmic dimension -- not as an I, but as cosmic consciousness itself.

In this cosmic dimension, everything is a play. Once you understand -- not only understand but realize that all is a play -- you are at ease completely, absolutely. Then there is no tension. You are relaxed. There is no ego.

The ego cannot relax. It lives on tensions, it feeds on tensions. When there is no ego, then there is no tension. Then there you are -- all inclusive. Then there is no past, and then there is no future. You are eternity. Then anything that happens is a happening, it is not that you are doing it. It is not that something is to be fulfilled through you. These are all illusory notions. And even a religious person will think in these terms -- of doing something. Then the ego has become settled, pious, and more dangerous. If the ego is there, then both the doer and the doings are there. Only the objects have changed, but the process is the same.

To me... and when I refer to "me," there is no one who is being referred to; it is only a linguistic device in order that you may understand what I say. To me, there is no one who can be referred to as me or you. But then language will be impossible. That is why truth cannot be expressed in language. It cannot take on any linguistic form, because language is created by those who are not -- by untrue ones, nonexistential ones. The mythical ego has created the language. It comes out of ego, it can never transcend it. So even if you know that there is no one who can be referred to as "me" you have to use it in language. And I remind you that there is no one.

As far as this "me" is concerned, nothing is to be done because things happen by themselves. We ourselves happen. We are happenings. The whole existence is a happening, not a doing. So it would be better if I say that the old concept of God as creator is not meaningful to me -- I will not say "God the creator," because the expression reflects our egoistic conceptions of creation, of doing. As we "do" something, so has God "made" the world. We have projected ourselves onto the cosmic plane, so there is creation and the creator. The dichotomy is there.

To me, God is that which happens -- not the creator, but that which goes on happening. God means that which goes on eternally. So anything that happens is God. You and everyone are happenings. This eternal happening is God. There is no creator and no creation. The very dichotomy is egoistic -- our projections onto the cosmic plane.

Once you know that in yourself there is no dichotomy of doing and the doer, then you know that there is no doer and no doing -- only happenings. And once there is this revelation of eternal happening, there is no burden, there is no tension. Your birth is a happening, and your death will be a happening. Your being here is a happening, your not being here will be a happening. You are nowhere.

From where does this ego come which thinks "I am"..."I am doing"? It comes through memory. Your memory goes on recording happenings. You are born, you are a child, then youth comes, then you are old. Things happen -- love happens, hatred happens, and the memory goes on recording. When you look at the past, the whole accumulated memory becomes "I". "I" loved someone. It would be better and more exact to say that somewhere love happened, I was not the doer. But the memory that "I loved" has happened just like birth, just like death.

If a person can remember this only for twenty-four hours, that things are happening and there is no doer, he will not be the same again. But it is very arduous to remember even for a single moment.

It is the most arduous thing to remember that events are happening and you are not the doer. For example, I am speaking. If I say, "I am speaking" and mean that "I" am speaking, then I have misinterpreted the phenomenon. I do not know what the next sentence will be. When it comes you will know it and I will know it. It is a happening, so I cannot relate myself to it. Something comes through me. I am not at all a doer. Something happens in me.

This is what is meant when we say the Vedas are impersonal. We say they are not created by persons. We mean by this that those who compiled the Vedas know this fact -- the fact that something is a happening. They are not doers, something is coming to them. They are only the passage, the medium, the vehicle, and even this being a vehicle is a happening. It is not their doing that they have become vehicles. Otherwise, the same fallacy will be there on another level.

So go deep in any of your acts, and you will find happenings there. There will be no act, because there is no actor. So how can one ask why? Who can answer this? The house is vacant, the owner is not. Let things go on happening. The house itself without the owner is capable of happenings.

Try to understand it more clearly. Buddha said so many times, "When we walk there is no walker, only the walk." How can this be understood? If I am not, how can I walk? Walk, and find where you are -- you will find only the walk. We cannot understand how some one can say there is speaking and no speaker. But as you go deep in the act of speaking, you will find no speaker but just speaking. In fact, there have been no poets, only poetry has happened. There have been no painters, only painting has been happening, but the vehicle becomes the owner.

The memory creates the fallacy. But to me the fallacy is not. The memory cannot trap me, it has lost its grip on me. So everything happens, but there is no doer. And all that will happen, will happen. I will not be the primer; I will not be the master.

Once you know that you are not, you become a master in a very different sense. And if you are not, then you cannot be made a slave, negatively. Now your freedom is total. Now no one can make you a slave. Now neither can there be any slavery nor any possibility of it. Although a paradoxical situation, it is a fact -- one who tries to be a master is always in danger of becoming a slave. One who loses himself, his mastery, his efforts, his doer, is now beyond any slavery. He is free, as free as the sky. He is freedom itself -- not even free, because when one is free the agent is there. He is freedom. So if you like, I will say, I am freedom. And there is no reason, because if there is any reason then you are not free. You are bound to it, tethered to the reason. If there is anything which you are to do, then you are tethered. Then you are not free.

I am absolute freedom in the sense that nothing is to be done. I am an awaiting. Things will happen, and I will accept them. And if they do not happen, then I will accept the non-happening. And I go on waiting. This waiting makes one a medium for the divine forces of existence. Much is done through you when the doer is not, and nothing is done through you when the doer is there. When the doer is there, you are. You are doing something which is impossible. Because the doer is impossible, the doing cannot be possible.

You are engaged in an absurd effort, and only frustration will be the result. When you are not, you always succeed. There can be no failure, because you have never thought of being anything; and even if failure happens, it is a happening. If success happens, it is a happening. And when both are happening, you become indifferent. It makes no difference; either one will do.

So I may conclude that when I say "I," everyone is included. I am consciousness, and I am freedom. I use two words, 'consciousness' and 'freedom', only to make the mystery more understandable for you. Otherwise both have the same meaning. Consciousness is freedom, freedom is consciousness. The less the freedom, the more there is matter. The more there is freedom, the more there is consciousness.

When we say this table is "material," we mean to say that it is not free to move. When we say you are a conscious being, you are free to some extent. But if you become consciousness itself, as you go deep and know the source....

I know that you are consciousness itself, not the conscious being. Consciousness is not a quality attached to you, you are consciousness. You are totally free.

So proceed from anywhere. Either be more free or be more conscious, and the other will result automatically. Be more free, and you will be more conscious. You cannot be more free unless you are more conscious. Be more conscious and you will be more free; you cannot be otherwise, because consciousness creates freedom. And when you are absolutely conscious, you are absolutely free. Then there is no cause and no purpose for you to exist. Then everything is a happening, and a happening is a leela.

Question 2

ARE YOU SELF-REALIZED? AND HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH EXISTENCE AND WITH PEOPLE?

The word you say, 'self-realized', is not right, because realization always means a transcendence of the self. The word 'self-realization' is therefore contradictory. If you realize, you know there is no self. If you do not realize, then there is the self. Whereas selfhood is non-realization, realization is non-selfhood. So I cannot say I am self-realized. I can only say there is no self now!

There was a self -- that was only up to the door. The moment you enter the temple of realization, you find it no more. It is a shadow which follows you up to the door, and not only follows you but clings to you -- but only up to the door, it cannot enter the temple. If you have to save it you will have to remain outside. The self is the last thing one has to throw. One can throw everything, but to throw the self is so impossible, because the effort for self-realization, the endeavor for self-realization, is an effort of the self for the self. The moment you realize, you will not be; you will not try.

So all the great teachers have used words which are fallacious, 'Self-realization' is a fallacious word. But you do not understand if they say 'no-self realization'. It will become absurd. But that is the real thing -- no-self realization. Only Buddha used anatta, no-self. Only Buddha used it. That is why Buddha was uprooted from India. He was just thrown out, and Buddhism could not get roots unless Buddhism began to use the word 'self-realization'. In China and Japan Buddhism again came back, and they began again to use 'self-realization'. Buddha used 'no-self realization'. I am also using no-self realization. That is the only realization.

The moment there is no self you have become cosmic. It is a great game! To know the self is the only, no doubt the greatest, the ultimate, game. The self is not something which is to be protected; it is something to be destroyed. It is something which is the barrier to your ultimate potentiality, to your ultimate realization.

So I cannot say I am self-realized. I will say, I am no-self realized, and that is the only realization that is possible. No other realization exists. The emphasis of all who claim self-realization is on the self and not on realization. My emphasis is on realization. That is why I emphatically deny the self.

How am I related to the cosmos and to other people? Relationship exists between two selves. I am one who is not related, one who is not in relationship. Relationship is always between two. This may look paradoxical, but in every relationship you remain unrelated. Howsoever you are related, you will remain unrelated, because relationship exists between two. The two will be there. So relationship is only a facade to hide the duality. For moments you delude yourself that you are related, but again you are. You have fallen back to yourself, and there is no relationship.

For example, when we are in so-called love, we appear to be related. We create the fallacy of relationship, but in fact, we are just deceiving ourselves. The two will remain two. However near, the two will always remain two. Even in a sex communion, they will be two. The twoness only creates a fallacy of oneness. Oneness can never exist between two selves. Oneness can only exist between two non-selves.

So as far as I am concerned, I am not related to the cosmic reality, not related at all. And by that I do not mean that I am isolated. By that I mean there is no one who can exist in relationship. As far as the cosmic reality is concerned, I am one, and the cosmic reality is one with me.

From my side, I am one, but as far as others are concerned, I am not one from their side. They are related. Someone is related as a friend, someone is related as an enemy, someone is related as a brother, and someone is related as a disciple. They may be related to me, but I am not related to them. And the whole happening in me is to make them unrelated. But there cannot be any effort on their part, That only can be a realization of no-self.

If they know that there is no one who can be a disciple and no one who can be a guru, if they know that there is no one who can be related to anyone, only then the self falls and your emptiness is naked. And there are no clothes which give you a boundary, a self. In your total nakedness, when you know that there is no self, you are but a space, an inner sky, emptiness -- then you become one. Or I may say then you really become related. When oneness happens, then one's self is not.

You have asked me how I am related to the cosmos and to the people. To me they are not two things -- the cosmos and the people. The cosmic happens in so many ways, and one of the ways is the people. The cosmic happens in so many ways -- the sun, the stars, the earth, the trees, the animals, the people. Only frequencies differ, the divinity is the same. So to me, the cosmos and the people are not two things.

Whatever I have said before is not from thinking. It is a fact. But if I think -- and I have to think if I am to understand your side -- then you are related to me because you are and as long as you are, you will be related. That creates a very difficult situation. Daily, moment to moment, it creates a difficult situation.

You feel yourself related to me. You feel that you belong to me. Then you begin to expect that I should belong to you. Because you feel that you are related to me, you begin to expect that I should be related to you. Because of that expectation, I know that you are bound to be frustrated. With a person who is a self, it is bound to be frustrating, but it may take a longer time. But if you are with a person who is a no-self, it will not take even a short time gap. Every moment will be frustrating because there will be no fulfillment of your expectations. There is no one to fulfil them.

So I am very irresponsible, because there is no one who can be responsible. There are responses but no one who is responsible, so each response, therefore, is atomic. It cannot be a sequence, so you cannot expect anything from the moment that will follow. I even do not know. The response is going to be atomic, each complete in itself, not in any way related with the past or with the future.

The ego is a series of events, happenings, and memories. It is so because you exist in a series -- and you try to take me as a series, but that becomes difficult. So everyone will feel, sometime or other, angry with me, because my response is atomic and not a serial one. The serial response becomes responsibility. Then you can rely.

I am very unreliable. You can never rely on me -- I myself cannot rely on me. I do not know what is going to happen. I am completely open and accepting to anything that happens. And I never think in terms of relationship, I cannot think; rather, I live in terms of oneness.

Whenever you are near me, it does not mean that I am related to you. It is that I become one with you. And this oneness you interpret as love. But this oneness is neither love nor hate, because all that is known as love can change into hatred any moment. But this oneness can never change into hate. You may be near, you may be far; you may be a friend, you may be an enemy; it makes no difference. As far as I am concerned, you may come to me or go from me, it makes no difference.

Relationship is conditional; oneness is non-conditional. Relationship is always with conditions. Something changes in the condition, and the relationship will change. Everything is always on a volcano. Every relationship is always in a wavering state, always in a dying process, always changing. So every relationship creates fear, because always there is the danger of its being broken. And the more there is fear, the more you cling, and the more you cling, the more fear you create.

But oneness is quite diametrically opposite. Oneness is unconditional. It exists because no condition, no expectation, no fulfillment, no future result, is hoped for. It is neither conditioned by the past nor oriented to the future. It is a momentary, atomic existence, unrelated with the past, unrelated with the future.

So I feel oneness with the cosmos and with the people also, and from the cosmos, the feeling is the same. As I feel one with it, from the cosmos the feeling is of the oneness. Once I was not feeling this, but I now know that the cosmos has always been in the same feeling towards me.

Oneness is always flowing, it has always been flowing; there has been an eternal waiting for the cosmos. Now I feel it towards the cosmos; I feel it also towards the people. The moment some one feels this oneness towards me, he becomes a part of the cosmic. He is then not a person, he becomes cosmic. And once you feel oneness, even with one person, you have known the taste. You have known the taste of ecstasy. Then you can jump into the all.

So this is what is happening around me. I do not say I am doing -- this is happening around me.

I will call you near just to give you a taste of oneness, and if you can realize this even for a single moment, then you will never be the same again. This is a very patient effort -- very unknown, unpredictable. No one can say when the moment is near. Sometimes your mind is so tuned that you can feel the oneness. That is why I insist on meditation, because it is nothing but tuning the mind to such a peak that you can jump into the oneness.

Meditation to me means tuning of the mind toward oneness, opening of the mind toward oneness. This can only happen when your meditation has gone beyond you; otherwise it can never happen. If it is below you -- you are doing it, you are the controller -- then it cannot happen, because you are the disease. So I persuade you toward meditation in which, beyond certain limits, you will not be. Meditation will take you over. By and by you will be pushed. Of course you will begin the meditation, because there can be no other way. You will have to begin, but you will not end the meditation. You will begin, but you will not end it. In between, somewhere the happening will happen. The meditation will catch hold of you. You will be thrown, and meditation will come in. Then you will be tuned to the cosmos. Then you will be one.

Oneness is important, not relationship. Relationship is sansar, the world, and because of relationship we have to be born again and again. Once you have known oneness, then there is no birth, then there is no death. Then there is no one except you. All are included. You have become the cosmic. The individual must go before the oneness comes. The ego must go before the divine comes.

Ego is the source of all relationship. The world is the relationship. God is not a relationship, the divine is not a relationship. The divine is not selfness. This means you cannot become one with it. So a bhakta, a devotee, can never reach the cosmic, because he thinks in terms of relationship -- God the father, God the lover, God the beloved. He thinks in terms of relationship. He goes on thinking in terms of self and the other. He can never transcend the ego. This is something very subtle, because the devotee is always struggling to surrender. Devotion, the path of devotion, is the path of surrender. He is trying to surrender, but to someone.

If you try to surrender to someone, the other is there. And the other cannot exist if you are not; so you will go on existing in the shadows. You will forget yourself, but forgetting yourself is not surrender. You remember the divine so much that you cannot remember yourself now, but you are in the back, you exist in the shadows. Otherwise God cannot exist as the other.

So the path of devotion, as it exists, cannot lead you to the transcendental, to the cosmic, to the one. To me, it is not a question of surrendering to someone, it is just a question of surrendering the self -- not at someone's feet, just surrendering yourself. If there is no self, then you have become one.

The self can go on creating the seeds, it can go on creating the deception. And the greatest and most certain deception is that of the devotee and God -- a religious deception. Any deception which becomes religious can be dangerous, because you cannot even deny it. Even to deny it will create guilt. You will feel guilty to deny selfhood to the divine, but to the divine the selfhood is the projection of your self. The moment you are not a self, there is no self as far as God is concerned. The whole existence has become selfless. And when the whole existence has become selfless, then you are one with it.

Selflessness is the path.

Selflessness is the real devotion.

Selflessness is the authentic surrender.

So the problem is always of the self. Even if we think of liberation, moksha, we think of freedom of the self, not freedom from the self. We think that then we will be free. But then you cannot be free -- moksha is not the freedom of the self, it is freedom from the self. So I exist in a selflessness, in a flux, in a process of selflessness. Neither am I a self nor is anyone else a self.

For example, waves are in the ocean, but each wave misconceives itself as separate from the ocean. It appears to be separate. It can deceive itself -- there are so many waves around, and each wave appears different. My wave is higher and yours will be lower, or my wave will be lower and yours higher. How can it be the same? And waves cannot look deep down in the sea. Only the surface is known. Your wave is dying, and my wave is young and rising. Your wave has reached the shore, and I am far off. How can I think that we are both the same? But yet, whether we think so or not, we are the same.

So the wave that is known as "me" is not an ego; it is not a self. This wave has known that the ocean is the wave. The wave is just a surface phenomenon. A surface is an appearance, a surface is a movement. This wave that I call "I" has not known that wavelessness, the waveless ocean, is the real. Even your wave is not different.

I have known that which joins all. You may call it self-realization, I will not. I will call it no-self realization, because this is the essence of all realizations. This is no-selfness. I think you understand what I mean.

Whatsoever I said may not be what I mean, and what I mean may not be what I said. So do not confuse my sayings with my meanings, but always look into the deep. Always listen to that which has not been said, but indicated. There are things which cannot be said, but shown, indicated. All that is deep, and all that is ultimate, can only be shown and never said. And I am saying things which cannot be said. So do not think of my words. Always throw the words as meaningless; then go deep down to the wordless meaning, to the silent meaning. It is always there behind the word.

The words are always dead, the meaning is always living. One can be open to the words, but one can never be open through the intellectual understanding. You can be open with your total being, not with only your intellect. It is not that the intellect sometimes misunderstands -- the intellect always misunderstands. It is not that the intellect sometimes errs -- the intellect is the error. It always errs.

So whatsoever is being said, be sympathetic with it. Do not try to understand it, let it go deep in you. Be vulnerable, open to it. Let it go deep into the heart. Do not create intellectual barriers to it. Then with your full being in participation, you will know. You may not understand, but you will know. And understanding is not enough, knowing is needed. Sometimes you understand or think that you have understood, thus you create a barrier to the knowing. The intellect understands; the being knows. The intellect is just a part, it is your being that is the real.

When you know, you know with your blood, you know with your bones, you know with your heartbeats. But if you understand, you understand only with the mechanism of the mind, which is not so deep. It is only a device, a utilitarian device which is needed to survive, which is needed to be related, but which becomes a barrier toward oneness and toward spiritual death and resurrection. It is only a natural device to survive. It is not meant to reveal the ultimate truth. It is not meant to know the hidden mysteries -- and the mysteries are hidden.

So whatsoever I am saying, do not think about it. Go home and sleep over it. Just let it go in, let it penetrate. Do not guard yourself; be open. Each guarding is against knowing. And only when it has reached your innermost being will it be known and really understood. That is what is meant by shraddha, faith. It does not mean belief. Belief is intellectual. One can believe intellectually, one can disbelieve intellectually -- both are intellectual. Faith is not intellectual at all. It is the total mystic participation. It is being one with the hidden mysteries. It is a jump.

So whatsoever I am saying, I am not interested in any theory at all, I am not interested in any philosophies at all. I am interested in the existential jump. When I say something, it is only to lead you to that which cannot be said. And when I use words I use them only to lead you toward silence. When I assert something, it is only to indicate the unassertable. My expression is not really to express something, but to indicate the inexpressible.

So be sympathetic, because only sympathy can be the opening. Let whatever I said drop into you; it will have a flowering. If the seed goes into the depths, it will have its flowering. When the flower comes, you will know that which has been said, but could not be said. You will know that which has been said, but yet remains unsaid.