There Is No Meaning

 The first question:

 

 Question 1

 YOU HAVE SAID THAT EVERY GESTURE FROM A MASTER IS SIGNIFICANT, AND OFTEN THE ANSWER IS GIVEN IN WHAT IS NOT SAID RATHER THAN WHAT IS SAID. BUT OFTEN WHEN YOU LOOK OR GLANCE AT ME, AND I FEEL THERE IS A MESSAGE, I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO IDENTIFY THE MESSAGE WITHOUT USING MY MIND. AND EVEN WHEN I DO USE MY MIND I AM NOT SURE.

 

 THE MIND CANNOT BE USED. Once you use the mind you have missed the point. Silence has to be understood in silence; a no-word message is to be understood wordlessly. If you try to understand through words and through mind you will miss it, you will misunderstand it. Then your own mind has come in. Then you will interpret it. Then it will not be pure, it will not be the same.

 And if you ask, "Then what to do?" you ask a wrong question. The question of how arises from the mind. There is no question of how. You be silent. Don't do anything, don't try to interpret it, don't try in any way to interfere with it -- let it spread over your being. You may not be able to identify it right now because it is vaster than the mind and all identifications are from the mind. You may not be able to know exactly what it is, but there is no need. You may not be able to decipher, decode the meaning of it, but there is no need. Let the wordless message reach to your wordless center. It is a deep contact, and the contact is the meaning. It is a deep penetration, and the penetration is the meaning.

 You pass by a rosebush and you look at a roseflower. What is the meaning? If-you start thinking about the roseflower, the mind enters and the roseflower is lost. Then the mind creates a wall of words, thoughts, concepts and you cannot even see the roseflower there.

 Don't try to find the meaning. Meaning and a constant obsession with meaning is a disease of the mind. What is the meaning of a roseflower? There is no meaning. It flowers without any meaning. It needs no meaning to justify itself; it is justified in its being. You just let it be, and you be with it. Let the rose penetrate you, let the rose spread its fragrance around you and within you, and suddenly something stirs within your being -- something has arisen. The rose has done something in you. Even then, you may not be able to know what the rose has done but you will feel happier, blissful; you will feel there has been a contact with the unknown. You will feel that you have been given an opportunity to look into the unknown. You will feel that the rose has become a window and a vast sky has opened -- there has been a crack in the wall of your mind, and a ray of light penetrated. Don't bother about the meaning.

 When I am looking at you, you simply look at me! When I am giving you my being, you give your being to me. Be available, let it be a contact. It is not a communication, it is a communion. I am not communicating a certain message which can be deciphered, decoded -- no. I am giving myself to you in that gesture. It is bigger than any meaning that can be given to it -- and you are also bigger. If the contact happens, you will feel that boundaries have dissolved. For a moment you were not there. For a moment you were possessed by me -- and not only by me but, through me, by the whole. So whenever I look at you, whenever I want to penetrate into your eyes, whenever I knock at your door, at your heart, open the doors.

 Don't try to find the meaning. In finding the meaning you will miss the meaning -- because the contact is the meaning, a deep inner embrace is the meaning.

 

 The second question:

 Question 2

 MY MIND IS IN SUCH A STATE OF CONFUSION THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REMAIN IN THE MIDDLE. WOULDN'T IT BE BETTER TO FOLLOW THE MIND IN ALL ITS EXTREMES SO THAT I CAN EXPERIENCE THE WHOLE ABSURDITY OF IT?

 

 The first part of the question:

 MY MIND IS IN SUCH A STATE OF CONFUSION THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REMAIN IN THE MIDDLE.

 I AM NOT SAYING that you should remain in the middle. If you try to remain in the middle you will never be in the middle. The middle is a balance; you cannot try to be there. You will have to lean to the left, you will have to lean to the right. Don't cling to any position. Be free. And between leaning to the left and leaning to the right, somewhere a subtle point arises in you. It is not outside of you. If you go to look outside there is left and right; there is no middle.

 It is just like time. Space and time are together. Try to understand. If you look at the clock there is past and there is future, there is no present. Your clock never says what the present is -- it cannot say, because the moment it has said it, it is already the past. So the hands of the clock move from the past to the future; there is no present in your clock -- cannot be. Present is not part of time. You have learned in your schools and your universities that the present is part of time -- that is absurd. Present is not part of time. You have heard it repeated so many times that time is divided into three tenses -- past, present and future -- that it has become a conditioning in your mind. No. Time has only two divisions: past and future.

 Then where is the present? The present is in you. If you look out, you will find past and future; if you look in, you will find the present and always the present. There is no past and no future -- there cannot be.

 Inwards you move, and you move into the eternity of the present; outwards you move, either you move into the past or you move into the future.

 And the same is true about space -- in space there is either left or right. If you lean towards the left it is outside, if you lean towards the right it is also outside. But if you gain a balance between the two, suddenly you are in. The middle point is within you, it is not a part of space outside. In fact, the present and the middle are together. Whenever you are in the present you are in the middle, whenever you are in the middle you are in the present. The middle is not a position outside you. It is an inner phenomenon just like the present.

 So when I say or Lao Tzu says, "Be balanced," we are not saying make balance a static phenomenon in your life. It cannot be static, you will have to continuously maintain it, moving to the left and the right. In that movement sometimes you will pass the innermost point of your being and suddenly you will be in the middle. And suddenly you will find an implosion -- not an explosion. Implosion. Something inside implodes; suddenly you are no more the same. Whenever you pass the position of the middle inside, you are no more the same -- you become intensely alive, you become intensely innocent, you become intensely pure and holy. In that moment there exists no darkness for you, no sin, no guilt. You are divine, you are a God whenever you can find that balance. But you cannot find it once and for all -- no. Life is always a constant balancing, a continuity, a continuum. You cannot make it a commodity that you purchased once and now it is always there in your house. No. If you are not aware you will miss it again and again.

 This is the first part of your question: the middle is not a fixed point outside. You can reach it from either point, or try to gain a balance moment to moment between the opposites -- hate in love, anger in compassion.

 Go on balancing between the opposites. By and by you will come to feel the knack of it. Somewhere between hate and love it happens. I say "somewhere" -- the point cannot be figured out; it is such an alive phenomenon that you cannot pinpoint it. It is just like butterflies flying in the garden -- if you catch a butterfly and pin it down it is dead. You can pin it down but it is no more a butterfly, the life has left it.

 Just like a butterfly is the inner balance, you cannot pin it down. That's why it is indefinable, elusive. Says Lao Tzu: The Tao that can be said is no more Tao. The truth that can be uttered has already become untrue. Indian scriptures say "That" cannot be known by scriptures. nayam atma pravachanen labhya. You cannot understand "That" by any verbal communication. "That" is elusive because it is so alive. By the time you reach it the butterfly has gone. Just go and see. Move in the garden. You come nearer and nearer and the butterfly is getting ready to take off. When you are nearly at the point of catching it it has left the flower, it is already on another tree. You cannot pin it down. If you can, it is dead.

 I was reading just yesterday one of the very perceptive poets of the West, Wallace Stevens. In one of his maxims he says Aristotle is a skeleton. I liked it. Logic is a skeleton. Logic is always of the dead, of death. It does not belong to life. Anything fixed is always dead -- that's why I say marriage is a butterfly pinned down; love is an alive phenomenon.

 You can define marriage, you cannot define love. Even a court can decide what marriage is or is not, but nobody can decide what love is. Marriage is legal; love transcends all legality -- something of the unknown penetrates into love, into the phenomenon of love.

 Inner balance cannot be pinned down, you will have to find the knack of it. And you can find it -- because if I can find it, why not you? If Lao Tzu can find it, why not you? If one man finds the inner balance, the inner tranquility, the inner still small voice, the inner knack that passeth all understanding, then every human being becomes capable of it. In Lao Tzu is your future, your possibility. You can also do it.

 You say:

 

 MY MIND IS IN SUCH A STATE OF CONFUSION THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REMAIN IN THE MIDDLE.

 

 Don't try to remain in the middle, forget about the middle. You just try to be balanced. Move into the opposites but always remain alert so that someday you can find the balance between the two. And you are doing it -- only awareness is needed. Just a moment before you were happy, then in another moment you are unhappy. You have moved to the opposite. You must have passed through the middle. How can you move to the opposite without passing through the middle? Maybe you passed it for only a fragment of a second, but that is not the point; you passed it. If you had been a little alert you would have known where the middle was. Just now you are so silent, then a single minute passes and your whole mind starts chattering. You must have passed the middle somewhere.

 When a man dies he is alive just a moment before, then he is dead. If he is alert he will find the middle which is beyond death and life, which is deathless. But he is not alert. You have died many times; millions of times, in fact, you have passed the middle but you are not alert. And every day you pass the middle many times, thousands of times: compassion and anger, a man feeling so good and suddenly so bad, a man feeling so saintly in the morning.... Look at people praying near the Ganges or in the temple -- look at their faces, so beautiful. The ugliest faces become beautiful when there is prayer. And then look at them in the market -- even the most beautiful face looks ugly. They must have passed it somewhere -- from the temple to the market there must have been a middle point -- but they were not aware.

 So what is to be done? Don't try to be in the middle. I'm not saying try a little anger and a little compassion together -- no. I'm not saying try to be in the middle -- you will go mad. I am saying move from one opposite to another, but move so alertly that you can find the middle point inside you. The moment you find the middle point, for the first time you become the master of your life. Up to now you have been just a slave. For the first time you become awake -- up to now you have been fast asleep.

 And the second part of the question:

 

 WOULD NOT IT BE BETTER TO FOLLOW THE MIND IN ALL ITS EXTREMES SO THAT I CAN EXPERIENCE THE WHOLE ABSURDITY OF IT?

 

 Nobody has ever been able to experience the whole absurdity of the mind. It is infinite. You will not be able to experience the whole of it; it is very creative, it goes on creating new absurdities. You have been here in this existence so long and yet you have not been able to experience the whole absurdity of it. You are not for the first time on this planet earth, you have been here before. I can see your ancient faces, hidden behind your fresh skin. You are ancient ones.

 There was a teacher in Buddha's time in India; his name was Prakuddha Katyayana. He was a rare teacher. He always addressed his disciples as ancient ones. Even if a child came to see Prakuddha Katyayana he would say, "How are you, ancient one?" Because everyone is so old, older than the earth. The earth is not very old, just... in fact, very young, adolescent. But you are older than the earth, you have been on other planets. You are older than the sun. You have been here since existence has been here, otherwise it is not possible -- you cannot suddenly bubble up. How can you happen so suddenly? You have been here all the way.

 

 One of the most important American psychologists, William James, was writing a book which became a very important milestone in the history of psychology and religion. The name of the book is VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. He traveled all around the world to collect material for the book. Many books have been written since then on religion, but no book has yet reached that peak. William James worked hard on it. He also came to India, he had to -- if you are writing a book on religion then India becomes a must.

 He came to India and he went to see a sage in the Himalayas. He does not give the name; in fact sages have no names, so there is no need. He went to see the sage and he asked a question. He had been reading an Indian scripture in which it is said that the earth is supported on eight white elephants.

 He was puzzled -- he was a logician -- so he asked the sage, "This looks absurd. On what are those eight elephants standing? How are they supported?"

 The sage said, "On another eight white and bigger elephants."

 William James said, "But that doesn't solve the problem. On what are those bigger white elephants standing? "

 The sage laughed and he said, "Elephants on elephants, elephants on elephants, all the way down. You can go on asking," said the sage, "and I will go on answering the same thing -- to the very bottom."

 So William James thought that once more the question could be asked: "And on what is that bottom being supported?" The sage said, "Of course, eight bigger elephants."

 It goes on and on -- of course it has to be so. If you move backwards you will find yourself again and again and again. Otherwise how could you be here? You are supported by your past life, that's why you are here. And your past life is supported by another past life -- that's why you were in your past life. And this goes on and on and you cannot ask, "How did I come for the first time?" You never came for the first time because even before that you were. Even before the first time you were supported by a past life -- elephants on elephants, elephants on elephants. Hindus are really beautiful. They create absurd stories, but those stories have deep meanings and significances. You are here only because the whole past -- not your past, the whole past of existence -- is supporting you. You are the whole past and yet you have not been able to exhaust all the absurdities. Do you think it will ever be possible to exhaust all the absurdities of the mind? No, nobody has ever been able to. If you become aware, even one day is enough. If you remain unaware, even millions of lives are not enough. If you become aware, even a single moment is enough to see the absurdity of the mind. And if you go on sleeping and snoring then you can go on sleeping and snoring. That's how you have been in the past, the same you can be in the future.

 No, by sleeping you will never exhaust the absurdities of the mind. Don't hope; that is hopeless. That cannot be done. It is impossible. Become alert. It is time, in fact it is already getting late. Become alert, and suddenly you can see. Because absurdities cannot be exhausted by experiencing, they can only be exhausted by experiencing with awareness. By experience alone you will not be able to exhaust them.

 You love one woman but the relationship becomes stale and everything goes wrong. Then you start thinking of another woman. The mind says, "This woman is not right for you, but there exists a right woman. You try to find her. You got hooked with the wrong woman, that's why the problem has arisen." The problem has not arisen because of this woman -- remember. If you are alert you will see the problem has arisen because of desire, not because of this woman. But the mind says, "Leave this woman, divorce, move to another." And with another the same thing happens -- the mind again says, "Find someone else." And you go on and on and on. And the mind will always hope that somebody will turn up someday and everything will be right, and you will be in heaven.

 It has not happened, it is not going to happen. Otherwise there would be no need of religion, no need of yoga, no need of Tao. By and by everybody would have come to the right life -- but it never happens. But hope goes on winning over experience, and to the very end you go on hoping that someday, somehow, everything will be good.

 Hope is the basis of all absurdities and the existence is such that with ignorance and a sleeping mind there is no hope. Become alert.

 

 It happened: Alexander was coming towards India. He met Diogenes on the way. Diogenes was a rare Being -- if Diogenes had met Lao Tzu, they both would have sat and laughed and laughed and laughed. They are of the same quality.

 Alexander was passing. He heard that Diogenes was just nearby so he went to see him. Even Alexander was impressed by the man, even Alexander felt puny before him. Diogenes was a naked fakir, he had nothing, but his being was such -- so magnetic, so powerful -- that Alexander was impressed, very impressed. In fact it is said that he was never impressed again by any other man.

 He asked the secret of it: "How have you become so powerful, not having anything? And I am a world conqueror, I have almost won the whole world. Just a little more is left; soon I will finish. And you -- a naked man, having nothing -- what is the secret of your happiness?"

 Diogenes is reported to have said, "I renounced hope. That is the secret. And I tell you, you also renounce hope; otherwise you will always suffer."

 Alexander said, "I will come to you to learn the secret, but not now. I am on the way -- half the world, more than half the world I have won, but there is a remaining part. I have to become a world conqueror, then I will come."

 Diogenes said, "Nobody has ever been a world conqueror. Something or other always remains to be done. The dream is never complete and the desire is never fulfilled. If you really understand me, and if you really see that I am happy without bothering about winning the whole world, then you can also be happy without it."

 Logically, intellectually, Alexander understood it. But he said, "I will come later. This is not the right time for me."

 When he was leaving Diogenes, Diogenes said, "Remember, you will die before you have conquered the world; everybody has died and you cannot be an exception. "

 And it happened. Alexander never reached back home. Returning from India, he died on the way. He must have remembered Diogenes, that naked fakir, in his last moments.

 And then there has been another story; I cannot vouch for it. There is a story that on the same day Diogenes also died. And they met on the way to the other world, passing the river that flows between this world and that. They met on the river. Diogenes started laughing loudly, and he said, "Look, do you remember, you fool? You died, and you died in the middle, and the victory was not complete."

 Just to save his face, Alexander also tried to laugh but he could not. Just to save his face he said, "Yes, this is strange, the meeting of an emperor and a naked beggar in this river. It may not have happened before, it may not happen again."

 Diogenes laughed even more uproariously and he said, "You are right, but you don't understand who is the emperor and who is the slave. And who is the emperor and who is the beggar -- that you don't know exactly. There you are wrong, otherwise you are right: it is the meeting of an emperor and a beggar, but I am the emperor and you are the beggar. You were begging for the whole world -- you are the biggest beggar ever. And I lived like an emperor, but look what has happened to your empire...."

 Now even Alexander was naked -- because everything has to be left on this shore -- and he was feeling very shy and awkward, embarrassed. But Diogenes was not embarrassed. He said, "Knowing this well, that someday one has to become naked, I threw away those clothes myself. Now look how embarrassed you are feeling before God. I will stand laughing, and you will feel guilty and embarrassed and everything. Everything is wrong around you."

 

 There is no possibility of exhausting the absurdities. Even Alexanders never exhaust them. If you want to exhaust them the only way is to become aware. The more aware you are the more absurdities look like absurdities. When they look like absurdities, when you see them as absurd, you simply stop. You don't do them anymore. There is no need to renounce anything in the world -- one has just to be aware and things which are useless, meaningless, drop by themselves, on their own accord.

 

 The third question:

 

 Question 3

 EVERY RELIGION DEGENERATES INTO A MORALISTIC INSTITUTION. YOU COMMEND LAO TZU BECAUSE NO RELIGION COULD GROW FROM HIS WAY. HOW CAN THOSE WHO LOVE YOU AVOID SUCH AN INSTITUTIONAL DEGENERATION OF YOUR INSPIRATION?

 

 IF YOU START AVOIDING, you have already started creating it. Don't bother about it. If it is going to happen it is going to happen; if it is not going to happen it is not going to happen. You don't bother about it, because if you start wondering how to avoid it you have already taken for granted that it is going to be there. You have already become self-conscious about it -- and that will help to create it.

 Buddha tried hard to see that his religion would remain an alive phenomenon and not a dead institution. He tried hard -- but he failed. The harder he tried, the more people tried to create an institution around him.

 Krishnamurti is trying hard -- and he will fail, because this is the law. Why are you trying so hard? You must be afraid deep down that it is going to happen. And if even Krishnamurti thinks that it is going to happen, it is going to happen. I have talked to you many times about the law of reverse effect. It is a very deep psychological law: do something and just the reverse happens. That's the whole teaching of Lao Tzu. He said: Talk about order and there will be disorder. Try to make people moral and there will be immorality. Try to make people be good and they will be bad.

 And you all know that this happens. Try to make your child be saintly and you will create the first revolt in him against you. He will go against you; he will do exactly what you wanted him not to do.

 It never happened with Lao Tzu because he was never worried about it. If it happens it is okay -- what can you do?

 When I am gone, I am gone. Whatsoever happens is none of my business. So don't be worried about it. If it happens it had to happen. If it doesn't happen, good; if it happens, that too is good. Who are we to take the responsibility for the future? Who are we to decide for the future? No, it cannot be done. Simply drop the whole idea. Don't be worried. Drop the idea completely and don't be worried; don't try to create it and don't try to avoid it. While I am here be with me, celebrate with me, delight in me. Let me help you, allow me -- that's all. When I am gone and you are gone, whatever happens... how can we decide it and why should we worry about it? While we are here we should use the opportunity, the door that has opened, the path that has become visible for you -- tread on it, walk on it; whether people create an institution out of it or not is for them to decide. And nothing can be done about it right now.

 For the future, never create any worry, because your very worry will create the reverse effect. Have you watched? -- if you travel in a train, just have a look around. You can judge who is traveling without a ticket because he is constantly worried about the ticket checker -- the law of reverse effect. He looks afraid, he looks worried. Whenever somebody enters the compartment he looks startled. You can simply see who has come without a ticket -- he is creating his own difficulty around him.

 And sometimes it happens that you have purchased a ticket, and it has fallen out of your pocket but you are not aware of it. You don't know that you don't have the ticket. Then you walk and you sit as if you have the ticket. Nobody can judge, nobody can catch you; even the ticket checker will not come to you. He knows that you must have the ticket. People are always surprised that when they have tickets nobody comes to check, and when they don't have the ticket suddenly the ticket checker comes, because he has become aware of this small law -- that you can judge who is the culprit. There is no difficulty about it. He cannot be natural, he creates his own unnatural vibrations around him. Immediately the ticket checker goes to him.

 Don't bother. You are here; the phenomenon is alive right now, vibrating, talking to you, penetrating you, helping you. You just delight in it. And if you delight in it and if you yourself become a lighted phenomenon inside, others will delight in you.

 An alive religion is alive because people are still enlightened in it, people are still aware in it. If you become aware with me you can help others to be aware with you -- it is a chain reaction. Once awareness disappears, the chain disappears; a gap comes, an interval where nobody is alert, nobody is awakened -- then religion is dead. Then it becomes a sect -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Jain. Then it becomes a church -- then rituals, then just dead gestures.

 But nothing can be done about it. Rather, only one thing can be done about it and that is -- you don't bother, because you can waste your time thinking about it. You just live within me and allow me to live within you. Soon you will be able... through your lighted candle other candles can be lighted. Create chains and they will move on their own.

 And never think of the morrow. Future is not a concern at all. Only the present is.

 

 The fourth question:

 Question 4

 YOU SAY I AM AN EMPTINESS. SINCE BEING HERE I AM BEGINNING TO FEEL MY OWN CENTER. HOW DOES THE CENTER EXIST IN EMPTINESS?

 

 IT EXISTS. I cannot explain to you how or why, it is a simple fact. Just as science says H20 is water... two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen -- two atoms of hydrogen, one atom of oxygen -- and the combination is water. You cannot ask why. Why not three parts hydrogen, one part oxygen? Why not four parts oxygen, one part hydrogen? Why H20, why not otherwise? Science will shrug its shoulders, it will say: We don't know. It is how it is.

 Yes, your inner being is an emptiness and yet a center exists. Have you seen a cyclone? In summer days in India there are cyclones, whirlwinds. Go and look when the whirlwind has gone: it has disturbed every particle of dust around, but just in the center there is no disturbance. Even to a whirlwind a center exists, even to a cyclone a center exists, even to emptiness a center exists. One comes upon it, it is a fact of existence -- no how to it.

 

 A small boy was walking with D.H. Lawrence in a garden, and he suddenly asked, "Why are trees green?"

 D. H. Lawrence said, "Trees are green because they are green.

 

 Nothing more can be said about it. All explanations are useless because you can say because of this, because of that -- but that too again brings the same question: Why? It is absurd that a center exists to emptiness -- it is illogical, it is irrational. But life is irrational. One has to accept life -- life is in no way to be forced to accept your logic or reason.

 It happens every day in science. When for the first time Einstein said that everything is relative, even time is relative, the whole old world of science was disturbed. People started asking: Why? How? One very absurd thing Einstein said, and that is: if a traveler goes into infinite space on a journey in a vehicle which moves faster than light -- light moves at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second -- if the vehicle moves faster than light or even equal to light, and if your son goes on a journey into space and comes back after twenty-five years, he will still be of the same age. If he had gone at twenty-five years of age, he will remain twenty-five years of age. His friends will have become fifty years old here on the earth but he will remain the same age. It is absurd. People started asking, "What is the logic?" Einstein said, "I cannot say what the logic is, but it is so."

 At such a tremendous speed you cannot age. It is just like at a hundred degrees the water evaporates, that's all. At such a tremendous speed you cannot age; you will remain the same. And even more absurd -- if the speed can be doubled you will come back younger than when you left. If you had gone at twenty years of age and you come back after ten years, you will be ten years of age. You will move backwards in time -- because, Einstein said, aging depends on speed, on the speed of the earth. The earth is moving at a particular speed; on that speed depends your aging. Impossible to believe! Contradictory to all logic!

 Then physicists penetrated into matter and suddenly one day they found there is no matter. So they had to say that matter consists of emptiness; they had to say that matter is nothing but dense emptiness. This looks illogical. How can emptiness be dense? How can this pillar be created out of dense emptiness? But now physics says it is so. And nature and existence do not follow our logic. They have their own ways and we cannot force our logic on them; our logic has to follow their ways. The same is true about inner space. Of course, logic says: How can emptiness have a center? Logically it cannot. When for the first time I came to that center the same question arose in me also: How can emptiness have a center?

 To have a center something is needed -- and it is there, but it doesn't listen to our logic. Accept it, and don't create any logical problem in your mind, because that is not going to help. Life is illogical. You are here. Have you any logic to say why you are here? If you were not here, could you ask why you are not here? Things simply are. Nothing can be claimed, nothing can be posed, nothing can be projected, nothing can be asked. When you grow into this awareness: that things simply are -- then a deep acceptance happens. Then even if they are illogical you accept. You don't fight, you float. You don't even swim -- you simply are in a let-go.

 And by and by more and more mysteries are revealed. That's why religion says that life is a mystery, not a problem. A problem can be solved; a mystery can never be solved. The more you solve it the more mysterious it becomes. The more you know it the more you feel has to be known. The more you come nearer the more you feel you are far away.

 The Upanishads say God is both far and near. Why? Because the nearer you go the farther away you feel he is. You almost touch him -- and you feel far away. You almost penetrate him, you are almost in his heart, but still the mystery is not dissolved. On the contrary, the mystery has become more mysterious. And that is the beauty of it. Just think of a world where all mysteries are solved -- how boring it would be! Just think of a world which is absolutely logical, rational, mathematical -- how boring and monotonous it would be! Then there would be no possibility of poetry, there would be no possibility of romance, there would be no possibility of love, and there would be no possibility at all for any meditation.

 Meditation is to enter into the mystery; love is to knock at the same door in a different way. Prayer is also to allow the mystery, and not to struggle against it with the mind.

 Everything is beautiful because everything is mysterious, and you cannot get to the bottom of it. Analyze if you want to analyze, but every analysis will create more problems, more mysteries; the answer, the final answer, cannot be found. And it is good that it cannot be found. If it is found then what? Then the very meaning and significance is lost.

 I am not a philosopher, not in the least; I am just a poet at the most. I look at life and accept its facticity. If it makes two plus two four, okay. If it makes two plus two five, okay. If it makes two plus two three, okay. I have said yes to it. And this is what to be religious means to me -- to say yes, it is so.

 

 The fifth question:

 Question 5

 IS CARLOS CASTANEDA'S GURU, DON JUAN, AN ENLIGHTENED MASTER?

 

 IF THERE WERE someone like Don Juan he would be enlightened, he would be like a Buddha or a Lao Tzu -- but there is nobody like Don Juan. Carlos Castaneda's books are ninety-nine per cent fiction -- beautiful, artful, but fiction. As there are scientific fictions, there are spiritual fictions also. There are third-rate spiritual fictions and first-rate ones: if you want third-rate, then read Lobsang Rampa; if you want first-rate, then read Carlos Castaneda. He is a great master -- of fiction.

 But I say ninety-nine per cent fiction. One per cent of truth is there, hidden here and there; you will have to find it. It is good even to read it as fiction. Don't bother about Rampa's fiction, because it is rubbish created by a mediocre mind -- and of course created for mediocre minds. But Carlos Castaneda is worth reading. When I say fiction I don't mean don't read him, I mean read him more carefully, because one per cent of truth is there. You will have to read it very carefully, but don't swallow it completely because it is ninety-nine per cent fiction.

 It can help your growth -- it can create a desire to grow. That's why I say it is beautiful. But it can hinder growth also if you take it at its surface value.

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 This man Carlos is really crafty, very clever. Rarely it happens, such cleverness -- because it is very easy to create scientific fiction, not much imagination is needed, but to create spiritual fiction is very very difficult; one needs a great artistic and imaginary mind. Because things you don't know, how can you even imagine them? That's why I say one per cent of truth is there. On that one per cent of truth he has been able to create a big edifice. On that one per cent of truth he has been able to project much imagination. On that one iota of truth he has made the whole house, a beautiful palace -- a fairy tale. But that one per cent of truth is there, otherwise it would have been impossible.

 So one per cent of Don Juan must be there somewhere or other. He must have met somebody; maybe his name was Don Juan, maybe not, that is not material, that doesn't matter. Carlos has come across a being superior to himself, he has come across a being who knows some secrets. Maybe he has not realized them, maybe he has stolen them, maybe he has just borrowed them from someone else. But he has met somebody who has somehow got some facts of spiritual life and this man has been able to create imagination around it. And the imagination becomes possible if you use drugs as a help -- very easy, because drugs are nothing but an aid to imagination.

 This man has come across some being who knows something, and then through drugs, LSD and others, he has projected that small truth into imaginary worlds. Then his whole fiction is created. It is a drug trip, but a good experiment in itself. And when I say all these things I am not condemning Carlos. In fact I have come to love the man. It is a rare flight of imagination, and if it is a hundred per cent fiction then Carlos himself is a rare being. If he has not come across anybody at all then he must have that one per cent of reality in himself. Because otherwise it is impossible -- you can only build a house on a foundation, even an imaginary house needs at least a foundation in reality. You can make a house of cards but at least the ground, the solid ground is needed. That much is true.

 So read, because you will have to read. Every age has its own fictions, romances; one has to pass through them. You will have to read. You cannot escape Carlos Castaneda. But remember that only one per cent is true -- and you have to find it.

 If you have been reading Gurdjieff's books, particularly ALL AND EVERYTHING, then you can become artful about how to find the true, how to sort out chaff from wheat. If you have not read ALL AND EVERYTHING, it is a good beginning. First you should read ALL AND EVERYTHING of George Gurdjieff and then you can read Carlos Castaneda's books. It is a very difficult training to read Gurdjieff; in fact no more than a few dozen people exist in the world who have read his book ALL AND EVERYTHING completely. It is difficult. It is a one thousand-page book and Gurdjieff is a master of hiding things. He goes on saying irrelevant things, useless things, spinning tales within tales -- hundreds of pages and then one line of truth, but it is worth seeking, it is a diamond. A hundred pages of rubbish, but then comes a diamond -- it is worth it.

 If you can find the diamonds in Gurdjieff it will be a great training for you. And then you can find in Carlos Castaneda what is true and what is not true. Otherwise you can become a victim of a fiction. And I think many Americans particularly are roaming in Mexico in search of Don Juan. Foolish!

 

 The sixth question:

 Question 6

 LIKE TILOPA AND BODHIDHARMA, DO YOU THINK YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE INDIA TO FIND A SUITABLE SUCCESSOR?

 

 YOU FOOLS! Can't you see I have already left India? I am no more here in India.

 And the last question... Chinmaya has been asking this question continuously for many days, and I have been avoiding it. But now it is time. He has been asking:

 

 Question 7

 ARE ALL ENLIGHTENED MASTERS BALD?

 

 AND NOW I cannot avoid it any more, because in the effort to become bald he has shaved his head.

 There exists no relationship, so don't try to be bald.

 Bald people are very clever, they create rumors about themselves. One rumor they have created all around the world is that they are potentially more sexual than anybody else. Of course bald people are not so sexually attractive; they have to create rumors around themselves. All over the world in all countries the rumor exists that bald people are more sexual, more potential sexually than anybody else. This is a trick.

 But now to create another rumor that bald people are the only ones who become enlightened will be too much!

 
 

Osho Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1 Chapter 6

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