... is far more dangerous than the first! Let me repeat it, because ordinarily you think the second is better than the first. It is not so. It is very easy to awaken from the first because it is so stupid. If somebody is really stupid and thick, only then will he go on and on seeking money and power and prestige and respectability, and he will never become aware that he is seeking rubbish. For it you...

... need a really dense head. If you are a little intelligent, if there is just a little intelligence, it will be enough to become alert of the phenomenon that you can accumulate as much money as you want but you will die, and this money is not going to help. This money is not going to be with you, you cannot carry it to the other shore. It is such a simple fact... you may become very respectable, but...

... substitutes are plastic. So one can go on and on earning fame, money, power, and deep down one remains very, very poor - a child. One knows that one has not bloomed because there is no blooming except through love. Money becomes the substitute, or power or prestige. But it is as if you have mistaken the menu for the food. You can have beautiful menus but they are not going to satisfy. Real food is needed...

..., because you don't know how to share, because you are a miser and a hoarder. So you go on hoarding money, and money becomes your beloved and power becomes your god. Or, if you are a little intelligent, these things will be finished with, then there will be knowledge, philosophy, thought - a far bigger realm of illusion than things. When you are chasing a woman you are at least very close to reality. When...

... and you will say, 'Alas! Where could we find such a man today?' In the East that's why people travel. If they hear that some Master has happened, they travel. People are very poor; they don't have money even to travel. They save their money for years just to go to a place of pilgrimage where they can find somebody who has attained. In the East, to help these poor people, we managed a certain kind of...

... different. They may be standing back-to-back but they are not very different at all; they are of exactly the same type of mind. Somebody is hankering for money, and somebody is so against money that he cannot even look at currency notes. He becomes afraid and a trembling arises in him. These people are not different - for both of them money is of great importance. One is in greed, one is in fear; but the...

... importance of the money is the same - both are obsessed with money. One is continuously thinking of women, dreaming, fantasizing. Another has become so afraid that he has escaped to the Himalayas just to avoid women - but both are the same. For both, the woman is important, or the man; the other is important. One seeks the other, one avoids the other, but the other remains their focus. Tantra says: The...

... forget to get one.' 'Of course I will' piped the dog. Then receiving the money: 'Be back soon. Ta, ta.' The dog did not return. So after an hour the worried owner went in search. He finally found his dog in a back alley nicely on the job with a bitch. 'Well, I am damned!' said the owner. 'You have never done that before.' 'No' said the dog 'I have never had the money before.' Just avoiding the...

... deeply in sleep that you cannot remember. So the saint thinks he has not dreamt about sex, he has not dreamt about money, he has not dreamt about power, prestige, respectability. If he sleeps for two hours, the sleep is so deep, it is such a necessity for the body, that it is almost like a coma, so he cannot remember. You remember dreams only when you are half awake and half asleep. Then the dream can...

... are made of iron and this fetter is made of gold, but a fetter is a fetter - whether made of iron or of gold does not make any difference - you are fettered. Now this new fetter will become your bondage. Kundalini rising, visions, spiritual visions, cosmic visions - now these will become your fetters. Now you will hanker for them, you will desire them. First you were desiring money, now you will...

... one man, you were thinking that your thirst would be quenched - it is not quenched. But you don't learn anything; you start moving towards another cave. You have no money and you thought that if ten thousand rupees were there, everything would be okay. And then those ten thousand rupees also happen, but you have not learnt anything. By that time you start thinking 'Unless there is one lakh of rupees...

... protect the nation, to protect the dignity and the pride of the nation. In Tibet, every family has to contribute the eldest son to the monasteries. This has been done for thousands of years, as if the children are just commodities you can contribute, as if the children are money you can give in charity. This divided the world into different camps because of religion, because of politics, because of...

... place to live." He said, "I have a big house. You just come with me." And when he saw the situation, what I was doing -- the whole day I was working in a press and the whole night, the first part of the night in the university, and the second part with my own books, not the textbooks -- he said, "You will fall sick. Don't be worried, I have enough money." I told him, "...

...;Remember one thing: I am not going to return it." He said, "That is settled." I said, "Think twice. It is a question of six years. You can have time to think. I will not return a single rupee because I will not have any money anytime in my whole life. If you are giving me out of your abundance, I will accept with gratitude, but no obligation. And no bragging about it, that you have...

... helped me." He said, "No, that's not at all the question. In fact you have helped me. Since you have come in my house, a strange peace has come, a silence has come. I have never been so happy and so joyous. I have all the amenities, all that the world can provide, but there was a certain emptiness inside me. You have fulfilled it by teaching me meditation. I cannot repay it. Whatever money I...

.... You are just unnecessarily feeling guilty." But he said, "I will give you money, whatever you want to do with it." I said, "If you want to give without any condition, I can take as much money as you can give. I alone can use all the money in the world without any trouble." He used to send me money, and that money helped me to purchase as many books as possible. Now, the...

... library you see -- it has one hundred and fifty thousand books. Most of them were purchased with his money. All the money he gave me went into purchasing books, and soon I was receiving scholarships -- and all that money went into books. Soon I had friends all over India, and I was purchasing everywhere -- in Poona, in Bombay, in New Delhi, in Amritsar, in Ludhiana, in Calcutta, in Allahabad, in...

... are invited ... Now Siddhartha has come back with a girlfriend. When he came for the first time he was so small, but so intelligent, that he rarely stayed with his mother or father. I would ask the mother, and she would say, "I have not seen him for fifteen days. He stays everywhere, he goes with anybody who invites him." He used to get money from anybody: "Just give me ten rupees...

... uninterested in sex. It is not celibacy, you have not taken any vow, your energy has simply moved higher. Its concern becomes death. In sex the concern was birth, because through sex is all reproduction. Moving from sex you have moved from birth to death, a small distance. Suddenly you become aware that "Death is coming and I am concerned only with trivia -- money, power, prestige, respectability. All...

... standard is a necessity - just like money, currency money. A hundred-rupee note,-a ten-dollar bill, or anything else - it is just a common belief the society has agreed to use. But it has nothing to do with existence. If man disappears from the earth, the pound sterling, the dollar, rupees will all disappear immediately. The earth will be without money immediately without man. Rocks will be there...

..., flowers will still flower, the spring will come and birds will sing, and in the fall old leaves will fall; but there will be no money. Even if there are piles of money on the roads, it will not be money at all, because to call it money a man is needed, to respect it as money a man is needed. The government goes on promising, on each note the promise is written: The Finance Governor promises to pay you...

... forest, in a single vision. These are all just symbolic. Hmm?... don't extend and don't stretch these symbols too much. They are just to give you subtle indications of what happens. In fact it cannot be said. Now, chronological time is politics, history, economics, money, things, intellect, the market, Wall Street. Psychological time is dream, myth, poetry, love, art, intuition, painting, dance, drama...

... idea is gone with her. Now again you are in darkness. Again you don't know, again you start searching for.... Why do you seek money and wealth? Just to have some identity. So that you know who you are, so that people can say who you are. Why do you go on searching for power, prestige? The same reason. Man is in a constant search for the self. Man is in a constant identity crisis. And because in the...

... own being. For what? They can earn money in that time, they can tend their shop, or they can do a thousand and one things. Why just go on gazing at your navel? For what? Nobody seems to be interested in oneself One is already there, so why bother? One is already that, so why bother? Everybody is going out... but only when a person goes in does a person come to know what truth is. Ikkyu says: PITIFUL...

... support. It is your very ground. It supports you! How can it need your support? But the ego needs your support. So if you have a certain amount of money in the bank, you have to go on growing that amount; otherwise, your ego starts feeling suffocated. If you have a certain prestige in the society, you have to go on increasing it. You have to go on puffing up your ego continuously; if you stop puffing...

... day and become your enemies then you will be caught, then you will be in trouble. If you have money you have to be constantly afraid, because everybody is ready to grab it. That's how you got it in the first place, so you know the way, how to get it. In this life, where everything is constantly changing, you cannot remain certain. So these three things are constantly creating misery, grief: life...

... things which they don't need. People go on putting their money into things which they will never need, to impress people whom they don't like. This is something! People even go on putting their money into things - money that they don't have. They may be getting it two years afterwards; they purchase a car in instalments. The money they don't have right now, but they have to put that money into a car...

... - money, power, prestige; they go on goading you, "Do this. Achieve this. Without achieving this you are not a real man. Prove that you are powerful, prove that you are great, prove that you are special." And to prove it you have to move almost into a state of insanity. That's what politics is. Politics is the other pole, exactly the opposite pole to religion. Religion takes you to the essence...

... of your being and politics takes you to the accidents of your desires. The desires keep you so occupied with the mundane, with the futile, that you start forgetting everything that is intrinsic, that is really valuable. Running after money, you forget all about the inner treasure. Running after power, you forget all about the power of Tao, which is the supreme power. Running after name and fame...

.... You go on forgetting everything: you forget the soul, the heaven; you even forget the body, the earth. You become almost mad. All your politicians are mad. All your people who are running after money are mad, who are running after fame are mad. But because they are in the majority, they appear to be absolutely right. In fact, the person who is not interested in name and fame, power and prestige...

... seems to be a little out of his senses. What has happened to this man? You will be asked again and again, "What has happened to you? Why are you not interested in accumulating more money? What do you do just by sitting silently looking inwards?" You will be condemned by the world because the world consists of extroverts. They will call you introverts, they will tell you that introversion is...

... on your part. Anger simply means that your sexuality is hindered. Anybody who hinders your sexuality creates anger in you; he is your enemy. And sexuality creates greed; greed is a form of sexuality, it is a perverted form. Money becomes your object of love because the society does not allow any other kind of love. It allows money, power; they can become your objects of love. It helps to change...

... to earn money, has to become famous, has to be a prime minister or a politician. Naturally, from where is he going to get all this energy to be the president? There is only one energy; you don't have many energies in you, mind you, you have only one kind of energy. Whatsoever name you want to give to it you can give, "xyz", but you have only one kind of energy. Sigmund Freud has called it...

... libido, but it simply means sex. Now if you want to have more money or more power, you want to be the president of the country or the prime minister of the country, then you have to take your sexuality and channelize it. I have heard: One day Carter and Brezhnev met for a long meeting. The two wives waited outside the meeting room for so many hours, they eventually struck up a conversation. Soon they...

... everything you did, except I didn't bother with the negligee. As soon as he lay down on the bed I jumped on him and put my cunt right in front of his face and said, 'Look at this, Brezy... does it remind you of something?' And he replied, 'Oh yes! I forgot to call Fidel Castro!'" It is bound to happen. You have to divert your sexual energy; then money, power, prestige, they become your sexual objects...

..., you seek it in the other world; sometimes you seek it in money, in power, in prestige, and sometimes you seek it in God, bliss, love, meditation, prayer - but the search continues. It seems that man is ill with search. The search does not allow you to be here and now because the search always leads you somewhere else. The search is a projection, the search is a desire: that somewhere else is what is...

... you do know: you need to search. This is an inner need. But you don't know what you are seeking. And unless you know what you are seeking, how can you find it? It is vague - you think it is in money, power, prestige, respectability. But then you see people who are respectable, people who are powerful - they are also seeking. Then you see people who are tremendously rich - they are also seeking. To...

... the very end of their life they are seeking. So richness is not going to help, power is not going to help. The search continues in spite of what you have. The search must be for something else. These names, these labels - money, power, prestige - these are just to satisfy your mind. They are just to help you feel that you are searching for something. That something is still undefined, a very vague...

... you repeat, 'This woman is beautiful, this woman is beautiful...' if you go on repeating it, you will start seeing beauty in her. It may be there, it may not be there, it doesn't matter - if you repeat it long enough it will become true. If you think that money is the goal of life, go on repeating it and it will become your goal of life. That's how all advertising functions: it just goes on...

... has been telling you again and again that you can find nothing here - go back home. But you don't listen. You earn money, and one day money is there - then life says to you, 'What have you got?' But you don't listen. Now you think you have to put your money into politics, you have to become a prime minister or a president - then everything will be okay. One day you are a prime minister, and life...

... the past which also is not. The past is gone and the future has not yet come. Desire comes out of the past because you must have known what you desire in the past somehow. How can you desire something which is absolutely new? You cannot desire the new. You can only ask for a repetition. You had some money, you will ask for more - but money you know. You had some power, you ask for more - but power...

... against ourselves. The first three chakras are concerned with food, money, power, domination, sex. food is the lowest, sex is the highest, in the lowest three chakras. This has to be understood. Food is the lowest -- a food-obsessed person is in the lowest category of animals. He simply wants to survive. He has no purpose, he just wants to survive to survive. If you ask him for what, he has no answer to...

... give to you. One day, Mulla Nasruddin told me, "I wish I had more land." I asked him, "But why? As it is, you have enough." He said, "I could raise a lot more cows." I asked him, "And what would you do with them?" He said, "Sell them and make money." "And then? Then what you are going to do with that money?" "Buy more land." And I...

... money, he will go on hoarding money -- money becomes the power symbol. If he moves into politics, he cannot contain himself until he has reached to the very end -- and there is nothing. Once I had a cat -- a very foolish cat, almost a politician. She would go and climb on the trees, and in that she was perfect. And she would go to the topmost branch of the tree and then she would be stuck there and...

... rich man asked Pablo Picasso to make a portrait of him, and as Picasso was well-known he demanded a very fantastic price for it -- millions of dollars. The rich man said, "That's okay, you just do the portrait." The portrait was finished. Came the rich man. He was not satisfied; he said, "For that much money... and what have you done? Just an ordinary canvas and a few colors."...

...-fulfilling trees -- KALPATARUS. You just sit underneath them and all your desires are fulfilled. Not a single moment is lost. You desire; here you have not even desired, and it is fulfilled. Great opportunity to indulge -- because here on the earth if you desire something it will take years for the fulfillment. If you want a big car you will have to earn money, steal money, exploit, so something -- and...

... dead; he has purchased it from the market. It is nothing but stone, carved into the shape of some unknown god who has never been seen by anyone. The god is just a thing. Of course, the richer the man, the costlier will be the god. But whether costly or not, it is a commodity. And on top of that, even the priest is a salaried servant. He has nothing to do with God - he has something to do with money...

.... I have seen priests running from one temple to another. If a priest can manage to pray in twenty temples, then he is a rich priest. The whole idea is so absurd and unbelievable. It is just as if you have a paid servant to love your beloved on your behalf. Perhaps one day it is going to happen - because the time you waste in loving your beloved can produce much money, much power. This game of love...

... playing chess according to his own laws.... But the chess player was paid enough to suffer it, and after one year the king was back to his sanity; but the chess player became mad. The psychoanalyst remembered the parable and thought, "This is going to happen to me too. This man has so much money it does not matter to him; he can continue his psychoanalysis for years. But listening to him every day...

... was starting to enter into the mind of the psychoanalyst; even in his dreams he was listening to him. Then he became really freaked out, saying, "Some way has to be found. The patient cannot be lost, because he is giving so much money - but he cannot be heard, because my own sanity is in danger." So he devised a simple thing. He came with a tape recorder and put it by the side of the couch...

... lying on the couch, talking to your tape recorder. So you are free, I am free - nobody is at a loss. You will get your money, I will get my psychoanalysis." The priests have been doing this from the very beginning: They invented the god, they invented prayers, they found their customers who were eager to have some bank balance in the other world. This is how millions of priests and priestesses...

... whether to get married or not because the pros and cons were all equal. He would come out of his house, lock the door, go a few yards, come back again to check the lock - perhaps he has forgotten.... He used to come out of his house only one time every month. Seeing his situation, his father deposited money in the post office - "Every month a certain amount has to be given to him, because I don't...

... postmaster said, "Now you need not bother to come again; the money your father has deposited is finished with this installment." Hearing this - you will be surprised - the man fell down and died, because that money was the only thing that he had in the world. He lived in a dark house, dismal, dirty, alone... he would not even open his windows because those urchins were continuously torturing him...

... shoes. My father asked me one day, "I always see new shoes, and you never ask for the money. From where are you getting these shoes?" I said, "I have found that in the town there are at least thirty temples. Once I get fed up with one pair of shoes, I simply go to the temple. I never go in, I simply sit outside watching, because I have to find my size. And there is no trouble, even if...

... things like money you are still searching for God. Because money gives a feeling of unlimitedness. When you don't have money you feel very much limited - you want to purchase a thing and you cannot. Your money gives you a certain freedom - only so much freedom, but your freedom is hampered from everywhere. Hence people fall in love with money. They are really searching for freedom, and freedom is with...

... God. They are searching for an experience of expansion, they are searching for some spiritual experience, through money. It is not possible through money - they have misunderstood, they have misinterpreted. Yes, money gives a certain freedom - you can purchase more, you can shop more, you can do many more things. But you are not more. Having is not being. You possess more, but you are not more...

... mind deeply, their observation is that whatsoever you fall in love with, you are really searching for God. Searching in a wrong way, in a wrong direction, but still searching for God. WHO IS IT WE SPEND OUR ENTIRE LIFE LOVING? IT IS TIME TO PUT UP A LOVE-SWING! KABIR says: Enough is enough. You have searched in money, you have searched in power, you have searched in men and women, you have searched...