... who owe the money?" "Not this time." "Well, I am glad to hear it. Take this contribution." Nasrudin pocketed the money. "Just one thing, Mulla. What prompts your humanitarian sentiments in this particular case?" "Ah, you see ... I am the creditor!" 26-5-1971 Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...

... SECRET, SPEAK NECTAR-SOAKED WORDS. WHEN OTHERS BECOME FIRE, O AVADHU, YOU BECOME WATER. LIVE IN THE HEART... Right now you are living outside. You don't yet know the art of living within. This is why you are unhappy. One who is outside is unhappy, one who is inside is happy. One who is outside is in hell, one who is inside is in heaven. Living outside means living in desires: getting money, getting...

... can only be fulfilled outside, how can conditions be fulfilled inside? Inside neither money can be produced nor power can be produced. Going on sitting with eyes kept closed you will not become prime minister. Nor sitting with eyes kept closed will a heap of Kohinoor diamonds gather. Nor sitting with eyes closed will your reputation in the world grow. No, inside no condition can be fulfilled. One...

... Trafalgar Square, I will be immediately apprehended. People will think I have gone mad. People think unhappiness is health and think bliss is insanity. Conditions have become so disturbed that only mad people laugh in this world, when do the rest, the sane and sensible people have time to laugh? The hearts of the sane have dried up. The sane are entangled in counting money. The sane are climbing ladders...

... of ambition. The sane say lets go to Delhi. Where is the leisure to laugh, to sing a couple of songs, to play an ektara, to dance beneath the stars in the shade of a tree, to look at the sun, to talk to the flowers, to hug the trees - where is the time? These are the last things when everything is complete - when there is money, power, prestige then we will sit under the trees. But this day never...

.... Look, listen, pass on. It is only a drama. It is a film moving on a screen. There is only the play of sun and shadow here. Don't get entangled in it. Mulla Nasruddin went to see a film. It was the first time he had ever seen a film. The first show had ended but he didn't get up. The manager of the theater came and said, "You can go Mulla, the show has ended.' He said, "Here take the money...

... for the next show, I must see the next one too." He saw the next one, but still he didn't leave. When the manager said, "Mulla, what are you doing?" he said, "Here take the money, I'll see the third too." The manager asked, "But what is it? Seeing this same film again and again." He said, "If you want to understand the reason, understand it: one scene comes in...

... not going to go. After all its an Indian train, it will be late sometime. I will go only after seeing the whole scene." Don't laugh. When you see a film you also are affected like this. When films were shown for the first time in small villages people started throwing money, as is the custom in villages. If there is a drama company or something, someone dancing, they throw money. They started...

... throwing money at films in small villages. I have seen people in small villages throwing money - at the screen - a dancing girl dances, they start throwing money. When a dancing girl dances and her petticoat begins to rise up in the dance, they bend down and start looking from below. There is nothing there, just a play of light and shadow. But people, people just like other people. This is how their...

... on eating at night in dreams, he will receive invitations to dine in palaces. Tasty food will continue. One who is crazy for sex will go on seeing sexual dreams. One who is greedy for money will see dreams of avarice. One who is greedy for power will become emperor in his dreams. Your dreams are the fulfillment of the perversions of your mind. In sleep their echo goes on being heard. When you learn...

... beings. In your mother's womb, you are just a being. Then life begins to teach you how to do things: how to be successful, how to be rich, how to be famous, how to be powerful. There are a thousand and one "hows," and you see around you a whole world engaged in doing something or other. And in a way, there are things which can only be done. For example, if you want money, you will have to...

... you; you know only the world of matter and objects. You know everything around you, except yourself. You are illusory and the whole world is real; money is real, power is real. You... even you don't know who you are. You have never come to encounter yourself. I have heard.... In a train, two Englishmen were traveling. Then the train stopped and one of them got out of the train. His wife had come to...

... almost fifty persons, because all the people who were taking care of the king - his physician, his massagist, his cook - everybody who was taking care of the king had to be buried with him in the graveyard because he might need them at any time, and much money, gold, precious stones, so that he's never out of money. If he needs some money, he has enough. Poor people did the same, in a poor way. Soon...

...; although nobody heard it. Because he discovered that all these corpses were very rich. They all had something - even the poorest had some money, some new clothes, some foodstuff - and he started collecting. He was hoping that, "One day I will get out, and then with all this money and gold and diamonds, I will be the richest monk in the whole country." He lived in that graveyard for fifteen...

... wants me to see thousands of postal stamps that he has been collecting from all over the world. I said, "What are you going to do with these? You have wasted money; you have wasted time. You go in search of postal stamps to faraway countries; you go to exhibitions where you can get extraordinary, unique postal stamps - but for what?" He said, "I never thought about it... for what?"...

... all my people. Question 4: IS YOUR ORGANIZATION FINANCIALLY SOUND ENOUGH TO ESTABLISH A NEW ASHRAM OR COMMUNE? In the first place I don't want to establish any commune around me. In the second place, I am sorry to say I don't understand anything about finance. I don't have any bank account. I have not even touched money for thirty years. I have been in America for five years - I have not seen a...

... dollar bill. I live totally trusting existence. If it wants me to be here it will manage. If it does not want me to be here, it will not manage. My trust in existence is total. The people who don't trust in existence trust in money, trust in God and trust in all kinds of idiotic things. Question 5: DO YOU FEEL YOUR PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH OF WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU IN THE UNITED...

... to decide about it. Question 10: THERE IS A PROVERB THAT GERMAN PEOPLE WAKE UP IN THE MORNING THINKING OF MONEY; WHEN THEY GO TO BED, THEY THINK OF MONEY TOO. HOWEVER, GERMANY IS THE COUNTRY WITH THE BEST SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAM. HOW DOES THIS FIT TOGETHER? I don't think the proverb is right. It should be about Americans, not about Germans. The poor Germans have other things to suffer, other...

... proverbs, but this is absolutely irrelevant. I can certainly say the American goes to sleep thinking of money, and wakes up thinking of money - and he has more money than anybody else in the world. But this is a strange law that the more you have, the more you want. In India we have a small story... A king was very puzzled because a man, a barber, used to come to massage him, to shave him every morning...

... finished me." The more money you have, the more you want. The more power you have, the more you want. No, about Germans that is not true. About Germans something else is true... If you tell a joke to an Englishman, he laughs twice: first he laughs just to be polite, and in the middle of the night again he laughs when he gets it. If you tell the joke to a German, he laughs only once - because...

... are told the value of money but not the value of a rose flower. You are told the value of being a prime minister or a president but not the value of being a poet, a painter, a singer, a dancer. Those things are thought to be for crazy people. And they are the ways from where one slips slowly into Tao. Prem Radha, Tao is certainly greater than mind - Tao is greater than everything. Tao is God, Tao is...

... windows. We are becoming Leibnitz monads, windowless capsules. Our life is encapsulated. That is one part that we go on doing. And the second part is to go on making the walls thicker and thicker. That is done by competition, ambition: have more and more; whether you need or not, that is not the point at all. Do you think the richest people in the world need more money now? They have more than they can...

... use, far more. But the desire for more does not stop, because it is not a question that they need money; the question is to go on making the walls of the ego thicker and thicker. They are continuously in competition with each other. Competition creates conflict. Conflict keeps your ego alive. A beatnik was boppin' down the sidewalk just a-poppin' his fingers and feeling good, when a Jaguar pulled up...

..., becomes very angry, takes a whip, hits the money-changers, turns their boards, throws them out of the temple. Now, a non-violent person cannot be so angry. If Gandhi was asked, he will say, "Go for a fast. Sit in front of the money-changers and do a fast unto death unless they stop money-changing in the temple. That will be the non-violent way to transform their hearts." But taking a whip in...

... your hand and hitting them and turning their boards and throwing them out of the temple does not seem to be very non-violent. He never talks about it. He drops the whole matter. He only talks about Beatitudes: "Blessed are the meek for theirs is the kingdom of God." But Jesus does not seem to be so meek. This man is meek who is turning money-changers' boards and throwing them out of the...

.... Just wearing orange clothes you will be known as a madman. That's what I want you all to be known all over the world: my mad people. God is only for those who are mad enough, only for those who are mad for God. Just as people are mad for money and mad for power, unless you are mad for God there is no hope for you. You are afraid because here something CAN happen. And you know that there is a great...

... assertions are still relevant, still fresh; not rotten, not old. His time is coming now. It is as if he came two thousand five hundred years before his time. Vincent van Gogh's paintings are now becoming great paintings; great appreciation has arisen for him. He came a little early. They always do. His brother used to give him enough money just to keep his body and soul together, because his paintings...

... wouldn't sell. So just enough money.... And van Gogh would eat for half the week and for half the week he would fast to save money to paint. Just think how difficult it was for him to live. Nobody would appreciate his painting. Once it happened that his brother made an arrangement. He told a friend, 'You go and purchase at least one painting. At least once in his life he should have the joy of somebody...

... purchasing his painting. You take money from me. Go and purchase a painting.' The friend went. Van Gogh was very happy. This was the first man who had come to appreciate his painting. But soon he recognised the fact that the man was not interested.... Van Gogh was thrilled! He was dancing and he was showing his paintings, all the paintings that he had done. But the man was not interested, he was just...

... fulfilling a duty. He said, 'Anyone will do. You just give me any painting and take this money.' It hurt van Gogh even more. He threw the man out with his money and he said, 'I suspect it is my brother behind it. He always wanted somebody to purchase my painting and it seems he has sent you. You get out from here! I am not going to sell. I wanted somebody to love my painting, to see what I have done, but...

... faith,' said the rabbi. 'Keep praying.' After Gottlieb left his house, the rabbi felt sorry for him. 'I don't make much money' he thought, 'but that poor man needs it. I will give him twenty-five dollars out of my own pocket.' A week later, the rabbi stopped Gottlieb and said, 'Here God sent this to you!' Back in his home, Gottlieb bowed his head, 'Thank you, Lord!' he said, 'But next time you send...

... money, don't send it through Rabbi Jacobs - that crook kept half of it!' It all depends on you, on how you look at things. You can see each day surrounded by two nights or you can see each night surrounded by two days. And it really makes a lot of difference. Let your waiting be joyous. You are waiting for God. Let it be a song in your heart. Let it be prayerful. Let it be a celebration. Only...

... remember, mind is very cunning: you drop ambition in one direction and the mind starts creating the same ambitious trap in another direction. Running after money, one day you understand that it is futile - even if you attain it, death will take it away. You start dropping that ambition. But then you start thinking "How to have more virtue?" It is the SAME game - "How to have more money...

... happened through your success. You remain the same kind of empty, hollow, ugly beggar. Nothing has happened. All the money has accumulated around you, you are sitting on the throne of a president, and deep down the same beggar, the same ugly face, the same monster, the same horrible mind. So failing you fail, succeeding you fail - this is the futility. Then the mind starts thinking of having something in...

... they start working. By the afternoon it is realized that these people are not enough, so more are called. When the sun is almost setting it is realized that even this will not do, so more laborers are called. And then the sun sets and the darkness descends and they all gather, and the owner of the garden gives everybody the same amount of money - to those who had come in the morning and to those who...

... had come in the afternoon, and even to those who had just come and had only worked not more than half an hour. Naturally, the people who had come in the morning became annoyed, irritated, angry. They said, "What is this? This is unfair! We worked the whole day and we get the same amount of money for our work. And these people have just come, they have not even worked at all - they are also...

... getting the same amount of money? This is unfair!" And the master started laughing and he said, "Just think of one thing: is whatsoever you have got not enough for your labor?" They said, "It is enough. It is in fact double what we ordinarily get from somebody else." The master said, "Then why are you worried about others? This is my money. You have got double what you...

... would have got anywhere else, but you are not happy. You are being miserable because I have given to others. This is my money and I have so much to give. My treasures are full, I am burdened. I give to these laborers not because they have worked, but because I have so much that I don't know what to do with it. Why are you angry?" Jesus tells this parable in reference to God. And he says, "...

..., as illegal - without it having been proved before a court. The case is still in the court. The court is theirs, but they cannot wait even for the court to decide. The federal government has stopped giving the money that was due to the city; not only that, the federal government has asked that the money that they have given for the past two years should be returned. For two years the city was legal...

.... And what support have they given? - two hundred and sixty-five dollars! I would like the mayor of your city to return the money with interest. Such a poor government, giving such a great support to the city, certainly needs at least bank-rate interest on the great sum of two hundred and sixty-five dollars. These nuts think they are democratic. The state government has stopped giving their share. The...

... Mody's store and went in. Mody stood up, afraid that now there was going to be trouble; this man has been released. Barkat said, "Pay the taxi - I don't have any money. And you know for six months you have kept me unemployed, so, some money for my pocket." I was just present there because Mody's store was just next to my father's shop. Mody had to pay the taxi and give Barkat a few rupees. He...

... told Barkat, "Don't come every day," and Barkat said, "Till I manage something I will have to come, because six months you kept me unemployed. You are responsible." He continued to come every day, and I said to Mody, "Modyji, you go on giving money to Barkat." He said, "What to do? He can cut my throat - he is a dangerous man! You don't see: when he comes inside the...

... shop, he shows me a knife. Nobody sees it from the outside because of so many things in the shop. With one hand he asks for the money, with the other hand he shows me a knife, so everybody thinks I am giving the money happily. You think I am giving it happily?" I said, "No, I know about the knife because Barkat Mian is my friend and he tells me everything." I asked Barkat, "How...

... substance; it is dream stuff. So people are very much obsessed with money, but they talk of God; obsessed with politics and power, and they talk of God. That remains just talk. In the West, just the opposite has happened. The lower was accepted, for the same reason -- because if there is only one, you can relax. You can drop the creative discontent if there is only one. Hence the attraction for the one...

... letter to somebody, to whom are you going to write? A small child once wrote a letter to God. His mother was ill and his father had died and they had no money, so he asked God for fifty rupees. When the letter reached the post office they were at a loss -- what to do with it? Where to send it? It was simply addressed to God. So they opened it. They felt very sorry for the little boy and they decided to...

... collect some money and send it to him. They collected some money; he had asked for fifty rupees but they could collect only forty. The next letter came, again addressed to God, and the boy had written, "Dear Sir, please next time when you send the money, send it directly to me, don't send it through the post office. They have taken their commission -- ten rupees!" It will be difficult if...

... paint it, to give it a prop here and there, and it is constantly collapsing. By the time you have managed to prop up one side, the other side starts collapsing. And that's what people go on doing their whole life, trying to make the fiction seem as if it is the truth. Have more money, then you can have a bigger ego, a little more solid than the ego of the poor man. The poor man's ego is thin; he can't...

... afford a thicker ego. Become the prime minister or president of a country, and your ego is puffed up to extremes. Then you don't walk on the earth. Our whole life, the search for money, power, prestige, this and that, is nothing but a search for new props, a search for new supports, to somehow keep the fiction going. And all the time you know death is coming. Whatsoever you make, death is going to...

... disconnection from the universal energy -- the greatest danger. And now there are foolish people in the world who are writing books, and with very logical acumen, saying that sleep is not needed at all, it is a wastage of time. They are right, it is a wastage of time. For people who think in terms of money and work, people who are workaholics, for them it is a wastage of time. Just as there is now Alcoholics...

... had come in the morning and those who had come in the afternoon and those who had just come and had not worked at all were also given the same amount of money. Naturally, the people who had been working the whole day in the hot sun complained; they were angry. They said, "This is unjust! These people have just come! They have not done anything at all, and they receive the same amount of money...

...? And a few people have come in the middle of the day, they have done only half the work, and they also receive the same amount of money as we have received? This is unfair!" The wealthy man laughed and he said, "Answer me one question: is what I have given to you not enough for the labor that you have done?" They said, "It is more than enough, but what about the others?" And...

... the rich man said, "You need not worry about others. I give them not because they have worked, I give them because I have too much to give. I am burdened! Can't I give my money to anybody, to whomsoever I want to give? Can't I throw my money to the winds? You have received your worth. You have received because you worked, they are receiving because I have so much to give." This is a very...

... ancient habit; for many, many lives you have practised it. You have put so much energy into it, into forgetting yourself. You remember money, you remember others, you remember the world. To remember all these things - all these things which Taoists call 'the ten thousand and one things'.... If you want to remember these ten thousand and one things, you will have to forget yourself, because your eyes...

... of America, of India - in the future. You can do anything that you want, and everybody does something. Just sitting silently, you start imagining that passing by the side of the road you have found a bag full of money. And not only that, you start planning how to use that money; you start purchasing things. You are the master. The past and the future give you the idea that you are a king. The...