... inner discipline. Once you have learned the ways of the inner discipline, he's there, ready to destroy that too - because either you are ruled from the outside or from the inside. You are a slave; freedom is only when there is no rule. So the inner discipline is just a step to get out from the outer domination of the society, of the state, of the masses, civilization, culture, etcetera. Once you are...

... free of the outer domination, then Buddha starts destroying your inner discipline too. That's why I call him the greatest anarchist ever. There have been people who have taught that no outside rule should exist, but Buddha is alone in teaching that even the inside rule is a form of slavery, a subtle slavery. No- discipline is his discipline. And when a person is absolutely without any discipline...

... NIRVANA AS AWAKENING FROM A DAYDREAM OR NIGHTMARE. I CONSIDER THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN HETERODOX AND ORTHODOX AS THE ANTICS OF THE SIX [MYTHICAL] DRAGONS. I CONSIDER THE DOCTRINE OF SAMENESS AS THE ABSOLUTE GROUND OF REALITY. THE BUDDHA is the greatest anarchist in human history. He does not believe in any rule from the outside. To help you become free from the outside, he teaches you an inner rule, an...

..., then there is beauty - because then there is freedom. Then one acts spontaneously; not according to any rule imposed by others or imposed by oneself. Then one simply acts out of nothingness. Then the response is total; nothing is being held back, and there is no enforcement of any sort, there is no violence. There is tremendous grace, there is benediction - because now the actor has completely...

... not one. And there is bound to be conflict in this duality, because in reality you are one, and this is a fiction. Who is trying to rule whom? Who is there to be dominated by whom? There is only one existence inside, one being. To bring any sort of discipline means to divide that unity, and that division is misery, that division is hell. So first Buddha says: There is no God - because if there is a...

... no need for any belief. Belief is not a requirement: it is an obstacle. Be open. Explore. Doubt, think, meditate, experiment; and when a mind comes to experience truth without any belief, the mind itself becomes true - because then there is a communion between truth and the mind. Be fearless. There is no need for anybody to dominate you; freedom is the very substratum. First he drops outer beliefs...

.... You know the students; somebody may scratch it." "Then why have you purchased this car?" He said, "I love it." Now, think of loving a car! But there are people who love cars, who love houses. It is not very difficult to see what has happened to them. These are the people who cannot love a person; they can only love a thing - because you can manipulate a thing, control a...

... thing, better than a person. A person is always dangerous. If you love a woman it is always dangerous; if you love a man it is always dangerous - because a man or a woman is a freedom, intrinsic freedom. You cannot totally control. Man has tried in every way - to create marriage, and laws, and this and that, and create respectability around it, and punishment and awards, and everything just to make...

... of Buddha. You have come to the Buddhaland. You have come to know the Tao. These sutras of Lao Tzu are methods: How to attain to the inner Buddhaland. Now, try to understand the sutras. THAT WHICH LIES STILL IS EASY TO HOLD; You have been trying, in a thousand and one ways, to hold yourself, to control yourself, but you have not been able to because the mind is not still. When the mind is not still...

... you cannot hold it. When it is still it is no more, it is not there - and that is the only way to hold it. You cannot control the mind. In fact people who control the mind are the people who don't have the mind. It is a misnomer to say that they control the mind. People who have the mind never control it, cannot control it. If the mind is there mind will control you. If the mind is not there only...

... then you can control it, and the mind is not there when it is still. So when people say: I would like to have a still mind, a silent mind, a peaceful mind, they don't know what they are saying, because mind exists only when it is not still. There is nothing like a still mind. A still mind is a no-mind! Have you seen anything like a still storm? Have you seen anything like that? When the storm is...

..., the same thing can be done by a stick, or something else, any pointer can do it, and the pointer has no relationship with the moon. The whole language works as a pointer. Lao Tzu has to say something which is not exactly so: THAT WHICH LIES STILL IS EASY TO HOLD; but he is pointing in the right direction. If you want to hold yourself, if you want to control yourself, if you want to become a master...

... of your own being, if you don't want to be a slave, and a slave of so many masters: everybody manipulating you, manoeuvring you, controlling you, oppressing you, exploiting you - enemies, friends, those who are close kith and kin and those who are foes - all manoeuvring you, trying to control you, if you want to be a master of yourself - the only way is to still the mind, to slow down its process...

... be heard. But if you become a little silent you will know of anger before it reaches you. Then it can be treated very easily. The second stage is when the anger has taken possession. Then it is almost impossible to push the force back. In fact you are so much possessed that you are not there to control it. When you are angry you are not, only anger is; your total being is taken possession of. It...

... Available: N.A. Length: N.A. DATE-JITOKU, A FINE WAKA POET, WANTED TO MASTER ZEN. WITH THIS IN MIND HE MADE AN APPOINTMENT TO SEE EKKEI, ABBOT OF SHOKOKUJI IN KYOTO. JITOKU WENT TO THE MASTER FULL OF HOPES, BUT AS SOON AS HE ENTERED THE ROOM HE RECEIVED A WHACK. HE WAS ASTONISHED AND MORTIFIED: NO ONE HAD EVER DARED TO STRIKE HIM BEFORE, BUT AS IT IS A STRICT ZEN RULE NEVER TO SAY OR DO ANYTHING UNLESS...

... emotions at the time you killed her?' asked the lawyer, anxious to get the point on the record. 'I was in a white-hot fury,' said the defendant, 'mad with rage, simply out of my mind, and unable to control myself.' He turned to the jury and, pounding the arm of the witness chair, cried out, 'Gentlemen, when I come home at six o'clock, supper has to be on the table!"" That was his reason for...

... of people are in trouble. If you follow a jesus you will be in trouble. Look at christians. Look at jains. Look at people who are followers. They are bound to be in trouble, because life goes on changing every moment and they have dead principles. Remember, there is only one golden rule - that there are no golden rules. Each rule is arbitrary, every rule is arbitrary. No rule can be ultimate. It is...

... simply a tremendous gift. One should receive it in deep gratitude. It brings you to the earth. It brings you to the herenow. You have gone so far away that only a hit on the head can bring you here. ... BUT AS SOON AS HE ENTERED THE ROOM HE RECEIVED A WHACK. HE WAS ASTONISHED AND MORTIFIED: NO ONE HAD EVER DARED TO STRIKE HIM BEFORE, BUT AS IT IS A STRICT ZEN RULE NEVER TO SAY OR DO ANYTHING UNLESS...

... ASKED BY THE MASTER, HE WITHDREW SILENTLY. But he missed. He followed the rule, but he could not respond to the situation. When you follow a rule, you miss the situation. He knew that it is a rule that unless the master says something you are not expected even to utter a single word - and he had not said anything. He had to withdraw. But deep down he was hurt. The master had hit his head to bring him...

... HIM BEFORE... inside he said - he moved to the past - 'no one has ever dared to hit me before.' The master hit him to come herenow; he moved to the past. From the future he jumped to the past. He missed the middle point. He followed a rule. Rules are not helpful with a master. You have to respond, not according to rules. You have to watch the situation. You are not to interpret according to your...

...? Your parents, your society, have not left you in a position of control. On the contrary, they are in the position of control, they know how to control you. In fact, before they could control you it was absolutely necessary that you were no longer in control of yourself In my childhood it was an everyday problem with my parents. I told them again and again and again, "One thing you should...

... you want something to be done please don't tell me. Let me find it myself "Once I am ordered, I am determined to disobey, even though I know that what you are saying is right; but that is not the question. This small thing and its rightness does not matter much. It is a question of my whole life, Who is going to be in control? These small rights and wrongs don't matter to me - what does it...

... matter? "What matters to me it is a life and death question is who is going to be in control? Are you going to be in control, or am I going to be in control? Is it my life or your life?" A few times they tried and they found that I was determined. I would do just the opposite. Of course it was not right, what they wanted was certainly right. And there was no denial of the fact from my side...

... submit to the times; otherwise they were losing their people and they were not getting anybody from the other folds. So in Hinduism there has been a movement, arya samaj, of very scholarly people, but not saintly at all. Maharishi Dhyananda inaugurated and founded Arya Samaj. It is a fanatic sect to convert everybody into Hinduism. In the same way, the Jews had to take some steps. Orthodox Jews were of...

... of crackpot or.... For what reason? And to be converted to orthodox Judaism is such a process that no intelligent person would submit to it. So there is a great stir about what will happen, because eighty percent of Jews converted in America are converted by unorthodox people. These people will not be entitled to enter Israel or become part of that country - and these are the people who have been...

... if you watch their life they are more afraid of death than anybody else. Otherwise, how can you explain the one thousand years of slavery of this country? Very small races -- England is no bigger than a small province of India. Three crore people only were able to dominate a country of fifty crore. It seems simply impossible! How did it happen? -- because the country is cowardly. They cannot fight...

... him. They cannot believe in his sage part because, they say, "How can such a sinner be a sage? Impossible! Both cannot exist in one man." And this is the whole point, that they both exist in one man. You can do only one thing: you can suppress one and pretend the other. You can suppress one in the unconscious and the other you can bring to the surface, but then your saint will be skindeep...

... and your sinner will be very, very deep in the roots. Or you can do just the opposite: you can bring the sinner to the skin and suppress the saint -- the criminals are doing that. The one possibility is that I suppress my sinner, but that sinner will affect somebody somewhere, because we are one. Says Heraclitus: "Private intelligence is false." We are one. Consciousness is a community, we...

... exist in one net. And if I suppress my sinner, somewhere at some weaker link the sinner will pop up. Ram is a saint; then the sinner pops up in Ravana. They are both together, one phenomenon. Jesus is a saint; then Judas, the disciple who loved him most, becomes the sinner. Saints are responsible for sinners, and sinners help saints to be saints. But this is not good. If I suppress something in my...

... is public, which is in fact universal. So if I suppress something, then first it goes into my unconscious and creates trouble for me. If I suppress it really deep, and go on suppressing it, and use methods and tricks to suppress it so much that it simply drops from my unconscious also and moves into the collective unconscious, then somewhere, somebody, a weakling, will get it. Because I force it...

... what type of saint do I have in my mind? A saint who does not suppress the opposite but uses it, who is not against anything but makes a new arrangement of things. In his greater harmony even evil becomes good. In that harmony he uses even discarded parts. And it is a great art to be both together. It is the greatest art, because then you have to seek the hidden harmony between the opposites -- then...

... satisfaction in any perverted form. And you cannot remain perverted, you have to express it. Suppression creates perversion. This sutra is not concerned with suppression. This sutra is not saying to control, this sutra is not saying to suppress. The sutra says, SUDDENLY, QUIT IT. What to do? The desire is there; you have considered. If you have considered it, it will not be difficult; the second part will be...

... very moment? This alive moment, what is happening to you? Consider it, observe it. And then the second part... this is really beautiful. Shiva says, THEN, SUDDENLY, QUIT IT. SUDDENLY - remember. Do not say, "This is bad, so I am going to leave it. I am not going to move with this idea, this desire. This is bad, this is sin, so I will stop it, I will suppress it." Then a suppression will...

... stops. That is why dangers have a secret appeal, an intrinsic appeal: they are meditative moments. If you race a car and it goes beyond ninety miles per hour, and then beyond one hundred and then beyond one hundred and ten and beyond one hundred and twenty, then a situation comes in which anything can happen and you will not be able to do anything. Now really, the car is beyond control, going beyond...

... control. Suddenly the mind cannot function; it is not ready for it. That is the thrill of speed - because a silence creeps in, you are thrown to the center. These techniques help you to move to the center without any accidents, without any danger. But remember, you cannot practice them. When I say you cannot practice them, what do I mean? In a way you can practice them: suddenly you can stop. But the...

.... It is more like compassion, less like your love, because your love implies hate, anger, violence. Energy can move, can change directions. It can become hate, it can become love - the same energy. And the same energy can move inward also, so whenever you have the impulse to do something, Stop! This is not suppression. You are not suppressing anything, you are just playing with energy - just playing...

... happen, but not a meditative state of mind. And suppression is really creating by your own hands a deceived being and mind. Suppression is psychological. You are disturbing the whole mechanism and suppressing energies which are going to burst out any day. The energy is there, you have simply suppressed it. It has not moved out, it has not moved in, you have simply suppressed it. It has simply moved...

... THE SUBLIME .... BUT ACTUALLY, THERE'S NOT EVEN ONE BUDDHA-BODY, MUCH LESS THREE. THIS TALK OF THREE BODIES IS SIMPLY BASED ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, WHICH CAN BE SHALLOW, MODERATE OR DEEP. PEOPLE OF SHALLOW UNDERSTANDING IMAGINE THEY'RE PILING UP BLESSINGS AND MISTAKE THE TRANSFORMATION BODY AS THE BUDDHA. PEOPLE OF MODERATE UNDERSTANDING IMAGINE THEY'RE PUTTING AN END TO SUFFERING AND MISTAKE THE...

... SUBLIME .... BUT ACTUALLY, THERE'S NOT EVEN ONE BUDDHA-BODY, MUCH LESS THREE. THIS TALK OF THREE BODIES IS SIMPLY BASED ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, WHICH CAN BE SHALLOW, MODERATE OR DEEP. PEOPLE OF SHALLOW UNDERSTANDING IMAGINE THEY'RE PILING UP BLESSINGS AND MISTAKE THE TRANSFORMATION BODY AS THE BUDDHA. PEOPLE OF MODERATE UNDERSTANDING IMAGINE THEY'RE PUTTING AN END TO SUFFERING AND MISTAKE THE REWARD...

... they can see this light. But the people of moderate understanding can see a deeper body, hidden behind this thin layer of light, a thicker layer of light known in the Buddhist scriptures as the reward body. It arises only when one has been meditating so much that one is earning immense reward. In this world the greatest treasure and the greatest reward is to learn to be silent, to be utterly silent...

...; Lin Chi said, "That's true. You have not come, I have called you, but I will slap all the same for a totally different reason today. Just come close." The disciple said, "This is going too far. I have been told that when you don't have anything to say, you cannot be slapped. You are breaking even that rule." The master said, "Don't waste time. Just come close. I am going to...

... HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, WHICH CAN BE SHALLOW, MODERATE OR DEEP. PEOPLE OF SHALLOW UNDERSTANDING IMAGINE THEY'RE PILING UP BLESSINGS AND MISTAKE THE TRANSFORMATION BODY AS THE BUDDHA. PEOPLE OF MODERATE UNDERSTANDING IMAGINE THEY'RE PUTTING AN END TO SUFFERING AND MISTAKE THE REWARD BODY AS THE BUDDHA. AND PEOPLE OF DEEP UNDERSTANDING IMAGINE THEY'RE EXPERIENCING BUDDHAHOOD AND MISTAKE THE REAL BODY AS...

... response. Somebody insults you. You become angry -- he has pushed your button. In fact he is the master, you are behaving like a slave. He has managed to create anger in you. He is in control. If he wants to change the situation he can say, "I am sorry," and things will be different. You are just a victim; you don't have any control of the situation. When somebody insults you, you are...

... foolish as a small wave trying to direct the whole ocean, trying to dominate the whole ocean, trying to pull the ocean in a certain direction, to certain goals. It is not possible. How can a small wave be in control of the vast ocean? And we are not even waves, we are just ripples. For one moment we are there, another moment we are gone. With this momentary life the only thing that you can learn is to...

..., fear arises that the other may dominate. So before the other starts dominating you have to plan. This is very unconscious. This is not done deliberately, it is instinctive, it is natural, biological. It is built-in. One remains afraid the other may start dominating - and then? So it is better to dominate before the other starts any kind of domination. There is bound to be a constant conflict. Unless...

.... In the spiritual world the means and the end are-the same. You cannot use wrong means for right ends in the spiritual world. In the ordinary world you can. The ordinary world is perfectly available to those who want to exploit it, oppress it, but God is not available to the exploiters. God is available only to the true, the innocent. God is available only to the authentic. There means and ends are...

... left to try what he had learned. Very soon he came back. 'Lord,' said Adam, 'What is a headache?' That's how it goes. So when your woman says that she has a headache, don't bother her. It is not something new. It started with Eve - and the very first day Adam made love to her. Then there is a constant effort to dominate. That too is natural - natural as long as man remains man and woman remains woman...

.... The man wants to dominate the woman in his own way, in his muscular way; the woman wants to dominate the man in her own feminine way - by tears, by crying, weeping. Those are her strategies. Just as you have muscles, she has tears. And it almost always happens that muscles are defeated by tears - because the softer wins over the harder. This is bound to be so because whenever two persons are there...

... become only two spirits. And only two spirits can live in communion forever. Then there arises a new kind of love which I call friendship. Friendship is higher than your so-called love. Your so-called love is full of hate; friendship is pure love. All hate has disappeared. All conflict, nagging, fighting has disappeared. All desire to dominate, possess, be jealous, has disappeared. Friendship is pure...

... Tzu here and there -- you can count them on your fingers. They don't constitute humanity, they are exceptions, and the exceptions only prove the rule. But the greater part of humanity has lived a schizophrenic life, a divided life, fragmentary. And how did man become so split? First thing: you are not acceptable as you are, so reject yourself. Rather than respecting yourself, reject yourself; rather...

... brings a new curse; it is no longer a blessing. The politicians are afraid that if they force birth control on the country then the people won't vote for them, so they cannot enforce birth control. So they deliver sermons on brahmacharya, celibacy; they themselves are not celibate, and they go on teaching people celibacy. And people love these ideas, these are the ideas they have loved for centuries so...

... they feel very good: this is their culture, their culture is being praised. This is the right way to control population -- celibacy. And how many people are going to do it? That is not the point at all. A cultural idea, praised for centuries, feels very ego-satisfying. Celibacy is not going to work. Birth control will have to be brought in. If people willingly accept it, good. If they don't accept it...

... willingly, then it has to be forced on them. People cannot be left to destroy the whole country. But if you talk about enforcing birth control they say then you are not a democrat. You stop people by force in many things: thieves are not allowed to steal -- is it non- democratic? Thieves should be allowed, given freedom -- democracy means freedom! Murders are not allowed. Now giving birth to so many...

.... Unless birth control is enforced totally, this country cannot be rich. My attitude is very clear, my approach is absolutely clear, but the country's old mind is not ready to listen. People come to me and they say, "What you are doing for India's poverty? Why don't you run hospitals, and why don't you distribute free food from the ashram?" This has been done for at least ten thousand years...

... that they do is serve the politicians. There is a conspiracy between organized religion and the state -- between church and state. Together they dominate people, together they reduce people into slavery. If the people are poor it is easier to force them into slavery; if people are poor it is easier to give them beliefs, superstitions. If people are poor they are always afraid of hell and always...

... greedy for heaven. The priest can dominate them and the politician can also dominate them because they are so poor. In poverty, people lose intelligence. Intelligence needs a certain nourishment. It is a well known scientific fact that if certain vitamins are missing in your food you will not be intelligent. And I am really worried, because those are the vitamins which are missing in Indian food...

... practicing your smiles just to hide the tears within. This is usually what people do. Somebody once asked Nietzsche, "You are always laughing! You are so joyous! Do you really feel this way?" Nietzsche said, "Now that you have asked, I will tell you the reality. I am laughing so that I don't start crying instead. Before my crying can start, I suppress it by laughing. I stop it inside myself...

... as it is. Close yourself in a room - like the emperor - and give total freedom to your mind. Tell it, "Whatever you want to think, to contemplate, let it happen." Drop all the censoring of yourself that has prevented things from surfacing - drop all that. Give your mind the freedom to allow whatever arises to arise; to allow whatever appears to appear. Don't stop or suppress anything. You...

... are ready to know what is inside. And you should also not judge what is good or bad because the moment you judge, suppression begins. Whatever you call bad, the mind starts suppressing, and whatever you call good, the mind starts using as a cover-up. So you don't need to judge anything as either good nor bad. Whatever there is in the mind, however it is, be prepared to know it as it is. If you let...

... we suppress them, the bad thoughts do not get destroyed, they only go deeper into our subconscious. By suppressing it, a thought does not leave, it goes more deeply into our being - because what we are suppressing arose from within, it did not come from somewhere outside. Remember, whatever is there in your mind doesn't come from somewhere outside, it comes from within. It is as if a spring is...

... from within, not from the outside. And the more we suppress it, the more ugly and perverted it becomes. Then it finds new ways to come out, new complications are created - but we go on suppressing it harder. The basis of our education from our very childhood is that if a certain thought in the mind is wrong, suppress it. That suppressed thought does not get destroyed, it enters deeper into our...

... subconscious. And the more we go on suppressing it, the deeper it goes, and the more it gets a grip on us. Anger is wrong, so we suppress it - then a current of anger spreads right through us. Sex is wrong, greed is wrong, this is wrong, that is wrong.... Whatever is wrong we suppress and in the end we find that we have become whatsoever we suppressed. How long can you block those suppressed springs by...

... closing their openings? And the mind functions in certain ways. For example, whatever we want to suppress or escape from, becomes central to the mind. Whatever we want to escape from becomes an attraction and the mind starts moving towards it. Try it! If you try to escape from something or suppress something, the mind will immediately become focussed on it. Milarepa was a mystic who lived in Tibet. One...