Taojournal

A society exists as a crowd. You can turn it into an army immediately, with no trouble. The society lives just on the boundary, you can switch it immediately: a little discipline and the society can be turned into a military camp. There is no individuality because individuality is not allowed, you should not assert yourself. This is the sheeplike crowd, the sheeplike mind. Jesus is antisocial, Buddha is antisocial, but Christianity is not antisocial, Buddhism is not antisocial. Society is very cunning: it immediately absorbs -- even antisocial phenomena it absorbs into the social. It creates a facade, it gives you a false coin, and then you are happy, just like small children who have been given a false, plastic breast. They go on sucking it, they feel they are being nourished. It will soothe them, of course, they will fall into sleep.

I answer with the story of Diogenes...
He used to live naked. He is the only man in the Western world who can be compared to Mahavira in India. Both were contemporaries; both lived naked. Both had immensely beautiful bodies and were very strong people.
Diogenes was going to the river. He used to carry only a begging bowl. Mahavira did not use any begging bowl because everything that you become used to creates a subtle, psychological slavery.
Mahavira used to make a cup with his hands to drink or to take food. But Diogenes, like all old renunciates, used to carry a begging bowl. He was running towards the river; he was so thirsty and it was hot. And just then he saw a dog running by his side. The dog jumped ahead of him in the river and started drinking.
Diogenes felt very much offended, but he also felt deeply grateful to the dog.... he has shown him that a begging bowl is not needed! You can drink water without it, why carry it unnecessarily? "If a dog can manage to live without a begging bowl, I am a man; I can manage." First, he threw away the begging bowl, and he said, "That was my only possession -- and I was thinking that I had overcome all attachment, but throwing that bowl, I knew that now I had become really free. Otherwise, I used to keep an eye out in case somebody might steal the begging bowl."
It was a beautiful bowl presented to him by a king and beautifully carved. In the night also he used to touch the begging bowl once or twice to see that it was still there. He said, "Since the moment the dog taught me the lesson, I have felt such freedom, and such a burden has been relieved from my heart."
If this is the situation with a begging bowl, what will be the situation of people who are possessed of so many things, so possessive that things become their only life? And remember, the moment you become attached to a person, the person is no more a person. You have changed the person into a commodity, into a thing. Only things can be possessed.

 
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5903364917903242836&ei=rNP3SMiMC4iG2gKkk63dDg&q=

 If you make somebody a slave, you also become dependent on him. You have to take care of him, you have to take care of his health. You have taken on a great responsibility. But if the slave has lost his responsibility, he has also lost his freedom; he has also lost his dignity, his humanity. He has become a beast of burden; he is just like a machine. You take care of the machine also. You wash your car, you clean your car, you are always aware if something is wrong that it has to be replaced. Just as you take care of your machines, you take care of your slaves. So it is true that the master also becomes in a certain way dependent on the slave. But the Christian does not realize the implication of this statement. If God is his master, that means God is his slave. It is his statement; he is saying, "Do you realize that a slave is more free than the master?" So God is less free than you are! But a less free God becomes inferior to you, a less free God cannot bring freedom to you. He himself is less free. So why bother about a God who is not even equally as free as you, to say nothing about his superiority in freedom -- he is less free than you. But fanatics don't understand logic, don't understand argument. Fanatics are just blind people. Otherwise, no Christian would  have said, "This is because the master has all the responsibility and the slave has no cares in the world. We are lucky to have God as our master!" He should have said, "We are lucky to have God as our slave, because he takes all the cares and all the responsibilities; he creates the world and he creates the sin and he creates all kinds of troubles and he creates all kinds of solutions, and he sends his own son to save the world, and he sends prophets upon prophets to fight amongst each other and kill people... He has such a great involvement and business, he is so occupied! And what does he get in return? Just these fanatics." If there is a God, man is not only a slave, man does not exist, man is a puppet. If God, the way the Christians believe, made man out of mud and then breathed life into him, breathing, man is just a created puppet. All the strings are in the hands of God. Any moment, just as at a certain moment that whimsical God created man...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1464530697571883254&ei=k3jZSOyWJYKg2gKuyNTBAg&q=

Friend, he who wants to become like someone else loses himself. Every seed contains in itself its own tree and so also each individual. There is no other way to be anything except one's own self. In an attempt to be something else, it is possible that the individual may not become what he could have been. Search out what you are; and the way to develop lies in what you can be. Other than that there is no ideal for anybody. In the name of ideals persons get deflected from the path of self-development; they reach nowhere. I see suicides behind the cover of ideals and there could be nothing but suicides. What shall I do whenever I will try to be like some one else? I will kill my own self; I will suppress myself: I will hate myself. Thus there will be suicide and hypocrisy; because it will be an acting to show what I am not, to look and to demonstrate what I am not. As soon as duality develops in individuality, hypocrisy sets in. Wherever there is self-contradiction in personality there is falsehood, there is irreligion; and it is only natural that such an unnatural attempt should bring pain, worry and repentance. The excess of such tensions becomes a hell for men. Except the ideal, born out of the self-born truth, self-born possibilities, and the discipline which automatically follows like its shadow, everything else makes a man ugly and deformed. Frames or ideals and discipline, imported from outside, bring about suicide. Therefore, I search for myself and find myself. It is the door of Tao, only those are welcome who find themselves. Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed cannot be taken up as covers and whoever puts them on, has neither music, nor independence, nor beauty, nor truth in him individuality. God will give him the same treatment as a king of Smarta gave to a man who had become so adept in imitating the voice of a bulbul that he had forgotten the voice of man. That person was very famous and people from far and wide came to listen to him. He wanted to demonstrate his skill even before he king. After great difficulty he could get the permission to appear before him. He had thought that the king would give him praise and honour him with reward. This expectation of his was not unjustified after the praise and rewards he had been getting from others. But what did the king tell him? The king said: "Gentleman, I have heard the bulbul itself singing, and I expect you to sing not the songs of bulbul but the songs for which you have been born. For songs of the bulbul, bulbuls are enough. You go and prepare your own song and when vou have prepared it come to me. I will be ready to welcome you and rewards will also be ready for you." Surely, life is not to imitate others, but to develop the tree which is hidden in the seed of the self. Life is not imitation; it is an original creation.

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4244248160452883799&ei=SFTQSKrJMI-w2ALLnaW-Ag&q=

"Hello. This is long distance. I have a call for you from Palm Springs."
"Hello, Herman, this is Rube. Listen, I am stranded here and I need five hundred dollars."
"I can't hear you. Something is wrong with the phone."
"I want five hundred dollars!"
"I still can't hear you."
"I can hear it okay," interrupted the operator.
"Then YOU give him the five hundred dollars!"
You listen only to that which fits with you, you avoid listening to that which can be a disturbance.

Once it happened that Mulla Nasruddin went on his first air trip, and he was afraid but he didn't want anybody to know. It happens to everybody on their first flight: nobody wants this to be their first. He wanted to behave nonchalantly so he walked very bravely. That bravery was an explanation: I always travel by air. Then he sat down in his seat and he wanted to say something just to put himself at ease, because whenever you start talking, you become brave; through talk, you feel less fear. So Nasruddin spoke to the passenger next to him. He looked out of the window and said, "Look, what terrific height! People look like ants." The other man said, "Sir, we have not taken off yet. Those ARE ants."

 Explanations cannot hide anything. Rather, on the contrary, they reveal. If you can look, if you have eyes, every explanation is transparent. It would have been better if he had kept quiet. But don't try silence as an explanation. As an explanation it is of no use. Your silence will be revealing, and your words will reveal -- it is better not to be a liar! Then you need not give any explanations. It is better to be truthful -- the easiest thing is to be true and authentic. If you are afraid, it is better to say, "I am afraid," and accepting the fact your fear will disappear. Acceptance is such a miracle. When you accept that you are afraid and say, "This is my first trip," suddenly you will feel a change coming over you. The basic fear is not fear, the basic fear is the fear of the fear: I don't want anyone to know that I am afraid, I don't want anyone to know that I am a coward. But everybody is a coward in a new situation, and in a new situation to be brave is foolish. To be cowardly only means that the situation is so new that your mind cannot supply any answers,  the past cannot give the answers, so you are trembling.

Allen Naturvölkern wurde ein Urwesen überliefert, das in einigen Kulturen als Drache verehrt wird. Der Drache vereinigt in sich das Substrat aller Winde und Wasser, von Donner und Mond, des Fisches wie des Adlers, der Schlange wie der Schildkröte. Der Drache symbolisiert die Quintessenz aller Totemkräfte, aller Pflanzen und Elemente, der Sterne und Sonnen. Die Einheit des Kosmos, die Wandlung der Natur ist der Drache.
It combines all that is beautiful in all, it is multi-dimensional. All these are one-dimensional, the dragon is multi-dimensional. It teaches you how to be born and yet never to be born. It teaches you how to die and yet to live immensely. It teaches you how to fall in love and yet go on rising up. It teaches you how to disappear in love and yet remain aloof, unpossessed, non-possessive. It teaches you how to be with the other and yet remain free and let the other be free. It teaches you how to meditate and be alone and yet not let your aloneness become an escape, to be alone and yet be in the world. It teaches you how to be a lotus leaf in the lake, in the water, and yet untouched by it.
MASTER LU-TSU SAID: WHEN THE LIGHT IS MADE TO MOVE IN A CIRCLE, ALL THE ENERGIES OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, OF THE LIGHT AND THE DARK, ARE CRYSTALLIZED. WHEN ONE BEGINS TO APPLY THIS MAGIC IT IS AS IF, IN THE MIDDLE OF BEING, THERE WERE NON-BEING. WHEN IN THE COURSE OF TIME THE WORK IS COMPLETED, AND BEYOND THE BODY THERE IS A BODY, IT IS AS IF, IN THE MIDDLE OF NON-BEING, THERE WERE BEING. ONLY AFTER CONCENTRATED WORK OF A HUNDRED DAYS WILL THE LIGHT BE GENUINE, THEN ONLY WILL IT BECOME SPIRIT-FIRE.

Kryon gehört zu jenen Engelwesenheiten, die unser Neues Zeitalter begleiten und betreuen. Einer seiner Aspekte ist gegenwärtig dabei, auf dem Planeten Erde ein neues Magnetgitter zu erstellen. Dieses schafft die physikalischen (magnetischen) Voraussetzungen dafür, dass die Menschheit und der Planet Erde einen Lichtkörper und ein erleuchtetes Bewusstsein entwickeln können. Es befreit uns von den magnetischen Beschränkungen, die uns im zuende gehenden Zyklus der vergangenen 12'000 Jahre körperlich, emotional und mental in einem intensiven Karma-Spiel unterstützt haben. Zu Kryon's kosmischer Familie gehört auch Erzengel Michael. Kryon hat auf der Erde nur neun Channel, die seine Energie direkt übermitteln können. Dazu gehört der Kalifornier Lee Carroll. Aus dieser Zusammenarbeit sind bereits acht Bücher entstanden.
Because of the restrictions and inhibitions that we have imposed on the mind from all sides, we don't let the mind express itself in its spontaneity. We have restricted all its spontaneity. Everything has become unnatural and false. We have covered everything in veils, we are wearing false faces, and we never allow the mind to express itself directly.  

In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian descent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. According to their traditions, the star Sirius has a companion star which is invisible to the human eye. This companion star has a 50 year elliptical orbit around the visible Sirius and is extremely heavy. It also rotates on its axis. How did a people who lacked any kind of astronomical devices know so much about an invisible star? The star, which scientists call Sirius B, wasn't even photographed until it was done by a large telescope in 1970. The Dogon stories explain that also. According to their oral traditions, a race people from the Sirius system called the Nommos visited Earth thousands of years ago. The Nommos were ugly, amphibious beings that resembled mermen and mermaids. They also appear in Babylonian, Accadian, and Sumerian myths. The Egyptian Goddess Isis, who is sometimes depicted as a mermaid, is also linked with the star Sirius. The Nommos, according to the Dogon legend, lived on a planet that orbits another star in the Sirius system. They landed on Earth in an "ark" that made a spinning decent to the ground with great noise and wind. It was the Nommos that gave the Dogon the knowledge about Sirius B. The legend goes on to say the Nommos also furnished the Dogon's with some interesting information about our own solar system: That the planet Jupiter has four major moons, that Saturn has rings and that the planets orbit the sun. These were all facts discovered by Westerners only after Galileo invented the telescope. So did alien fish-men pay a visit to ancient Earth and give the Dogon their knowledge? Or was the Dogon's culture contaminated by western visitors? Or could the Dogon's have had ancient technical or non-technical means to find this information out? Or is the whole thing just a matter of coincidence? The question maybe settled as larger and more powerful telescopes take a look at the Sirius system. According to the legend there is a third star: Sirius C, and it is around Sirius C that the home planet of the Nommos orbits. Most scientists do not consider any part of the Sirius system a prime candidate for life, though. In 1995 researchers authored an article in the prestigious journal Astronomy and Astrophysics with the title Is Sirius a Triple Star? and suggested (based on observations of motions in the Sirius system) there is a small third star there. They thought the star was probably of a type known as a "red dwarf" and only had about .05 the mass of Sirius B.
So has the home star of the Nommos been discovered? Or is this just another strange coincidence?

FOR IF IN YOUR RENUNCIATION
YOU ARE RECKLESS AND BREAK YOUR WORD,
IF YOUR PURPOSE WAVERS,
YOU WILL NOT FIND THE LIGHT.
DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO
RESOLUTELY, WITH ALL YOUR HEART.
THE TRAVELER WHO HESITATES
ONLY RAISES DUST ON THE ROAD.
IT IS BETTER TO DO NOTHING
THAN TO DO WHAT IS WRONG.
FOR WHATEVER YOU DO, YOU DO TO YOURSELF.
LIKE A BORDER TOWN WELL GUARDED,
GUARD YOURSELF WITHIN AND WITHOUT.
LET NOT A SINGLE MOMENT PASS
LEST YOU FALL INTO DARKNESS.
FEEL SHAME ONLY WHERE SHAME IS DUE.
FEAR ONLY WHAT IS FEARFUL.
SEE EVIL ONLY IN WHAT IS EVIL.
LEST YOU MISTAKE THE TRUE WAY
AND FALL INTO DARKNESS.
SEE WHAT IS.
SEE WHAT IS NOT.
FOLLOW THE TRUE WAY.
RISE.
Gautama the Buddha has given to the world the most psychological religion. It is incomparable; no other religion even comes close to it. Its heights, its depths, are tremendous. And the reason why Buddha succeeded in giving such a beautiful vision of life is very simple: he did not believe; he inquired, he explored. He did not believe in the tradition, he did not believe in the scriptures, he did not believe in the priests. This was one of his fundamentals: that unless you know, you don't know. You can borrow knowledge, you can become knowledgeable, well informed, a scholar, a pundit, a professor, but you will not be a seer. Deep down the ignorance will persist and will affect your life. Deep down you will remain the same childish self, immature, ungrounded, uncentered, unintegrated. You will not be an individual, you won't have any authenticity. You will be pseudo, false, phony. It is a quantum leap into the unknown. When you don't believe in the tradition, when you don't believe in the scriptures, when you don't believe in anything except your own experience, you are going into the unknown all alone. It needs guts, it needs courage. And only a courageous person can be truly religious. Cowards are there in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques in millions, but they don't create any religious beauty, any religious fragrance in the world. They don't make the world more beautiful, more alive, more sensitive. They don't create anything. They only go on doing formalities, rituals. They themselves are dead and they go on deceiving others; they themselves are deceived. Borrowed knowledge creates great deception because you start feeling as if you know -- and that "as if" is a big "as if." Truth liberates, belief binds. Truth liberates because it has to be yours; it has to be an inner experience, an encounter with that which is. Buddha is a nonbeliever. He is not an atheist like Karl Marx or Friedrich Nietzsche; neither is he a theist like all the priests of all the religions. He is an agnostic. He neither believes nor disbelieves; he is open. That is his great gift to the world: to be open to truth.

Kaum ein altägyptisches Königspaar ist so berühmt und gibt gleichzeitig so viele Rätsel auf wie Echnaton und seine Frau Nofretete, die im 14. Jahrhundert vor Christus lebten. Insbesondere die Todesumstände und der Verbleib der Leichname liegt im Dunkeln. Jetzt hat die britische Ägyptologin Susan James die These aufgestellt, dass Nofretete möglicherweise schon seit über 100 Jahren als Mumie Nr. 61070 im Ägyptischen Museum von Kairo liegt.

Die Mumie 61070 wurde 1898 von dem französischen Archäologen Victor Loret in einer königlichen Grabkammer gefunden und war seither unter dem Namen "Ältere Dame" bekannt. Nach der Haaranalyse hat man sie zunächst für Königin Teje gehalten, die Mutter von Echnaton. Allerdings gab es Unstimmigkeiten: Die Ältere Dame war bei ihrem Tod noch gar nicht so alt, wie ihr Name vermuten lässt - sie war etwa 24 bis 34. Die Königin Teje ist aber nach Erkenntnissen der Ägyptologen mit über 40 gestorben. Von Nofretete hingegen vermutet man, dass sie um 1340 v. Chr. im Alter von 28 oder 29 Jahren starb. Die Mumie passt auch in der Gestalt zu der berühmten Kalksteinbüste von Nofretete, die im Ägyptischen Museum in Berlin steht. Besonders auffällig das so genannte Philtrum, die Rinne zwischen Nase und Oberlippe. Es ist sowohl an der Nofretete-Büste sehr hervorgehoben als auch bei der Mumie. Auf Porträts von Königin Teje ist das Philtrum jedoch nicht so ausgeprägt.

Das beste Verfahren, die Identität der Mumie zu klären, wäre natürlich eine DNA-Analyse. Die sei in diesem Fall nicht möglich, wie die Hamburger Ägyptologin Renate Germer erklärt, die ebenfalls die Mumie untersucht hat: "Nofretete ist nicht die Mutter von Tutenchamun, der Echnaton auf den Thron gefolgt ist und dessen Mumie bereits gefunden wurde. Und wir haben nicht die Mumien ihrer Eltern."

Die Schwierigkeit der Klärung der Todesumstände von Echnaton und Nofretete liegt vor allem in der Religion begründet, die Echnaton eingeführt hatte. Er erhob den Kult um Aton zur Staatsgottheit, führte damit erstmals eine monotheistische Religion ein und entmachtete die Priesterschaft des vorherigen Amun-Kultes. Er befasste sich in seiner Regierungszeit mehr und mehr mit dem Kult um die Gottheit Aton und vernachlässigte seine Regierungsgeschäfte. Dadurch kam es zum Zusammenbruch des Staates, und es brachen von Amun-Priestern unterstützte Revolten aus.

Wie, wann und woran Echnaton und Nofretete starben, ist ungeklärt. Man vermutet in der Ägyptologie, dass nach beider Tod alles niedergerissen wurde, was mit Echnaton und seinem Aton-Kult, der vom Volk insgeheim kaum angenommen worden war, zu tun hatte und dass die Leichname entweder absichtlich unkenntlich gemacht oder von geheimen letzten Anhängern beiseite geschafft worden sind.

Either everybody is a messenger of god, or nobody. The whole idea that somebody is a prophet and somebody is a Teerthankara and somebody is a messenger or a Christ is absurd. You all come from the same source. We all come from the same root. Nobody is special. And this is what a religious man tries to live.
A religious man is one who sees that he is ordinary. A religious man is one who sees that he is exactly the same as others, and he does not pretend to be special -- because the very idea that "I am special" is foolish; the very idea that "I am the chosen one" is egoistic. And a religious man cannot claim that -- a religious man has no claim.
He simply accepts and he realises that he is a part of this cosmos as you are a part of this cosmos. He never puts himself above you. This is his superiority, that he never puts himself above you. This is his 'aboveness', that he never thinks that he is extraordinary or special in some way. He never carries the attitude of 'holier than thou'. He knows that you are also gods and goddesses. Maybe you don't recognize it -- that's the only difference.
The difference between him and you is only one: He recognizes who he is; you don't recognize -- but there is no other difference. You are exactly the same as he is. You are a Buddha asleep, but there is no question about any difference. A Buddha is a Buddha, whether asleep or awake. You may not have come across your divineness, you may not have tried, you may not have opened the door of your inner treasures, but the treasure exists. You may think that you are not special and he is special, but how can he think the same way? You may think that -- it is natural.
People may have thought that Christ was special -- that is natural, because Christ looks special. He is special in a way, because he has recognized his godhood, and in that very recognition he has become luminous, a clear light without any smoke, a pure flame. People recognize that he is special. But how can Jesus say he is special? In recognizing his own inner flame, in recognizing his own inner godhood, he has recognized everybody's godhood -- not only about human beings but about trees and birds and animals, even rocks. Even rocks he knows now are gods -- fast asleep, snoring. Some day or other rocks will awaken and will become gods!
You may not see who you are, but he is seeing who you are. The day he recognized who he is, he recognized everybody's innermost core. A religious person cannot think he is special. And a religious person cannot think that you are condemned, that you are sinners. A religious person starts laughing. He laughs at you because you are a saint and thinking yourself a sinner. He laughs at you because you are God and thinking yourself somebody else. The whole thing seems to be absurd -- what a drama! Everybody is having a mask and has completely forgotten his own original face. Your original face is God's face.
So whosoever tries to prove that he is special, whosoever -- Ellen G. White or Reverend Moon or Satya Sai Baba -- whosoever says that he is special is simply asserting that he has not yet known.

It is good to be with the beloved -- just enjoy being there but continue meditations, otherwise you will feel guilty. The guilt has a message. It is not wrong. It is simply saying that you also know what you are doing. It is a sort of infatuation, not a sadhana. Every man and woman fall into the trap, but sooner or later the honeymoon is over and the marriage starts, and then there are troubles.
We go on committing the same error again and again.
You may have forgotten, because the mind tends to forget situations. That's why you can repeat. Just think again, relive those moments and what you were saying and you will find yourself saying the same things.
Not that there is something wrong in love, but in being so infatuated you will soon get frustrated. If you really want to remain in love, then too much infatuation is not good. Move on plain ground. .. Be a little more practical. Look at the foolishness of the mind and the illusions it creates. One day or other these illusions are shattered and then you are standing naked in the streets. Then everyone feels cheated, robbed, betrayed.
This is everybody's question. So your heart knows it. Be in love, but never make love an alternative to meditation; it is not.
Love and meditate -- they are two different things. Some day a higher synthesis comes, but that day has not come yet. When love becomes meditation, meditation becomes love. That is very difficult to attain -- only when all polarities dissolve.
This is a deep polarity -- love and meditation. Meditation is happiness in your absolute aloneness; love is happiness with somebody else. In love, the other is important; in meditation, only you. Love is I and thou. Meditation is complete... getting out of the I-thou world. It is just being yourself -- not even I.
Meditation is solitude, love is relationship. They are totally different; diametrically opposite. When people start moving into meditation, they start moving out of love. Meditation is needed -- one is feeling very unhappy. And when you start a love relationship, you simply forget all about meditation. You think of love as meditation.
Be balanced -- both wings are needed. Love, meditate, and don't create a conflict between them. When it is time to meditate, meditate. And there is enough time -- twenty-four hours. Give just two hours for meditation; a few hours for love, and a few hours for other things in life.

It happens to almost all meditators: a point comes when you have to depart from your personality and recover your individuality, your authentic being. But associations are very old. The personality may have been there for many, many lives. And to have a divorce from the personality... the personality feels hurt, and for a time it follows you in the hope that you will again get identified with it. But it is only a shadow. It cannot strangle you; it can only give you threats. So don't be taken in by its threats -- tell it to strangle you! Neither can it drown you, but it is making a last effort before it will disappear completely. This shadow comes only when there is a fear of its being dropped. The non-meditator never feels it. The non-meditator is totally identified with it; he thinks he is it. Even shadows try to survive. Those are the old strategies of the ego. They used to work in the past, but now that flowers of meditation have blossomed in your heart, those old strategies cannot work.
In politics you should not destroy your enemy completely. You should go on threatening him -- that's enough -- because by his presence, there is immense support to you, from all those people who are afraid.
Marty was walking down the street when he saw his friend and yelled to him, "John, how are you?" John replied, "Don't call me John. Call me Lucky." "Why should I call you lucky?" John proceeded to tell him that he had been standing on the corner of 52nd Street and Third Avenue, when he stepped off the curb just as a two-ton safe fell from the twentieth floor. It landed right where he had been standing an instant earlier. Marty said, "My God, you certainly are lucky! That will be your name from now on." A few weeks later they bumped into each other again, and Marty said, "Lucky, how are you?" To which came the reply, "Don't call me Lucky. Call me Lucky Lucky." Marty said, "Tell me now, why I should call you Lucky Lucky?" and he was told that Lucky had been bumped from a flight to Miami that was later hijacked to Cuba. Marty agreed, "You certainly are Lucky, Lucky." The next time they met, Marty shouted, "Lucky Lucky, how are you?" to which he replied, "Don't call me Lucky Lucky. Call me Lucky Lucky Lucky." Marty said, "Why?" Lucky Lucky Lucky said, "Just last week I took my girlfriend to a hotel room for a martini, and we made such a commotion that the chandelier over the bed came down and landed right in her lap." Marty said, "But what's so lucky about that?" To which came the reply, "Ten seconds earlier, it would have cut off my head!"

This has been the experience of the mystics always. This is new for modern physics, but this is not new for metaphysics -- this is very ancient. Mystics have never believed in Aristotle; they have always been anti-Aristotle -- they have always been illogical, because they don't know what the way of the electron is but they know their own inner consciousness. And there too they have observed these miracles: that the ego is something, comes out of nothing, and then disappears into nothing again. The ego arises out of nothing, becomes very solid, and then one day in meditation you simply find it has evaporated again.
This has been one of the most ancient experiences about the ego: that one moment it is there, another moment it is not there, and again it is there. And this has been the experience about time too; that when you are in deep meditation time simply disappears and when you come out of meditation time is again there.
The mystics have known it, that life follows no logic, that life is basically supra-logical, that life follows no reason, that fundamentally it is irrational. Conscience is very arbitrary, artificial. It gives you a fixed pattern, a fixed gestalt, and life goes on changing, and life is very uncertain, it id very zigzag. Unless you are conscious you will not be able to live your life truly; your life will be only a pretension, a pseudo-phenomenon. You will always be missing the train.
And always missing the train is what creates anguish in man. Just think of yourself always missing the train: rushing to the station, and whenever you reach the train is leaving the platform. That's what happens to the person who lives according to the conscience: he never catches the train. He cannot! He has a fixed gestalt, and life is a fluid phenomenon. He has a rocklike thing inside him and life is more like water.
Be conscious. Don't ask how to grow, how to develop a conscience. Here we are trying to do just the opposite: destroying conscience -- the Christian conscience, the Hindu conscience, the Mohammedan conscience, the Jaina conscience -- we are destroying all kinds of conscience. And consciences come in all shapes and all sizes.
Consciousness is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan -- it is simply consciousness. Conscience divides people, consciousness unites.
Forget all about conscience. What is the need of carrying a guide with you? Consciousness is enough! Whenever a certain need arises, your consciousness will respond. You have a mirror, you will reflect it. And the answer will be spontaneous.

HOW DOES THE TRUE MAN OF TAO
WALK THROUGH WALLS WITHOUT OBSTRUCTION
AND STAND IN FIRE WITHOUT BEING BURNT?

NOT BECAUSE OF CUNNING OR DARING,
NOT BECAUSE HE HAS LEARNED --
BUT BECAUSE HE HAS UNLEARNED.

HIS NATURE SINKS TO ITS ROOT IN THE ONE.
HIS VITALITY, HIS POWER,
HIDE IN SECRET TAO.
WHEN HE IS ALL ONE,
THERE IS NO FLAW IN HIM
BY WHICH A WEDGE CAN ENTER.
SO A DRUNKEN MAN WHO FALLS OUT OF A WAGON
IS BRUISED, BUT NOT DESTROYED.
HIS BONES ARE LIKE THE BONES OF OTHER MEN,
BUT HIS FALL IS DIFFERENT.
HIS SPIRIT IS ENTIRE.
HE IS NOT AWARE OF GETTING INTO A WAGON,
OR FALLING OUT OF ONE.
LIFE AND DEATH ARE NOTHING TO HIM.
HE KNOWS NO ALARM,
HE MEETS OBSTACLES WITHOUT THOUGHT, WITHOUT CARE,
AND TAKES THEM WITHOUT KNOWING THEY ARE THERE.
IF THERE IS SUCH SECURITY IN WINE,
HOW MUCH MORE IN TAO?
THE WISE MAN IS HIDDEN IN TAO,
NOTHING CAN TOUCH HIM.
HOW DOES THE TRUE MAN OF TAO -- WALK THROUGH WALLS WITHOUT 
OBSTRUCTION -- AND STAND IN FIRE WITHOUT BEING BURNT?

You are being taught from the very childhood not to be yourself, but the way it is said is very clever, cunning. They say, "You have to become like Jesus, like Buddha," and they paint Buddha and Krishna in such a way that a great desire arises in you to be a Buddha, to be a Jesus, to be a Krishna. This desire is the root cause of your misery.
Try to understand the point. If it is against your will, even in paradise you will be in hell. But following your natural course of being, even in hell you will be in paradise.
Paradise is where your real being flowers.
Hell is where you are crushed and something else is imposed on you.
One very famous philosopher of England, Edmund Burke, was puzzled about a question because he read, and heard also in the sermon of the archbishop of England, that those who have faith in Jesus, in God, in the Holy Ghost -- those who have faith, their entry into heaven is guaranteed. Those who have not faith, they can be certain of falling into the darkness of hell.
Edmund Burke was a philosopher. Naturally, philosophers are hair-splitters; he thought about it and he came up with a question. The question was: A man who has faith but is in every way evil, bad, a sinner -- what is going to happen to him? And on the other hand, a man who is very good, virtuous, compassionate, and always ready to serve others, has never harmed anybody, has never done anything that you can call sin, but has no faith -- what happens to him?
Edmund Burke could not figure it out himself so he went to the archbishop and said, "I am in trouble -- listening to your sermon this problem has arisen."
The archbishop was also in trouble because he had never thought about it. The question was valid: "A man can be good and without faith; there have been men.... What about Gautama Buddha? What about Socrates? These people you cannot say were bad people. Even one who is against them cannot say that they were bad people. It is difficult to find better people than those -- but they were without faith. What about these people? And there have been many like that: Mahavira, Epicurus, Lao Tzu, and Chuang Tzu -- what will happen to these people?
"And we know there are, in your congregation, all kinds of sinners. In fact you even go to the prisons to give sermons to people who have committed all kinds of crimes, even murders, and are sentenced to death or sentenced for life -- and they have faith."
In fact, if you think in a very clear way, only these people need faith. Why should a good person need faith? Isn't goodness enough?

Three priests -- an archbishop, a bishop and a rather young, newly ordained priest -- stood in the lobby in the airport. The archbishop told the priest to get the tickets while they took care of the baggage.
The priest approached the ticket counter, noting the shapely, seductively dressed young woman behind the counter. By the time she got around to him he was quite flustered by her and stammered, "I would like three pickets to Tittsburgh."
Embarrassed and ashamed, he ran from the counter back to his two companions. He told the archbishop, "Father, I am sorry, I cannot get the tickets. Furthermore, I have sinned... I was tempted by the flesh!"
The archbishop said, "You are young, my son, and weak -- we shall pray on your problem."
The archbishop then sent the bishop for the tickets. The bishop, though not easily swayed in his faith, was also quite taken with the young woman's beauty. He said, to her, "I must apologize for my brother -- he is young. Now, I would like three tickets to Pittsburgh and I would like the change in nipples and dimes."
Shocked by his slip and completely overwhelmed by embarrassment, he returned to the archbishop without the tickets.
The archbishop was by now quite angry at both the priests and the young woman. He then went for the tickets himself. He said, "I would like three tickets to Pittsburgh and I would like my change in nickels and dimes."
As the young woman began processing the tickets, the archbishop said, "Look at you... you should be ashamed. How do you dare to leave the house that way? Why, your breasts are not covered and your skirt is entirely too short. Every man who approaches you is tempted. When you go to heaven," he said, with his voice rising in pitch, "Saint Finger will surely shake his peter at you!"
That is bound to happen. Hence Buddha says: LIKE A MUSTARD SEED FROM THE POINT OF A NEEDLE HATRED HAS FALLEN FROM HIM.... He has not dropped it or repressed it; it has fallen of its own accord. ... AND LUST, HYPOCRISY AND PRIDE.
How does this miracle happen that these things fall of their own accord? They fall of their own accord if you become more aware of them -- not repression but awareness is needed. Repression makes them more unconscious and more dangerous. Become more conscious of them, watch them, meditate over them.

The guitarist of a pop group was involved in a car accident and sustained injuries to his head. On arrival at the hospital the doctor ordered that his long, thick hair be completely cut off to enable the extent of the injuries to be seen. A nurse was detailed to undertake the task, and she set to work with a large pair of scissors. After ten minutes or so she said to the young man, 'You went to North Lancaster Comprehensive School when you were younger, didn't you?' 'Yes, I did,' answered the youth. 'Were you there as well?' 'No,' said the nurse, 'I'm from London.' 'Well, how on earth did you know which school I went to?' queried the young man. 'I have just come to your cap,' replied the nurse as she carried on cutting.
Layers upon layers.... And the deeper you cut, the more you will find -- many things that were missing for long, for many years; your cap you will find. The deeper you go in your mind, the deeper you will go in your childhood. Many things forgotten, lost -- again, they are there. Because nothing is ever lost, everything goes on accumulating.
When you come to a point where you cannot find anything, then you have come to your being. The being is not like a layer; the being is simply space, pure space. The being is simply emptiness.
Buddha calls being non-being, he calls it anatta. Buddha says if you find yourself, then there must be some layer still left. When suddenly you come to a point where you cannot find yourself -- you are, and you cannot find yourself -- then you have come home. And this can be attained only by effort. This is his framework. Ordinarily you are standing on the bank. Then you cannot hope, then you are in a hopeless state. If you become a srotapanna, you enter the stream. By srotapanna you enter the stream, you take the courage, you take the jump. It is a quantum leap from the bank into the stream. They are very close, but they are totally different. The bank never goes anywhere. It has no growth, it never moves. It is static, stagnant, stale, dead. And by the side is flowing the river, which is going somewhere. If your life is not going anywhere, you are standing on the bank. Enter the stream and you start a journey. Your life starts changing, transforming. You start a transfiguration, a metamorphosis. And each moment new visions open their doors to you. One day the river reaches the ocean. That day you become arhat, you dissolve into the ocean. First srotapanna, then skridagamin, then anagamin, then arhata. These are the states. It is a very scientific framework. From being a worldly man become srotapanna and then your journey has started.

.When God does not exist, you are not a thing created by somebody arbitrarily. Why did He decide, on a certain day, four thousand and four years before Jesus was born, to create the world? What caused the idea of creation? Was there something else that was forcing Him to create? Was there some serpent seducing Him to create? Why on a certain day, and not before? It is arbitrary, whimsical. If the story is true, God is insane. What was He doing for the whole of eternity? -- the idea of creation came so late to Him. The very idea of creation makes us arbitrary, whimsical, whereas evolution is not arbitrary, whimsical. Evolution is eternal; it has been always going on. There was not a time when existence was not, there will never be a time when existence will not be: Existence means eternity. God makes everything silly, small, arbitrary, meaningless, and whimsical. Just that old man... and He must have been really old, really, really old, and then this idea of creation came to Him... and in six days He completed it. That's why the popes were against Charles Darwin: "You are saying that it is not yet completed, it is evolving. You are against the Bible, the Holy Scriptures. You are against God, against the idea of creation." Charles Darwin was saying simply, "I am not against any God, I don't know any God." He was a very fearful person, and he was a Christian. He used to pray; in fact he started to pray more after he wrote the theory of evolution. He became very much afraid: who knows, perhaps he was doing something against God. He had believed that God created the world, but the facts of nature were telling a different story -- everything is evolving, life is never the same again. So if anybody believes in God, he cannot believe that you are a being. Only things are created; they have a beginning and an end -- beings are eternal. Because of this fact, two religions in India, Jainism and Buddhism, dropped the idea of God -- because to keep that idea simply meant you were dropping the idea of being, which is far more significant. They would have liked to keep both, but it was logically impossible.
Once you accept that you have been created, you accept the other part of it, that the same whimsical man, any day, can un-create you. So what meaning do you have? -- just a toy in the hands of some magical old man? So whenever He wants, He plays with the toys, and whenever He wants, He destroys them? It was really a great, courageous step on the part of Mahavira and Buddha to choose being and drop the idea of God -- and that too, twenty-five centuries ago. They could simply see that you cannot manage both; they are against each other. But they were not aware of evolution; that was a later development. Now we know that creation goes against the idea of evolution too.