Question 1

WHY IS IT THAT WHENEVER I LEAVE YOUR LECTURE I QUICKLY BECOME DISILLUSIONED WITH MYSELF BECAUSE I AM UNABLE TO LIVE UP TO THE IDEALS YOU PUT FORWARD IN YOUR LECTURE?

What are you talking about? Ideals? That's exactly what I go on destroying. I am not putting any ideals before you. I am not giving you any fantasies about the future. I am not giving you any future at all, because the future is a trick to postpone the present. It is a trick to avoid yourself, a way to escape from yourself.

Desire is a deception, and ideals create desires. I am not giving you any 'should' or any 'should not' either positive or negative. I am simply telling you to drop all ideals and BE.

But I can understand your question. You make an ideal out of it. You start thinking 'How should I be?' You start thinking 'What should I do to be?' I am trying to take away the ideals and you make an ideal out of it -- how to drop all ideals. You misunderstand me, you misinterpret me. You don't hear what I am saying, you go on hearing what I am not saying at all. Listen more carefully.

It has always happened. We don't know what Buddha said exactly, because the people who reported were people just like you. We don't know what Jesus has said, because the people who reported were, again, people like you. The report certainly says what THEY HEARD, but it doesn't say anything about what HE SAID. And these can be diametrically opposite things.

I speak a totally different language. You reduce it to some other thing -- to your language. You come in and you start interfering.

You ask: WHY IS IT THAT WHENEVER I LEAVE YOUR LECTURE I QUICKLY BECOME DISILLUSIONED WITH MYSELF...?

You become disillusioned with yourself because you don't know who you are, and you have a certain image of yourself. That image is not you, that image cannot be you -- that image is d mind construction. You have created an image of yourself: you think this is what you are, and when you listen to me and I start pulling your legs, you become disillusioned. Your image is broken, your image is not left intact as it was.

But YOU are not broken. In fact, the image is not allowing you to have space, it is not allowing you to be. The image has to be thrown out so you can have enough space to grow. The image has become too huge, too powerful. It has taken over your whole house and you are living in the porch. It does not allow you to come in. And the image which you have made out of ideals goes on condemning you: the creation goes on condemning the creator.

Look at the foolishness of it, the ridiculousness of it. You create an image -- very beautiful, naturally, when you are creating you create a beautiful image -- and then, because of that image, you start looking ugly in comparison. You create a very, very great image that you are a saint, and then you find yourself doing things which are not very saintly. Now you feel condemned. The image is yours, and against the image your act looks stinking.....

What I am saying here, what Saraha is saying to the king is that the image has to be completely dropped. The moment you drop the image and you forget about the image, then what is right and what is wrong? Then who is a sinner and who is a saint? Then you don't have anything to compare with. Then, suddenly, you are at ease. The comparison disappears... and the condemnation disappears. The comparison disappears... and the ego disappears -- the ego of the sinner and the ego of the saint. Without the ideal there can exist no ego at all. It exists through the ideal, via the ideal. The ideal is a MUST for the ego.

Either you think that you are a sinner -- you create an ego, an identity, or you think you are a saint, then you create an ego. But both can only come into existence through the ideal. If the ideal is not there, who are you? Saint or sinner? Good or bad? Ugly or beautiful? Who are you? You are simply yourself, without any judgement, without any justification, without any condemnation. You are simply there in your reality: that's what I am calling BEING.

Now you must be becoming disillusioned again and again, because your grip on the image becomes a little loosened. Whenever your grip on the image is a little loosened, you become afraid.

The ideal is creating an illusion, and whenever I start taking the ideal away, you feel disillusioned. Be utterly disillusioned, and don't create the illusion again -- the illusion of the ideal. And then see how life attains to a sublime silence. Then see how tremendous acceptance arises, how great benediction simply surrounds you, for no reason at all. It is yours -- just for the asking. You are not to do anything. You are acceptable to God as you are. This is my whole message, and this is whole of Tantra's: YOU ARE ACCEPTED AS YOU ARE!

But you go on rejecting yourself. The ideal makes it possible for you to reject. The ideal makes it possible for you to be unkind to yourself, cruel, aggressive -- to become a self-torturer.

My effort here is to help you to become sane. This idealism creates insanity. It has turned the whole earth into a madhouse. And you say:... I BECOME DISILLUSIONED WITH MYSELF BECAUSE I AM UNABLE TO LIVE UP TO THE IDEALS YOU PUT FORWARD IN YOUR LECTURE.

What are you talking about? What ideals? I am not saying 'You should do this.' I am not saying 'You should be like this.' I am simply saying 'Whatsoever you are, BE.' I am trying to take all becoming from you. I am trying to help you see the point that you are already at home; you have never to go anywhere, and you have nowhere to go. It is already the case -- God is showering on you SAMADHI is already the case. Wherever you are, you are in NIRVANA. This is enlightenment: this moment -- with no ideals, with no desires, with nowhere to go; this moment -- utterly relaxed in it, here-now, is the moment of God, the moment of truth.

But you listen to me and you start parroting. You listen to me and you start repeating words. You don't follow the meaning; you follow the letter and not the spirit.

I have heard...

A certain tough, old sea captain bought a young parrot at a foreign port -- being assured it was a marvelous learner -- and hung it on the bridge. Coming back through the Bay of Biscay, a fearful black cloud came over, and the skipper remarked 'It's gone bloody dark at all once!'

Soon after, the cloud burst in a dreadful torrent, and the captain said to the mate 'It's bloody hissing down!' The storm got worse, the ship lurched and developed a leak, so that one of the men called up 'What shall we do to be saved?'

He got the reply 'Pump, you lousy shower! Pump, you poxed-up beggars, pump!'

The ship and all were lost; a wet, swearing, washed-up parrot alone survived, and after some adventures, finished up with a dear spinster, who was just expecting the vicar. As a precaution she threw a cloth over the cage, so that the vicar was greeted with 'It's bloody dark all at once!' The lady was livid, and put the parrot immediately under the cold water tap, at which he shrieked 'It's bloody hissing down!'

'No, no, Miss Fantight! You mustn't be so cruel to God's creatures, rather bring him to church on the Sabbath, and expose him to good influences.' This was done and the parrot behaved like an angel, even joining in the hymns. The vicar, beaming at his own success, rose to announce his text. 'Brethren, today we ask: What shall we do to be saved?' and down the aisles rang the parrot's clear tones 'Pump, you lousy shower! Pump, you poxed-up beggars, pump!'

Don't become parrots. You can repeat what I am saying, but that is not the point at all. Understand what I am saying. Repetition will create troubles for you. A slight change of tone, of emphasis, a slight change of a single comma, a full point, and all is lost. Listen to the meaning.

And there are different ways of listening. One way is: listening from the mind then you memorise. And you have been taught how to listen through the mind, because all your schools, colleges, universities teach you how to cram. They give you a wrong notion: as if memory were knowledge. Memory is not knowledge; memory is simply parroting. You will know the letter, you will know the word, but it will be empty -- inside there will be no significance, no meaning in it. And that word is dangerous which has no meaning in it.