THIS UNIVERSE,

WHICH IS THE SAME FOR ALL,

HAS NOT BEEN MADE BY ANY GOD OR MAN,

BUT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN, IS, AND WILL BE --

AN EVERLIVING FIRE,

KINDLING ITSELF BY REGULAR MEASURES

AND GOING OUT BY REGULAR MEASURES.

THE PHASES OF FIRE ARE CRAVING AND SATIETY.

THE SUN IS NEW EACH DAY.

There is no god as a separate creator of the world, and cannot be because the creation, the creator and the creativity are the same, they are not separate. Existence is one -- then how can the creator and the created be separate? Existence itself is divine. There is no creator who is creating it. It itself is the creator. It itself is the creativity.

Heraclitus is a nondualist. All those who have known are bound to know that duality exists because of the mind, because the mind cannot see the one, it can only see the two. The moment it perceives anything, it divides. With the mind, the other is necessary. If it sees creation immediately it thinks of the creator because "How is creation possible without a creator?" But if with this mind you encounter the creator, then again the mind will see that there must be some other creator -- "Otherwise how can this creator be?"

Mind is an infinite regress. It goes on and on dividing. That's why mind never reaches any conclusive state. Philosophy believes in the mind; that's why philosophy also never reaches any conclusion. One has to see the totality without bringing mind in, because mind is the factor of duality: it divides. Division is the nature of mind. If you say "day" then the mind immediately brings night, because "How can the day be without night?" If you say "love" then the mind brings hate: "How can love be without hate?" If you bring life, the mind brings death: "How can life be without death?" But life and death are one -- one phenomenon, one energy. Life is the manifestation of that energy, and death is again relaxation. Life is coming to a form, and death is moving again into the formless. The end and the beginning meet. Life is not separate from death, death is not separate from life -- they meet and mingle. Even to say they meet is not right because the mind immediately brings: "If there is a meeting then there must be two." It is not a meeting, it is one phenomenon.

Heraclitus says desire and satiety -- these are two. You feel hunger and then you eat, and then you feel satisfied. Have you ever observed that the hunger and the satiety are one? They have to be one because the same thing, food, changes both. Food becomes a bridge between hunger and satiety, desire and desirelessness. If they are really separate then they cannot be bridged. If they are really different then there is no possibility of any bridge. Then hunger will remain hunger and satiety will remain satiety. Where will they meet? And how will they meet? But they meet. Mind thinks hunger is against satiety. Just try to understand it. Move a little deeper into it. Mind says hunger is different from satiety, but when you are satisfied again a circle has started which will bring hunger; and when you are hungry a circle has started which will bring satiety. Are they two or just a single phenomenon? When you eat, hunger disappears, but the moment hunger disappears a new circle starts.

A new morning is a beginning of the evening. A new birth is a beginning of death.

But you cannot see so far away. Every morning you become hungry and you eat and you become satisfied. In the evening you are again hungry and then you eat and you achieve satiety -- but you never see that they both are one. One helps to bring the other. If you are never hungry, can you be satisfied? Is there any possibility of satiety if you are never hungry? If you are never hungry, don't think that you will be in a state of satiety -- the satiety cannot come without hunger. If there is no morning, don't think that there will be evening always and always -- there will be no evening at all. And if there is no death, don't think that there will be life eternal -- there will be no life at all... because death creates the situation, sets an energy phenomenon. Every life brings death, every death brings life again.

These two appear two to the mind because the mind cannot see through opposites. When you don't see from the mind, from the logical standpoint, when you simply look into the phenomenon itself, the totality of it, the two disappears and only one remains.

That is the thing with God as creator and universe as creation. Not only are ordinary persons deceived by the mind -- great theologians, they are also deceived by it. They also say, "God created the world." This statement is juvenile, it is childish. Nobody has created existence -- it is, it is simply there -- because if you bring in creation then millions of problems arise. And that is why theology brings more problems and no solution. And they create a theory, a hypothesis, to solve many problems. Nothing is solved. On the contrary, around the hypothesis new questions arise. They tried to solve the problem of existence by bringing God in, that God created it. Then they created millions of problems -- and they have not been able to solve them. Once you start on a wrong line you will go on missing, because one thing leads to another. And there is a relatedness: if one thing is wrong, then it will lead to another wrong proposition. Unless you start from the very beginning towards the truth, you will never reach -- because the beginning is the end.

Theology brings in God to solve a few problems, because there ARE problems: "Who created the world?..." The curiosity arises: "Such a beautiful phenomenon! -- who created it?" And then the mind has an itching sensation -- it should be answered: "Who created?" But the first thing is to ask whether the question is right. Never raise a question without asking first: "Is the question relevant?" And what is the criterion of a question being relevant? The criterion is that if a question is such that whatever answer is given, the same question can be raised again -- then the question is irrelevant, it is not right. You ask, "Who created the world?" Somebody says, "God!" You can ask the same question again: "Who created God?" The question has not changed, not a bit. The same question is still relevant. So somebody says, "God A created the world," and then you ask, "Who created God A?" He says, "God B created the God A," then you ask, "Who created God B?" And he says, "God C created the God B" -- but the question remains the same so all answers are false.

If the question is not changing a little bit, then you are not progressing towards truth at all. And if all the answers to a question are false, then please meditate upon the question again. In the very base the question itself must be wrong; otherwise how can all the answers be wrong? At least one answer must be true -- but no answer has proved to be true. Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, they have all provided answers, but the question remains. Thousands of years working on the question "Who created the world?" and not a single answer has been given which satisfied. This means that in the very base, from the very beginning, you have taken a wrong line of research, a wrong attitude from the very beginning.

So the first thing about a question is to question the question itself, whether it is relevant.

This question is irrelevant: "Who created the existence?" -- for many reasons ... because then the question is possible: "Why did he create it? What was the need? Why couldn't he live without creating it? What desire possessed him? And if God created this universe, then why is there so much misery, suffering, suffering which cannot be accounted for?"

A child is born crippled, blind, ill -- why? If God is the creator, can't he correct the pattern of the world? Or is your God a little neurotic, enjoys suffering? A sadist, enjoys this torture? Millions of people dying in a war, being killed, thrown into fire and gas chambers -- he is the creator, and he is simply not worried! He cannot even stop a Hitler killing millions of Jews -- unnecessarily, for no reason at all. What type of creator is this? If God creates the world then he must be a Devil, because the world doesn't seem so good. It cannot come out of good, seems to be inconsistent with good. God means "the good," and this world doesn't show any sign of goodness -- exploitation, violence, war, killing, misery, anguish, tension, madness.... For what has this creation been created? And if God is responsible, then he is the greatest criminal.

These problems arise, and theologians cannot solve them. Then they have to create more false theories. Then they say there is a Devil also, and it is the work of the Devil. But they get into their own trap. First they create God, that God created the world; then they have to create a Devil because they cannot explain the world through goodness. The world looks so evil that they have to create a Devil. Then the question arises: "Who created the Devil?" Then they go on and on. And they get into such a desertlike effort which leads nowhere. Nobody reads their big volumes on theology -- nobody! -- because if you start you reach nowhere, and they go on and on and on. It seems like a broken gramophone record: the same they go on repeating, and you go on asking the same question and they go on round about. Beating around the bush is all that theology is. Not a single problem has been solved. The most useless effort that man has made ever is theology. And it starts with: "God created the world."

Men like Heraclitus, Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, they don't talk about these things. They simply say: "Existence is God. Nobody has created it. There is no creator who is responsible for it, so don't raise unnecessary questions. And don't waste your time in unnecessary answering." Existence is, and God is not separate from it. God is existence, the totality, not a separate being, a person -- the totality. It comes out of its own... and dissolves. Says Heraclitus, it is fire. Fire is a beautiful symbol. It gives you a very dynamic energy, indicates that existence is a dynamic, dialectical energy -- it moves on its own. When you say "energy" it means something. When you say "God" you have moved into something which will not lead anywhere.

Energy is truth.

You can feel it here and now: you are energy, the birds singing in the trees are energy, the trees going toward the sky are energy; the stars moving, the sun rising every day -- everything is energy. And energy is neither good nor bad. Energy is always neutral. So there is no need to create a Devil, no need to explain anything -- energy is neutral.

If you are miserable it is because of you, not because of a God or because of a Devil. If you are miserable, you are behaving with the energy in a wrong way. You will be happy and blissful if you move with the energy. If you move against it, it is you who are responsible. Remember, if there is no God then you are responsible for whatsoever happens. And if you are responsible then there is a possibility to transform oneself. If God is responsible, then how is one going to transform oneself? God seems to be a trick of the mind to throw responsibility on somebody else, because the mind is always throwing responsibility on somebody else. Whatsoever happens, you always throw responsibility on somebody else. If you are angry, then somebody has insulted you -- he has created anger. If you are sad, somebody is making you sad and unhappy. If you are frustrated, somebody is blocking your way. Always somebody else is responsible, never you. This is the attitude of the mind: to make somebody else responsible. Then you are freed of the responsibility. But... this is why you are miserable.

Responsibility is yours. And if you take it as yours, you can do something about it. If it is somebody else's, what can you do? If others create sadness, you will always remain sad because what can you do about it? Millions of others are all around: if others make you frustrated then nothing can be done. You will remain frustrated, then this is your destiny -- because how can you change others? If you are responsible, immediately you become a master. Now you can do something. You can change yourself, you can change your attitudes. You can look through different attitudes towards the world, and you can feel that if you feel miserable, somewhere you are a misfit in the total energy system. That's all that sin means: you are a misfit, not knowing how to move in this total energy system. And the energy system is neutral. If you follow it you will be happy. If you don't follow it, you will be miserable. This is the logos, the rit, the tao.

For example: if you are feeling thirsty and you don't drink water you will be miserable, because in this energy system water gives you satiety, the thirst disappears. If you are feeling cold you move near fire, because in this energy system fire is the source of all warmth, heat. But if when you feel cold you move away from fire, then you will be miserable. Nobody is responsible. If when you are feeling thirsty, hot, you move near fire, you will be in hell!

I have heard that a man, a great sinner, died. Everybody knew that he was going to hell. It was so certain, it was obvious; there was no question about it. And when the procession -- because he was a great sinner but a very great leader also, a very rich man, because sin has many successes, it pays in this world, so thousands were following, everybody fully aware that this man was going to hell, but still this man was very powerful -- when the procession was going towards the cemetery, a truck loaded with coal, by accident, came on the road and started following the procession. The truck was going its own way, but it coincided.... Mulla Nasruddin, who was in the procession, exclaimed: "I was absolutely certain that this man is going to hell -- but I could never have imagined that he has to provide his own coal!"

Hell is hot, fire. But I tell you, you are providing your own coal.

This is how things are: If you move against nature you will be in misery. Misery means moving against nature, and misery is a good indication -- if you understand. It shows that somewhere you are going wrong, that's all. Put things right! Misery is a help. Anguish, anxiety, tension, are indications that somewhere something is going wrong. You are not with the total. Somewhere you have started your own private movement -- and then you will be in misery. Says Heraclitus: "Private intelligence is false." Intelligence is with the whole. Don't be too clever. You cannot be intelligent on your own. If you move with the existence you will be intelligent, you will have a clarity of perception, you will be wise. If you move on your own you will be a fool.

An idiot is a person who is completely closed within himself, caved in. He has no contact with the total energy system. That is his idiocy. And a wise man is one who is not closed at all -- the air flows through him, the cosmos flows through him. He has no barriers, no doors closed. He has no privacy of his being. He is porous. And whenever he feels miserable, immediately he puts himself right; immediately he takes the indication. It is a symptom! It is just like illness: when you are not behaving with your body naturally, some illness erupts. That illness is a friend. It shows: "Behave, change your ways! Somewhere you are going against nature." If you don't take food for three or four days, you feel dizzy, you feel hungry, you feel sad. The whole body is saying to you, "Take food!" because the body needs energy.

Always remember: The energy is neutral, so the whole quality of your being depends on you. You can be happy, you can be unhappy -- it is up to you. Nobody else is responsible.

When you feel hungry, eat. When you feel thirsty, drink. When you feel sleepy, go to sleep. Don't force nature. For a little while you can force it, because that much freedom is there. If you want to fast, you can fast for a few days, but every day you will become weaker and weaker and weaker, and every day you will be in more and more misery. If you don't want to breathe, for a few seconds you can stop breathing, but only for a few seconds -- that much freedom is possible. But that is not very much, and soon you will feel a choking, dying sensation if you don't breathe well.

All misery exists to indicate to you that somewhere you have gone wrong, you have gone off the track. Come back immediately! If you start listening to the body, listening to nature, listening to your inner being, you will be more and more happy. Become a good listener to nature. Listen to the logos. Listen to those who have been awakened to the logos, and you will find them always, always natural. They don't force anything, they don't push the river, they simply flow with it -- and that is their blissfulness.

There is no God who is responsible.

We create God out of our own fear and necessity and need. We feel so helpless in our misery, so powerless, so impotent in our pain, that out of this fear we create a God to whom we can pray, to whom we can say, "Don't give me so much trouble"; who we can praise and feel that if we praise him, he will become more and more favorable towards us. Do you think God can become prejudiced? If you pray, do you think he will be on your side? If you don't pray, then he will not be on your side?

One small child was being told by his parents: "If you don't behave well, God will punish you." The child had always been put right in the past. Whenever he was not behaving well, or doing something which the parents thought was not good, they had used this trick: "God will punish you; he will be angry," and this had always helped. But this time the child laughed. He said, "I am not worried about God because he does not know me at all."

They said, "This is something new! You never said this before. How did you come to know that he doesn't know you?"

The child said, "For two weeks I have not prayed and nothing has happened. So either he thinks I am dead, or he has completely forgotten me. So now, no need to be worried about it. Now I am free! Otherwise, two weeks and no indication.... "

We have created God out of our need. God has not created you, you have created God. It is your need because you are helpless. And then you project everything that you miss on him. If you are powerless, you say he is omnipotent. If you are ignorant, you say he is all knowing. If you are blind and move and grope in darkness, you say he is omniscient. This is a trick of the mind. Whatsoever you miss in yourself you project on him, and then you think the balance is recovered: "Now I can pray to this omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being and he will be helping me."

These are tricks. You can be helped only by yourself. Of course, nature will be with you if you are with nature. No other prayer will do. This is the only prayer. To me, prayer is a feeling, a flowing with nature. If you want to talk, talk, but remember, your talk is not going to affect the existence. It will affect you, and that may be good, but prayer is not going to change God's mind. It may change you, but if it is not changing you then it is a trick. You can go on praying for years, but if it doesn't change you, drop it, throw it, it is rubbish; don't carry it any more. Prayer is not going to change God. You always think that if you pray, God's mind will change; he will be more favorable, he will be tipped a little towards your side. There is nobody who is listening to you. This vast sky cannot listen. This vast sky can be with you if you are with it -- there is no other way to pray.

I also suggest to pray, but praying should be just an energy phenomenon; not a devotee and God phenomenon, but an energy phenomenon. You simply become silent, you simply open yourself. You raise both your hands towards the sky, palms uppermost, head up, just feeling existence flowing in you. As the energy, or PRANA, flows down your arms, you will feel a gentle tremor. Be like a leaf in a breeze, trembling. Allow it, help it. Then let your whole body vibrate with energy, and just let whatever happens happen. You feel again a flowing with the earth. Earth and heaven, above and below, yin and yang, male and female -- you float, you mix, you drop yourself completely. You are not. You become one... merge. After two to three minutes, or whenever you feel completely filled, lean down to the earth and kiss the earth. You simply become a vehicle to allow the divine energy to unite with that of the earth.

These two stages should be repeated six more times so that each of the chakras can become unblocked. More times can be done, but if you do less you will feel restless and unable to sleep. It is best to do this prayer at night, in a darkened room, going to sleep immediately afterwards; or it can be done in the morning, but it must be followed by fifteen minutes' rest. This rest is necessary, otherwise you will feel as if you are drunk, in a stupor.

This merging with energy is prayer. It changes you. And when you change, the whole existence changes -- because with your attitude the whole existence changes for you. Not that the existence is changing -- the existence remains the same -- but now you are flowing with it, there is no antagonism. There is no fight, no struggle -- you are surrendered to it. Otherwise, all things are tricks. And man goes on inventing....

I have heard, once it happened: A rabbi came to a village on his horse. He was going to some other town. He was very tired, he wanted a little rest, so he went into the inn and left his horse under a tree outside with some hay for the horse to eat and rest also. Mulla Nasruddin was sitting under another tree, drunk. The horse was beautiful. He came near just to watch. When he was standing near the horse a man passed, a man who was a businessman dealing in horses. The horse was a rare thing, really beautiful. He asked Nasruddin, "Is it your horse?"

Drunk, and then feeling very good that "such a beautiful horse belongs to me," he said, "Yes."

But, one thing leads to another. That man asked, "I would like to purchase it. How much would you like to take for this horse?"

Now Nasruddin was caught. He simply asked an impossible price so there would be no problem. He said, "Two thousand rupees."

The horse was not worth more than five hundred rupees, so nobody was going to pay two thousand rupees, so, simply, the matter would be settled. But as it happened the man said, "Okay, take these two thousand rupees."

Then he was in trouble. But two thousand rupees.... And then he thought: "The rabbi is inside and he doesn't know -- why not take these two thousand rupees? And there is nobody looking, and there is no problem at all involved." So he said, "Okay." He took the two thousand rupees; the businessman took the horse.

The moment the horse was gone the rabbi came out. Nasruddin was in a puzzle as to what to do now -- with two thousand rupees, and he was so drunk he could not even run away. Then he started working it out inside his mind; he found a solution. He leaned down on all fours as if he was a horse and put some hay in his mouth. The rabbi couldn't believe what had happened. He said, "What are you doing? Are you mad?"

Nasruddin said, "First listen to my story." Now his mind was working fast -- he had become a theologian: now he was working out one answer, then another question, then he had got into his own trap. He said, "Twenty years ago, I was a young man and I committed a sin with a woman. And what did God do? He was so angry that he punished me and made me into a horse -- your horse, rabbi. And for twenty years I served you, but it seems now the punishment is over and I am again restored to being a man."

The rabbi himself started trembling, seeing that a sinner had been punished -- and who is not a sinner? The rabbi himself had sinned, with many women, so he started trembling seeing this phenomenon. He fell on his knees, started praying. But then there was a practical problem to be solved. He said, "It is okay. But I have to go to the other town, so what to do?"

Nasruddin suggested: "The market is not very far: you can go and find a horse."

So the rabbi went to the market -- and there was his own horse standing at the horsedealer's! He started trembling again. He went near the horse, near its ear, and said, "What, Nasruddin! So soon again?"

Mind goes on and on playing tricks, creating a god, then praying, then being punished, then being sent into hell and heaven -- and the whole thing is just imagination. There is no god, no hell, no heaven; only you are there and existence, energy, infinite energy. If you are with it, it is with you. This is the state of a Buddha, a Heraclitus: totally with the total. Then there is no problem. Then one is not there, really, to create problems. Then there is bliss -- when you are not, then there is bliss. Otherwise, if you are fighting against it, moving away from it, doing things on your own, your private intelligence, behaving like an island, then you will be in trouble. Then whatever explanations and rationalizations you create are futile, just imagination.

All your churches, temples and mosques stand on man's fertile imagination. All your gods and statues and all your prayers, they are creations of your imagination. And you have created them because you are miserable. And this won't help. Your temples, mosques, churches -- no! Your popes and priests and rabbis -- no! They can't help. They are exploiting your imagination. And it is a good business. You have to drop imagining. You have to feel that misery comes when you are out of step with nature, and happiness comes when you are not out of step.

Hell is being out of step with the logos. Heaven is being in step with the logos. And that is the hidden harmony. If you can find it, you become blissful. If you cannot find it, you are miserable -- nobody else is responsible.

You have to find and seek. There is no God, but everybody is divine. The whole existence is divine, godly, but there is no God. So don't waste your time and don't look upwards for somebody who is to help you. The help will come, but there is nobody to give it to you -- you have to take it. But this seems to be arduous, difficult, because then you have to change yourself. To be in step with nature you will need a radical transformation. To avoid that radical transformation you create every type of explanation.

Now try to enter these beautiful lines.

THIS UNIVERSE,

WHICH IS THE SAME FOR ALL,

HAS NOT BEEN MADE BY ANY GOD OR MAN,

BUT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN, IS, AND WILL BE --

AN EVERLIVING FIRE,

KINDLING ITSELF BY REGULAR MEASURES

AND GOING OUT BY REGULAR MEASURES.

Evolution and involution; things coming to a peak, then disappearing in a valley; the waves rising to touch the sky, and then moving back to the depth of the ocean -- in regular measures.

Says Heraclitus: the world is energy, existence is fire. In regular measures it manifests itself and then unmanifests itself. Just like day and night: in the day you work, awake, and in the night you rest. So there are periods when existence is in the day, and there are periods when existence moves into night... creation and uncreation, evolution and involution, day and night, summer and winter, life and death.

This is a creation period. Soon there will be a decreation period. Hindus call that PRALAYA, when everything disappears. Hindus have a beautiful theory for it -- Heraclitus would have nodded assent. Hindus say that the brahma, the creator, has his own day, a twenty-four hour day, a twenty-four hour circle: a twelve-hour day and a twelve-hour night. His twelve-hour day is our creation -- millions and millions of years, aeons and aeons of time. Then comes the night of brahma, then everything disappears, sleeps, rests -- tired, of course. To rejuvenate itself, to come back, it goes into nonexistence. Existence is the day, nonexistence is the night. In a regular measure, for the same time, existence disappears, energy rests. When it has rested, again the day comes, the sun rises; things appear again, everything starts again. It is a circle. Half the circle is of manifestation and half is unmanifestation.

... Just like a tree grows and grows and grows, and then it dies -- but it does not die completely. It collects itself into seeds, becomes unmanifest, moves into the subtle. Seeds fall down on the ground, the tree disappears, but in the right season the seeds will sprout again and the whole tree will be there again. And it happens -- not because there is some controller, a god or a man or somebody -- there is nobody. Energy itself is enough. It needs no control, it needs nobody to be there. Energy has its own intrinsic discipline. And this seems to be exactly right, because if you watch you will feel this is how it happens. You feel hungry, you take food; hunger disappears. Where has the hunger gone? It has become unmanifest, moved to the seeds, to the subtle. It is not on the periphery; it has gone to the center again. Then after a few hours you feel hungry again, the hunger has come back. You take food, hunger disappears. Where does it go? If it disappears completely then it cannot come back. It comes again and again and again. It goes again and again and again -- in the same measure.

In the day you are awake. Where has the sleep gone? It has moved to the seeds, become subtle; it is there inside you watching for the right time to become manifest; then by the night it again becomes manifest. Then where does your day disappear to? Have you ever observed? While asleep, where has the whole world of the day gone? The market, the politics, the identity, everything disappears -- you have gone to the seeds. But in the morning the sun rises and you rise again. From where do you come? From the unmanifest to the manifest again -- it is a centrifugal and centripetal movement. The lotus closes and the lotus opens... in a regular measure.

And this is an energy phenomenon -- no personality in it, it is impersonal. Impersonal it is beautiful; if it is personal then it will become ugly. And all religions have become ugly because they make it personal, they create a person in it. That person is just an imaginary phenomenon you have created. That's why thousands of gods exist and everybody has his own notion about God. And when you have a notion about God, others' notions look wrong, then there is conflict, argument. And your notion of God cannot be right, because YOU are not right. A person who is right needs no god.

Look at Buddha, Heraclitus -- they don't need any God. H.G. Wells has written about Buddha that he is the most godless man and yet the most godly. Can you find a man more godly than Buddha? -- and more godless? He never talks about God -- because he doesn't project. He has no fear inside to create a projection; he is fearless. Then God disappears -- your fear is the cause. And when God disappears, then this whole existence is for you to enjoy and celebrate.

Energy is delight. Blake has said energy is delight.

When there is no God, you are free, totally free. With a God up there manipulating, you can never be free -- you can only be puppets, and all the threads are in his hand. All religious people become puppets because for everything someone else is responsible.

A really religious person is totally free.

Religiousness is freedom.

And with God, there can be no freedom. How can there be freedom if there is a creator? -- because any moment he can change his mind -- and he seems to be a little crazy; any moment he can change his mind and say, "Okay, disappear!" Just as it is said in The Bible that he said, "Let there be light," and light was born, any moment he can say, "Let there be no light." Then what? -- light disappears. Then you must simply be puppets. Then it seems that he is playing chess and you are just on the chessboard, so whatsoever he wants to make of you he makes. The whole thing looks ugly.

If there is no freedom there cannot be any consciousness, because consciousness grows with more freedom.

And the total freedom is possible only if there is no person controlling, manipulating, no boss in existence; only then is there freedom. But freedom makes you afraid. You don't want to be free. You want to be slaves -- that's why you create God. And if there is no God... for example, the communists tried a religion without a god. But man is so afraid, he cannot live without gods; so communism has created its own gods. Lenin has become a god; now they worship him. Now Lenin is no ordinary mortal -- he is a god. You cannot escape because you are afraid.

Only a man who is totally unafraid, fearless, one who has come to terms with existence, one who has understood that to be with existence and to flow with it is to be blissful, can live without God, can live without any person being projected on existence, can live without imagination -- can live with truth. It is hard to live with truth. It is very easy to live with lies. That's why you create lies around you. Ninety-nine percent of the things around you are lies. But you feel cozy with them, in comfort; they are comfortable lies. Truth is uncomfortable because it requires a radical change. And this is the most radical change that can happen to a man -- that he lives without God. And if you can live without God, you become a god, you become godly. If you go on imagining a god, you remain a slave. With a boss overhead you will be a slave. When the boss is no more there you yourself have become a god.

I tell you, there is no God -- but everybody is God, everything is godly. There is no person controlling, because then the whole existence would be ugly, a slavery, a great concentration camp; it would be a prison. No God: life is a freedom. Then you can choose! If you want to be miserable, be miserable, that's your choice. If you want to be happy, be happy, that is your choice. If you feel happy with being miserable, it's okay. There are people who feel very, very happy with being miserable, because through their misery they attract compassion. Through their misery they ask for sympathy; through their misery, they are begging for love. But who can love a miserable person? Unless one is a buddha it is impossible to love any miserable person. You are on a suicidal path. If you are asking for love through being miserable, you can get a little sympathy, but not love. And that little sympathy will be given to you very grudgingly, because who is ready to give love to a miserable person? And he himself is in need, he himself is miserable. That's why people talk too much about their miseries. Listen to their talk: ninety-nine percent they talk about miseries, and they magnify their miseries, they make them look as great as possible. It is not possible, because you are so tiny that you cannot carry such big miseries -- but you are asking for sympathy.

And man is afraid of freedom. There is a deeprooted fear of freedom because with freedom comes insecurity, with freedom comes the unknown, with freedom you don't know beforehand what is going to happen. With a God and a destiny everything is certain. You can ask the astrologer and you can go to the palmist and they can tell you about your future. With no God there, there is no destiny. And the astrologers are useless. Nothing can be said about the future. The future remains an open situation -- nothing fixed, everything flexible and fluid. With freedom you become a fluidity. With God there bossing you, you are secure; somebody is looking after you and he knows better what to do and what not to do.

In this sense, Heraclitus' insight is deeper than Jesus'. In this sense, Heraclitus comes through better than Jesus or Mohammed -- his insight is exactly as deep as Zarathustra, Buddha, Mahavira -- because Jesus goes on speaking and talking in terms of God, creation, father, son. Maybe because of the juvenile attitude of the Jews, maybe because of the people around him, he has to talk in those terms. But Heraclitus doesn't bother about you, he says exactly what is true. He doesn't bother whether you will be able to understand or not: he simply states the truth. If you want to understand, you have to grow. He will not come down to you, you will have to go to him.

And this is exactly my attitude also. I will say exactly what I feel. If you want to understand me you have to grow towards me.

I am not going to come down to talk to you on your terms, because that never helps. Because of that, Jesus missed the whole thing and Christianity was born -- which is nothing but a new edition of the Jewish religion, nothing new: Jews modified a little here and there, nothing new -- because Jesus used the whole Jewish terminology. How can you create a new world out of the old? He compromised -- because Jesus never thought that there was going to be a new religion. He remained a Jew, he died a Jew; he was never a Christian. And he never imagined that there was going to be something new; he lived in the fold. And he used past, rotten words -- hence the ugly face of Christianity.

Heraclitus is absolutely fresh. That's why the Greek mind couldn't understand him at all -- because he has no roots in the past.

When I am dead, where will you put me? In India you will not find any roots for me. I was born a Jaina, but you will not find any roots in Jainism for me; simply, you cannot find any roots. If you say exactly what you have understood, what you have realized, then there are no roots, because truth has no roots in society -- it has roots in existence, but not in society.

That's why a man like Heraclitus becomes puzzling, and even a genius like Aristotle says, "This Heraclitus is absurd. He creates puzzles, and philosophy is to solve something, not to create puzzles." He is not creating any puzzle. He looks puzzling because he is stating a fresh phenomenon that he has come to encounter. He is not using old, used, secondhand terms for it.

Says he:

THIS UNIVERSE,

WHICH IS THE SAME FOR ALL,

HAS NOT BEEN MADE BY ANY GOD OR MAN,

BUT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN, IS, AND WILL BE --

AN EVERLIVING FIRE,

KINDLING ITSELF BY REGULAR MEASURES

AND GOING OUT BY REGULAR MEASURES.

This energy has its own intrinsic system. It is a cosmos, not a chaos -- and without a boss. Energy plus freedom, and yet there is a discipline, and that discipline is the inner harmony, the hidden harmony. No boss and yet there is no chaos; nobody managing, and yet everything is managed so beautifully -- you cannot improve upon it. This is the hidden harmony. If there is a manager and he manages, you can be certain that things will go wrong here and there. It is so beautiful a cosmos because there is no manager in it.

This will be difficult to understand. Religious people say, "How can this world become a cosmos if there is nobody who controls? Without a controller everything will fall apart!" But Heraclitus will say, "Exactly, precisely because there is no controller, things cannot fall apart." When you control, you mismanage. You cannot find greater mismanagers than managers -- they mismanage. That's what Lao Tzu says. He says: When there were no rulers everything was beautiful; when there was no law there was no crime, and when there was no wise man there were no fools. Things moved in their cosmic beauty. Then entered the rulers; they said rules are needed. With rules entered misrule, because the opposite is always there. Then came wise men and they said man must be disciplined. And then man became rebellious and everything went wrong. Then laws came, laws and more laws, and man became more and more criminal.

This is what Heraclitus says. He says that precisely because there is nobody to control, how can things go out of control? Energy itself has an intrinsic, an inner guide.

And listen to this for your life also. If you are guided by your inner insight, if you can listen to your heart, there will be no need for any discipline. You can move completely in trust, everything will be good. But because you cannot listen to your own heart you have to listen to many manipulators who go on manipulating. They say, "Do this!" and they say so much, "Do this! Don't do this!" that you are confused, you don't know what to do. One religion teaches one thing, another another thing. One morality says this is moral, another morality says this is immoral. You are simply confused. And you cannot find your own heart from where the intrinsic, the natural, the spontaneous guide comes. The more you have been taught, the more confused you have become.

Heraclitus says everything moves by an inner harmony. Who is controlling these trees? Who teaches them, "Now it is the right time to bring your flowers"? Who says to the clouds, "Now the time is coming near and you have to shower and you have to bring rains"? Nobody. Remember, if there is somebody then things will go wrong, because how can such a vast thing be managed? Even if there were a God, either he would have cracked up.... Just think of the immensity of things, the tremendousness of things, the vastness of things! Even God would have already cracked up long ago, gone mad, simply disappeared from the world, or the world would have fallen down. It can remain a cosmos only because the harmony is not being forced from above, the harmony grows from within.

There are two types of discipline: one discipline that is forced from without -- somebody says "Do this!" -- and the other discipline that comes from within. You feel what will be natural, you feel where your being is flowing, and you move with your feeling; then an inner discipline comes in. Outer discipline is a deception and that creates confusion and a rift in you. But then the inner and outer are opposed, they become antagonistic.

Just a few days ago, a man came to me and he said -- as all religious people will agree, he said, "I again and again become a victim of outer things, and again and again I forget the inner."

So I asked him, "You please give me a concrete example -- what do you mean?"

He said, "For example, my inner knows that I should remain faithful to my wife, but again and again I fall in love with other women."

So I had to tell him, "You seem to be confused. You don't know which is inner and which is outer. The wife is the outer and you think that is the inner. Do you love your wife?"

He said, "Of course not. If I had been in love with her, why should I fall for others?"

Then the wife is the outer, forced by the society, forced by your own ego, pretensions that you would like to keep of an image in the society, that you are a good husband. This is outer and he is saying this is inner. And when you fall in love with another woman -- which nobody is forcing you to do, rather, on the contrary, everybody is preventing you -- that is inner! But the society has confused you completely, it has made you disoriented. The outer, it says, is the inner -- it has deceived you completely. The inner, it says, is the outer.

You go on a fast and you think this is the inner voice -- this is your religion, your scriptures, your priests. And then your inner says, "You are hungry, eat!" And you think this is outer, the Devil is tempting you. What foolishness! The priest has tempted you to fast. The Devil is not there! The priests are the only devilish forces in the world. Hunger comes, this is inner. The whole body, every cell of it says, "Eat!" and you say, "This is outer. Somebody is tempting me, some evil forces." Or, "This is desire, this is the body, and the body is the enemy -- and my soul is on a fast." Soul on a fast? The soul never needs any food so how can it go on a fast? You are forcing the poor body. But there is a natural fast also; it happens in animals. No preacher is there, no priest teaching them, but it happens. If you observe a dog: if he is not feeling well he will not eat -- this is the inner. A dog's fast is inner. What absurdity! And a man's fast is almost always outer. Only a dog can fast inwardly because he is still in contact with nature, you are not.

When the body is ill, no animal can be forced to eat. If you force him to eat he will vomit. This is beautiful. The body doesn't need it; it is ill. The whole energy is needed for the body to cure itself, and that energy will be diverted if you take food, because then the energy will be needed to digest food: it will be a burden. The body is not in a good condition; the whole energy is needed for the body to cure itself, and if food is thrown in the body, that will be a division. Now the whole of the energy will move towards curing; it will be prevented -- first the food has to be digested. If in your illness you simply listen inwards and don't eat, that's beautiful. Sometimes you don't feel hungry, then don't eat. But don't take a vow, "I will fast for a few days," because who knows? -- in the evening you may feel hungry. Move with nature. When nature wants you to fast, fast. When nature wants you to eat, eat.

The inner has to be found because the society has completely confused you. What is inner and what is outer: there is a vast confusion. And almost always, whatsoever you think is the outer is likely to be the inner, and whatsoever you think is the inner is bound to be the outer, because priests have done that -- priests are the destructive forces.

To me, there is only one religion and that religion is to find the inner voice, the inner guide. And the person who helps you to find your inner guide is the master. He helps you -- not to give yourself an outer discipline, he simply helps you to find the inner harmony which gives discipline. That discipline has a grace because it is not forced. And that discipline has a beauty of its own because it is always fresh. And with that discipline you cannot go astray because you cannot revolt with that discipline. It is you, your very innermost core. And the same is happening on a vaster scale in the whole cosmos.

THE PHASES OF FIRE ARE CRAVING AND SATIETY.

And the fire has two phases: craving, when you are hungry... Hindus call it JATHARAGNI, the fire of hunger. Your stomach really feels fiery when you are hungry -- if you are really hungry. Because you are in such bad shape, you don't know when you are hungry and when you are not. Every day you take your food at one o'clock, then at one o'clock every day hunger comes. That hunger is psychological. Then you will not feel fire in the stomach; that is just because of the clock. The clock says it is one o'clock, then the mind says, "Now the time has come to be hungry." Immediately you feel a hunger. This is a projection. This is a false hunger. And if you wait for half an hour, it will disappear automatically. How can a real hunger disappear so easily? The real hunger will grow more and more. The fire will become more and more fiery in the stomach. You will start feeling pain in the stomach, a burning sensation all over the body. You will feel feverish. The body needs satiety, the body is demanding; energy is needed. But if it is a false hunger, it will disappear. When the clock has moved to two o'clock, the hunger disappears.

Watch! Feel really hungry, and then eat. Watch! Feel really sleepy, and then sleep. It will take a few months to settle because the whole civilization, culture, society, education, they have all helped to push you from the right path. The right path is always natural -- the logos.

THE PHASES OF FIRE ARE CRAVING AND SATIETY.

These are the two phases of fire, the inner biofire, the bioenergy. You feel hungry, you eat, you feel satisfied. That satisfaction is also a phase of fire. The fire has subsided, now there are no flames, it has disappeared. It is a PRALAYA, a de-creation, an involution. Then again comes the other phase. The circle moves, the wheel moves: again comes the phase of hunger, again satiety. You feel sexual, lust, then satiety. You feel love and satiety.

You cannot love twenty-four hours because the fire has two phases. And husbands and wives try to do the impossible: they want to love each other twenty-four hours, then everything goes astray. You cannot because you cannot eat twenty-four hours. Love is food. Can you eat twenty-four hours? You have to give gaps so that the food is absorbed, the energy used, the body becomes hungry again. How can you love twenty-four hours? And if you try the impossible, you will be in bad shape. The more you force, the more everything will become false.

That's why husbands and wives lose the whole beauty of love. Everything becomes false and forced. When they were lovers everything was beautiful, because sometimes they would meet and there would be hunger and it would need satiety. And sometimes they would have to wait for the day to pass, then the lover would be coming -- and there would be hunger. And when there is deep hunger, love satisfies deeply. When husbands and wives cling together twenty-four hours, around each other like shadows, then there is no hunger. Of course, then there is no satiety. Then the whole beauty disappears. Remember this: if you love a person, leave the person to be alone also so that the hunger arises. One has to, otherwise the love will be according to the clock.

One day Mulla Nasruddin came home and found his greatest friend kissing his wife. He said, "What! I cannot believe my eyes. I HAVE to, but why you?"

A husband cannot believe it because love becomes a duty. When love becomes a duty it is already dead -- then it is an outer enforcement, then the inner thing is lost. Love is a hunger, not a duty. Then it has a satiety phase. When love is satisfied you feel absolutely blissful; everything is okay; you can bless the whole existence and be blessed by it. Everything is simply wonderful... but it has to be through hunger.

Heraclitus is saying that man is a miniature of the whole cosmos. And the same is true of the whole: the whole passes also through two phases. When the whole is in hunger, then there is much activity and creation. Things grow, manifestation comes in, trees flower, people love, children are born -- everything is a dynamic activity. Then, satisfied, the existence moves into a satiety phase -- everything disappears. No trees, no earth, no stars, no sun -- the fire is resting.

THE SUN IS NEW EACH DAY.

And this is one of the most penetrating maxims of Heraclitus.

THE SUN IS NEW EACH DAY.

The hunger is new each day. The love is new each day. The life is new each day. To say "each day" is not good -- each movement, each gesture, each moment, everything is new. From where does the old come then? Then why do you get bored? If everything is so new, and you cannot step in the same river twice, and you cannot see the same sunrise again; if everything is so new and fresh, then why do you become dead and bored? -- because you don't live out of the inner harmony. You live out of the mind. Mind is old.

Each sun is new, each morning is new, each hunger is new, each satiety -- but the mind is old. Mind is past, mind is the accumulated memory. And if you look through the mind it gives a deadness and oldness to everything, then everything looks dusty, dirty -- it is because of the mind. Put aside the mind, put aside memories! If you can put aside memories, your wife is new every day, because it is only because of memories that you think you have lived with this woman thirty years and you know her well. Who knows? Nobody ever knows. We remain strangers, strangers eternally. How can you know a person? A thing can be known, not a person, because a thing can be exhausted. And now scientists say that even things cannot be known because they cannot be exhausted either.

How can you know a person? A person is freedom. Each moment he changes. If you cannot step twice in a river, how can you encounter the same person again? If even rivers are so changing, the consciousness, the stream of consciousness, cannot be old. If you put aside the mind, if you don't look from the old eyes, then your wife is new, every gesture is new. Then there is a constant, a continuous excitement in your life, a continuous aliveness. This day you will feel hungry -- that hunger is new. And this day again, when you eat food, that food is new -- because nothing can be old in existence. Existence has no past. Past is part of the mind. Existence is always in the present, new, fresh, always moving, a dynamic force, a dialectical movement; riverlike it flows.

If this insight happens to you, then you will never be bored. And boredom is the greatest disease. It kills deeply, it is a slow poisoning. By and by, you are so bored that you become a dead weight on yourself. Then the whole poetry of life disappears. Then no flowers flower and no birds sing. Then you are already entombed, you have entered your grave. It is said that people die nearabout thirty and are buried nearabout seventy. Even thirty seems too long; this proverb must be from the very ancient days; now that's not true -- nearabout twenty. Or even that seems to be too late. Young people come to me, young, just eighteen, twenty, and they say, "We feel bored." They have become old already. You have taught them, you have conditioned their minds already. Already they are dying. Before being young they are dying.

Remember, youth is a quality of being.

If you can look at the world without the mind you will remain young for ever and ever.

Even in your death you will be young, excited that death is approaching; excited very much -- a great adventure, a culmination, a door opens now to the infinity. Hunger has passed, now comes satiety. Now you are moving into rest. Now you will be a seed, and the seed will rest and sleep for many, many years. And then again you will sprout, again you will open your eyes -- but it is never the same.

Nothing is ever the same. Everything goes on changing. Only mind is old and dead. To be capable of looking at life without mind is meditation.