The first question:

Question 1

IN REALITY THERE IS NO EGO, NO SELF, NO ATMAN. YOU SAY YOU ARE NOT A PERSON BUT A PRESENCE, THAT YOU ARE A MIRROR. WHEN IT IS CLOUDY OUTSIDE YOU ARE CLOUDY. YOU REFLECT WHATEVER IS.

YOU ALSO SAY EVERYONE IS UNIQUE. WHERE IS THE UNIQUENESS TO BE FOUND IN A MIRROR? UNIQUENESS IMPLIES SEPARATENESS, INDIVIDUALITY. ENLIGHTENMENT IS UNION. I KNOW UNIQUENESS MUST BE SO IN ENLIGHTENMENT,FOR I CANNOT IMAGINE CHRIST OR BUDDHA RUNNING THEIR ASHRAM THE WAY YOU DO IF THEY WERE ALIVE NOW AND ALL THREE OF YOU WERE DOING THAT.

KNOWING THAT, I STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS PARADOX. IT PUZZLES ME DEEPLY. PLEASE COMMENT.

Sharda, if you want to remain unique, then avoid enlightenment.

Everyone is unique, but not a Buddha, not a Christ, not a Krishna, not me. To be unique you first have to be. A Buddha is one who has disappeared. A Buddha is one who is no more; how can he be unique? There is no possibility.

Enlightenment is the same, its taste is the same. Whenever it happens it is the same truth. It has no uniqueness in it; it can't have, it can't afford it. Diseases can be unique, not health. Health is simply health. You can have your own specific disease, your own way of being ill; the other can have his own way. There are millions of diseases in the world -- you can choose -- but health is simply one. There are not millions of healths in the world. The moment you start dropping your diseases you start dropping your uniqueness too. A REALLY healthy person has no uniqueness about his health. How can he have it? He's healthy.

One book is different from another book -- because something is written, that written message makes the difference -- but two empty, blank papers are not in any way different. One house is different from another house: they have shape and form and name, architecture, but two empty spaces can't be unique in any way. They will be exactly the same. Two zeros are simply zeros and nothing else.

Buddha is a zero. He is not there. His not being there is his Buddhahood. If you understand this, the paradox disappears. The paradox arises because you go on thinking in the same terms that you think about yourself. I say again and again that you are unique. You have never been before. Like you, there has never been a single person: you are so ill, you can only be unique. There will never again be a person like you. The print of your thumb is just yours.

But I am not saying that about a Buddha, I am saying that about you. All mad people are unique. Once they are sane, uniqueness disappears. The very idea of being unique is part of insanity. It is an ego-trip.

You ask, "IN REALITY THERE IS NO EGO, NO SELF, NO ATMAN."

It is so.

"YOU SAY YOU ARE NOT A PERSON, BUT A PRESENCE, THAT YOU ARE A MIRROR. WHEN IT IS CLOUDY OUTSIDE, YOU ARE CLOUDY."

There you have to understand one thing: I am not cloudy when it is cloudy outside. Clouds are only reflected. The mirror is never cloudy or non-cloudy. The mirror simply reflects, it never changes. When the mirror is reflecting clouds, do you think the mirror has changed? The mirror is the same. The mirror is nothing but its mirroring: it only reflects, it only rebounds all that falls upon it. It does not add anything to it, does not delete anything from it. It has no say about it.

"YOU ALSO SAY EVERYONE IS UNIQUE."

Everyone, except Buddhas. They are not counted in 'everyone', because they are 'everyone' no more, they are all. They are part of totality now. They don't have that idea of separation.

"UNIQUENESS IMPLIES SEPARATENESS", certainly; "UNIQUENESS IMPLIES INDIVIDUALITY", certainly; and "ENLIGHTENMENT IS UNION".

So in union there can be no uniqueness. It is VERY ordinary: it has always been the same, it will always be the same. That's why those who search for enlightenment can't go on ego-trips. To seek for enlightenment is to commit suicide as far as the ego is concerned. And individuality and ATMAN and self and all that, are nothing but different names for the ego, beautiful names. The ego looks a little ugly, and when you call it 'self' it looks a little better, and when you call it ATMAN it becomes very holy, but it is the same, the same entity.

Enlightenment is the disappearance of the ego, of the individuality, of separation. Just as the Ganges falls into the ocean -- what uniqueness can it have? It was unique, it had its own form, its own color, its own strength. It was different from any other river. But when it falls into the ocean what uniqueness can it have now? All other rivers are falling -- the Amazon and Thames -- and they all are disappearing into the ocean, and they all are becoming salty.

So is enlightenment... the river disappears into the ocean.

"I KNOW UNIQUENESS MUST BE SO IN ENLIGHTENMENT..."

No, Sharda. That very idea of uniqueness is part of the pathology of the human mind. Enlightenment is utterly ordinary. THAT is its extraordinariness. In this life everything is special, particular, unique, EXCEPT enlightenment. That is its uniqueness, if you want to use the word 'unique'. But its uniqueness is in comparison to all other things in the world. Not that you can compare two Buddhas; comparison is not possible. Once the river has entered into the ocean there is no possibility of any comparison. The river is no more, only ocean is.

You say, "I KNOW UNIQUENESS MUST BE SO IN ENLIGHTENMENT..."

It is not so. I have disappeared, and I say to you it is not so. You are still imagining. Your ego is still thinking in terms of separateness, individuality, speciality. Your ego is thinking, "When I become enlightened this is going to be a unique experience." Nothing of the sort! That experience is the same. Whenever a river has disappeared into the ocean, it is always the same.

"... FOR I CANNOT IMAGINE CHRIST OR BUDDHA RUNNING THEIR ASHRAM THE WAY YOU DO IF THEY WERE ALIVE NOW AND ALL THREE OF YOU WERE DOING THAT."

That is true. Buddha cannot run the ashram the way I do, I cannot do things the way Buddha used to do, that's true -- but that has nothing to do with enlightenment, really. You will have to understand the process.

When you become enlightened you come to know the unity of all, but your mechanism remains with you. You are no more identified with the mechanism, you are no more identified with your mind, with your body. You know you are transcendental, but the body is there, the mind is there. You have just come to recognize the fact that you are not your body-mind, that you are total. Now if you want to express THIS experience, you will have to use the same mind, the same body that you were using before enlightenment. You don't have any other instruments to use, hence the uniqueness.

Christ uses his mind. Of course, when he wants to speak he will speak Aramaic. He could not have spoken Sanskrit. When Buddha spoke, he spoke Pali. He could not have spoken Aramaic. I cannot speak Aramaic. Why does Jesus speak in Aramaic? That is the language he had learned when he was not enlightened, and that is the only language available to him. That was the only language that his bio-computer carried. The bio-computer is ready, buzzing, ready to be used. Now this enlightenment has happened. He has seen the reality, he has become the reality, he wants to express it: expression is unique.

Jesus, Buddha, Krishna are not unique in their experience, but in their expression they are unique. Expression is of THIS world: it is translating the other reality into this reality. Then things start changing.

When Kabir speaks he speaks like a poor weaver. He was a poor weaver; how could he have spoken like Buddha? Buddha was the son of a king, well-educated, cultured, sophisticated in the ways of the royal court, was taught by the best of the teachers of the country, had lived the life of an aristocrat. When he speaks, he speaks the way aristocracy will speak. When Jesus speaks, he speaks as the son of a carpenter. He must have been doing errands, he must have been taking wood to the father's shop, he must have been helping his father. He knew the language of the carpenters.

It is not an accident that Jesus attracted the poorest. All his twelve apostles came from poor families. Somebody was a fisherman and somebody was a farmer and somebody was a weaver -- people like that. When Buddha attracted people, they were not weavers and carpenters, no. He attracted the aristocracy -- princes, learned people, scholars, brahmins -- the cream. Naturally, he was talking also to a different kind of person, because he attracted a different kind of person. When he renounced the world, naturally, the first rumor was in his circle, and many people from the royal families followed. The innermost circle of his disciples always remained aristocratic. Sariputra, Modgalayam, Mahakashyapa -- they all came from very sophisticated, cultured brahmin families.

Jesus' disciples are poor. He speaks their language, he knows only that language. It is also not accidental that Jesus STILL attracts the poor people in the world, and Buddha still attracts the rich people in the world. America is turning Buddhist. Why? -- America has become rich: Zen has appeal. In the East just the reverse process is happening: more and more people are becoming Christians, MORE AND MORE people are becoming Christians.

If you try to analyze the whole process you will be surprised: communism and socialism and all kinds of social revolution are by-products of Christianity. Nothing like communism has happened in the long tradition of Buddhism. It can't happen. The tradition is aristocratic, the whole pattern of it is aristocratic. It can't see things from the side of the oppressed. Marx may be against Christianity, but basically he is a Christian, a by-product of Christianity. He could not have been born in India; that is impossible. He could only have born in a Christian world.

This is the uniqueness: expression is unique. If you have been a poet and you become enlightened, of course, you will sing a song -- the Song of Mahamudra, the Song of Nirvana. But if you have never been a poet and you become enlightened then it is impossible for you to sing a song. If you have been a painter you may paint. Zen Masters have painted beautiful things; that is their way of expressing. If you have been a dancer, you will dance your enlightenment. You will not find anything else to express it. It depends on you. Expression will depend on you as you were before enlightenment, because your whole mechanism will be ready there to express it -- and that is the only mechanism one can have.

I am different in my expression. The way I do things is my way, but that does not mean that my enlightenment is in any way different from Christ or Krishna or Buddha. It is the same. Then there is no paradox.

The paradox is arising out of your mind. Your mind still hankers for uniqueness, and a certain fear is there: how can enlightenment be unique? It can't be.