010

From your standpoint that can be said -- because whatsoever you think is real I think is unreal. So naturally, whatsoever I think is real looks unreal to you.

But there is one advantage in which I am and you are not; and that advantage is: I have lived in your reality, in your so-called reality. I know both; you know only one.

I was where you are, so I know your reality, and I know my reality now. I am in a better situation to judge who is real and who is unreal.

You know only your state, you don't know my state. So wait a little rather than judging it.

Come to my state also; then you are totally free to judge. But whosoever has come to this state has never said that your world is real. Your world is maya: unreal, illusory. To judge you need to know both; only then can you compare.

You cannot compare by knowing only one -- how will you compare?

In the night when you fall asleep you start dreaming. In dreams, dreams look real -- because in dreaming you lose all contact with the world, with the world that you have known when you were awake. Now there is no comparison; you cannot compare.

For example: if you see a stone, a rock, in your dream, you cannot compare with the real rock that you have seen when you were awake because both rocks are never together. So of course the dream rock also looks real. How to judge it as unreal? because there is nothing except it to judge by. There is no criterion.

When you wake in the morning then you realize that it was unreal. But again your judgment is not right because now the dream rock is missing. Now you have the real rock, the so-called real rock, and the dream rock is missing. Again your judgment is not right: only one is there and the other is missing. How can you judge unless you have both together, in front of you?

There is another awakening.

That's what we call Buddhahood: the ultimate awakening -- when you not only awake from your dreams, but you awake from your so-called awakened state too. Then they both are available, and then you can see that both are dreams.

A few dreams are seen with closed eyes, a few dreams are seen with opened eyes, but both are dreams. And when you have awakened and there is no sleep left in you, when no part of your being is unconscious, you are absolutely conscious and your whole being is full of light, luminous, then only do you know what reality is.

Right now you are asleep; all that you know is dream. But I can understand the question.

From where you are it will almost seem that I am dreaming. I talk about love; you also know love. But listening to me you become aware that I am talking about something else which is not possible. How can love be non-possessive? How can love be pure sharing, without any self, without any motivation? How can love be unconditional?

You listen to me, you listen to my words, but you cannot feel the reality of those words -- because you know a love which is conditional; you know a love which is always motivated; you know a love which is always based on selfish, desires; you know a love which is a trick to dominate and possess; you know a love which is really violent, aggressive.

So when you compare your love with my love, your love looks real to you, and my love looks utopian, like fantasy. That's why the world has never trusted Buddhas -- because they talk about something which has nothing to do with your experience.

It is so beyond, it is so transcendental, it is so far out, that you cannot comprehend it. It is incomprehensible. You cannot figure out what it is. In sheer desperation you cling to your reality and you say, "Forget all about it -- these people are either mystics or mad; poets of the unknown, dreamers, eccentric, crazy. Forget all about them!"

You also cannot forget; that is the problem -- because whenever you come close to a Buddha he hits something deep in your heart.

Your mind may go on saying that he is a dreamer, but somewhere your heart starts feeling what he is saying. Its fragrance approaches, reaches to the heart. What he is singing is heard somewhere, on some level of your being. Maybe it is not very conscious, maybe it is just like groping in the dark, but you have heard.

And when you watch a Buddha, and if you are fortunate enough to be close to him, if you are blessed enough to become a disciple, to become an initiate, then by and by his reality will-become more real than your own reality. That is the meaning of surrender.

Many times you ask me, "What is the meaning of surrender?" The word is so big; there are many meanings. This is one of the deepest meanings: when you come to a man and you feel that he has gone beyond.... Of course, you can only feel; you don't have any conceptual possibility, any mental system to comprehend it. You can only feel.

It is very, very dark, but you can feel that it is very alive too. You can feel that something has happened. Your mind wants to deny it, your ego wants to deny it, but your heart starts feeling hypnotized -- as if a great magnet is pulling you towards some unknown center.

Surrender means: falling in love with someone who is almost unreal to you, and yet has an appeal. You surrender your reality; you say, "Okay, my reality is a dream and your reality is real. Now I'm ready: take me to your reality." What is your reality really? Really, what is your reality? What is it except misery? What is it except a few tiny glimpses of happiness, very fleeting?

You cannot catch hold and they are gone, and again there is misery. What is your reality except an experience in hell?

I was reading:

A man arrived in hell and was given a guided tour by the devil. "You may choose to spend eternity in one of these three rooms," he said.

In the first room people were standing up to their necks in hot water. The water was boiling and evaporating. The man shuddered and closed the door.

In the next room people were up to their necks in icy cold water, and they were shivering. This did not appeal to the man either.

With a smile, the devil opened the last door. The man was amazed and relieved, as the people were walking around in one foot of cow manure, drinking coffee and chatting pleasantly. The man said, "This is for me," and began socializing.

A few minutes later one of the assistant devils came and called, "Coffee break is over. Back on your heads!"

So all happiness you know is just a coffee break, and again on your heads!

Just momentary allurements....

Months and years of misery, and then there comes a small moment. And again you desire that moment, and you are ready to suffer again. And even that moment has nothing much in it. If you look into it you will find it hollow inside.

Has what you call pleasure really anything substantial in it? Or is it just a hope so that you can carry on somehow in this hell? Without hope it would be too difficult. If there were no hope, how would you live?

Even one day would be difficult; even to get out of the bed in the morning would be difficult. For what? The question will arise, "Why? Why to get up again, and why to go the office again, and to the same rotten routine, and the same boss, and the same wife, and the same kids? For what? Enough is enough!"

You will simply relax and die in your bed. What is the point in getting out of it?

But the hope that that which has not happened may happen today...

"Maybe the opportunity has now come for that which has not happened yet. One should be up and take the opportunity as it comes." And it never comes really.

All pleasure is in waiting, in hoping. All pleasure is in the future, in desire; it is never a reality. And you call it real?

My bliss is not in hope. I am not hoping for anything, I have abandoned all hope. In fact, the day I abandoned all hope the reality happened to me. Through hope you don't allow reality to happen. The day you drop desiring, a great bliss descends on you.

It was always there, but because of your desiring you were missing it. You were so constantly occupied with desire that you were not available to it, you were closed. Once desiring disappears you are open, you become available.

I have known your reality. I have lived in that misery as long as you have lived in it -- for millennia, for many lives. Certainly it is difficult to believe in my bliss, in my truth. And the question arises, "This man may be dreaming."

But one thing I would like to say to you: even if this is a dream, even if it appears like a dream, it is better than your reality. Try it. You have nothing to lose -- but still you are so afraid of losing it.

Maybe you are so afraid of losing it so that you can go on thinking that you have something. The fear that you may lose it keeps you feeling that you have something to lose. But have you looked in your pocket?

There is nothing. In fact there is a big hole. Your pocket holds nothing. But afraid that you may come across the truth, you never look in your pocket.

Once I was travelling with Mulla Nasrudin.

The conductor came and Nasrudin looked into this pocket and that, and the diary, and in the bag and the suitcase. He searched everything, even my suitcase! And then he started looking in my pockets.

I said, "Nasrudin, wait! What are you doing?" He said, "My ticket is lost." "It cannot be in my pocket or in my suitcase. Have you gone mad?"

I was watching, and I told him, "I see that you don't look in your right-side pocket." He said, "I cannot." I said, "Why?" He said, "If it is not there, then finished! Then it is nowhere! So first let me search for it everywhere. That is the last thing -- because that means I don't have the ticket!"

You don't look in because you are afraid; maybe there is nothing.

Cooperman sold strawberries off his truck out in the suburbs. He knocked on the door of a house: "Wanna buy some strawberries?" "Come around back," answered the pretty young blonde.

Cooperman walked to the rear, rang the bell and the woman opened the door. To Cooperman's shock she stood there stark naked, with not a stitch of clothes on. Cooperman started to cry. "What is the matter?" asked the blonde. "Today my wife ran away with my best friend," explained Cooperman. "I lost three thousand dollars on the stock market. And now you are gonna screw me out of my strawberries too!"

Now, only strawberries...

but he is crying, afraid that now they are also gone.

What have you got with you? Not even strawberries....

And you are so afraid, so apprehensive, so continuously trembling.

Nothing to lose! Try my reality too; you will not be a loser. And I say it with such certainty because I know both realities. Your reality is just a make-believe; my reality is real. You are in reality only when you are real. When your awareness is real you live in reality; when your awareness is faulty you live in the unreal.

And you create it every day, but you don't seem to be aware.

What happens when you fall asleep? Why do dreams come when you are asleep? -- your consciousness is lower, very much lower; it almost disappears. Then dreams bubble up. Are you drunk? You take alcohol, and again you are in a dreamworld. Or you take acid, you take LSD or something like that; your consciousness is lowered, you are again in a dreamworld.

That's why it happens that LSD may not give you the same experience as it gave to your friend. Somebody may move into heaven, and somebody may move into hell -- because it depends on your mind what type of dream you can create. LSD or any drug can only lower down your consciousness. It simply removes all barriers, it simply helps you to move in a private world -- the world of the dream.

And of course when you are on a drug trip things are tremendously beautiful, very psychedelic, very colorful.,. But it depends. If you are a poet and you have lived with trees and flowers and birds, you will have a very beautiful world opening up. But if you are a butcher, then beware; then you will have the world of the butcher -- a nightmare.

That's why different people going into drug trips come back with different experiences. Some say it was paradise, and some say it was hell.

It depends on you. You create the dream.

The drug is not a dream-creating thing, the drug simply lowers your consciousness which does not allow dreaming. Sleep is needed for dreams. The more aware you are, the less possibility there is of dreaming. When you are perfectly aware dreams disappear. Then you don't create a dream; then you are simply face to face with that which is.

When you are real you live in a real world.

And what do I mean when I say'when you are real'? -- I mean when you are aware.

That's what Buddha's message is.