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There is a limit to everything – there is a limit to patience too.

And one should not go on submitting to unnecessary tortures. One should not go on bowing down to slaveries, one should not go on compromising. If you feel that you have suffered enough, revolt.

Why have you waited so long?

There was no need to wait. One should be in a constant rebellion. Why should one exist even for a single moment in compromise? Because to compromise means you are not respectful to yourself, you don’t love yourself.

And if you compromise this moment, the next moment you will have to compromise more – because once people see that you can be exploited, they will go on exploiting you more.

Don’t help exploiters, whatsoever kind they may be.

But it seems you would still like to continue, hence the question. Otherwise there is no need to ask. If you have suffered enough, then enough is enough!

Charlie was visiting an old friend and his wife for dinner. When the time came to leave, his car wouldn’t start, and it was too late to call the local service station.

The husband urged Charlie to stay over. There was no spare bed in the house; there wasn’t even a sofa. So Charlie would have to sleep with the husband and wife. No sooner had the husband fallen asleep when the wife tapped Charlie on the shoulder and motioned for him to come over to her.

“I couldn’t do that,” he whispered. “Your husband is my best friend!”

“Listen, sugar,” she whispered back, “there ain’t nothing in the whole wide world could wake him up now.” “I can’t believe that,” Charlie said. “Certainly if I make love to you, he will wake up, won’t he?”

“Sugar, he certainly won’t. If you don’t believe me, pluck a hair out of his beard and see if that wakes him.” Charlie did just that.

He was amazed when the husband remained asleep. So he climbed over to the wife’s side of the bed and made love to her. When he finished he climbed back to his own side. It wasn’t long before she tapped him on the shoulder and beckoned him over again. Again he pulled a hair to determine if his old friend was asleep. This went on eight times during the night. Each time Charlie made love to the woman, he first pulled out one of the husband’s beard hairs.

The ninth time he pulled a hair, the husband awoke and muttered, “Listen, Charlie, old pal, I don’t mind what you are doing to my wife, but for Pete’s sake stop using my beard for a scoreboard!”

Enough is enough!

There is a limit to everything. Enough hairs have been taken out of your beard – now assert yourself. Don’t go on bowing down, don’t go on suffering.

But my feeling is, people want to suffer. My observation is this: they go on complaining about suffering, but they want to suffer. They go on clinging to their suffering. Even suffering is better than nothing: at least there is something to complain about, something to cling to, something to brag about.

Just listen to people. Everybody talks about his suffering. Why don’t you revolt against it? If you are really fed up, then do something. Get out of it! Who can prevent you? But people are not doing anything. Suffering has become their lifestyle. They feel if suffering disappears, what will they do?

Nothing will be left; there will be nothing to complain about.

Meditate over your suffering, and see that somewhere deep down you must be helping it – unconsciously maybe, but your support is needed. Otherwise suffering cannot exist without your support.

Just withdraw your support, and suffering disappears.

You are a willing partner to it. You may find so many rationalizations; rationalizations can be found, but they are all rationalizations. If you want to deceive yourself, they are very good, but if you want to wake up, drop all rationalizations. Simply see the fact that you are suffering and that life is not meant to be a suffering, it is meant to be a celebration.

At any moment things can be changed.

But something drastic will be needed. You have suffered so long, you have become so accustomed to it, that unless you do something drastic, a quantum leap, you will not be able to get out of it.

Become a sannyasin: that will be something drastic. Take a jump into something new, try something new that you have never done before.

And remember, the ego is always attached to suffering.

Why is the ego always attached to suffering? Because the ego feeds on suffering; you feel like a great martyr. The ego disappears when you are happy, really happy. Enjoy, and the ego is not found.

That’s why, if you have chosen an egoistic life-style, you will never be able to get out of suffering. You may change your suffering, but you will create new suffering again. You may divorce one woman, and you will get married very soon to the same type of woman again. You may drop your husband, but it will not be long before you will get another person of exactly the same type because your ego will start feeling starved.

The ego exists as the center of suffering.

When you are in a joyous state, have you ever looked in? There is no ego found. In fact, joy and egolessness are the same phenomenon, they are not different. So if you really want to get out of suffering, you will have to be ready to sacrifice the ego and all the gratification that it gives to you.

Unself yourself – listen to Sanai – and in that unselfing, you will be able to get out of all suffering.

And don’t go on blaming others; there is no point in blaming others. Take the whole responsibility – that is manly, that is courage.

Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders. It is an old trick to go on throwing the responsibility on somebody else: “What can I do? The family is such, the people are such, the society is such, what can I do? I have to suffer.”

You want to suffer, that’s why you throw the responsibility on others. Otherwise, any moment that you decide to get out of it, nobody can prevent you, nothing can ever obstruct you.

Take the responsibility totally as your own. If you want to suffer, then suffer. But then don’t complain – enjoy it! This is your choice. Then get deeper and deeper into your own mud, but don’t talk about suffering any more – it is your choice.

If you call it suffering, then watch the whole mechanism of suffering. If you want to protect yourself as an ego, then you have to suffer. If you want to throw the responsibility on others, then you have to suffer.

The only revolution possible is through taking the whole responsibility on yourself. “I am the cause of my suffering. Hence I can be the cause of my bliss.”

This declaration is what sannyas is all about, or Sufism is all about, or Zen is all about. The essential religion is taking the whole responsibility for whatsoever you are.

And immediately an insight arises: “If I am responsible for my suffering, then it is simple, I can drop it. It is my choice. I will not choose it anymore.”

A Sufi mystic who had always remained happy was asked… For seventy years, people had watched him, he had never been found sad. One day they asked him, “What is the secret of your happiness?”

He said, “There is no secret. Every morning when I wake up, I meditate for five minutes and I say to myself, ‘Listen, there are two possibilities: you can be miserable, or you can be blissful. Choose.’ And I always choose to be blissful.”

All the alternatives are open. Choose to be blissful.

And then there are people who can be blissful even when they are imprisoned, and there are people who remain miserable even when they are living in marble palaces. It all depends on you.

When Alexander came to India, on the way, he met Diogenes. Alexander was interested in Diogenes – opposites are always interested in each other. He stopped his armies and said, “For one day, have a rest. I would like to go and see Diogenes. I have always wanted to see him, now we are so close. He is just a few miles away and I would like to have a visit.”

He went. It was early morning, must have been a morning like this – winter, cold – and Diogenes was lying naked on the bank of the river, taking a sunbath; a naked fakir, he had nothing with him.

And Alexander the Great, who had everything with him, was standing by his side. For the first time, Alexander felt very poor. Diogenes was so rich in his nakedness. His face was so graceful, so beautiful; his whole body was radiating joy.

Alexander said to Diogenes, “I am very happy to see you. I would like to give you a present.”

Diogenes said, “What can you give to me? I don’t see that you have anything! You look so poor that in fact I would like to give you something. But I have nothing. You are a great emperor, that is true, but all that you can give to me is not my need, is not my desire; it will be an unnecessary burden to me.

But if you are really interested in giving me something, then please just move yourself from that side to the other side of me, because you are preventing the sun – and I will be thankful my whole life.”

It was a shock to Alexander the Great that Diogenes needed nothing, he was so fulfilled, so contented. Departing, he said to Diogenes, “When I have conquered the world I would also like to live like you.”

Diogenes said, “But why make this condition of first conquering the world? Look, I have not conquered the world, and yet I am so happy. You can also be happy. And this place is big enough, you can also be here. The bank is so big: throw off your clothes and have a good rest, and see the beauty of the sun and the morning. Rest now!”

Alexander said, “Yes, I would like to rest, but not now. When I have conquered the world…”

Diogenes said, “Nobody has ever been able to rest then, rest is possible only now. Tomorrow never comes. And who has ever been able to conquer the world? By the time you are a conqueror, life has gone by. You will die halfway; you will never be able to rest.”

And that’s how it happened. Alexander never reached back home. Going back from India after his great conquest, he died on the way.

And then there is another story…

By coincidence, Alexander and Diogenes died on the same day and they met on the way toward the other world, while crossing the river that separates this world from that. Alexander was ahead because he had died a few minutes earlier, and Diogenes was following him.

When they were crossing the river, Alexander became aware that somebody was coming behind him. He looked back – it was Diogenes. He was very shocked; now this man would say, “Look: I told you that your journey would remain incomplete.”

Just to save face, he started laughing. Diogenes asked, “Why are you laughing? Your laughter is shallow, but still, why are you laughing?”

Alexander said, “I am laughing to see that we have met again. Strange is this meeting – the meeting of an emperor and a beggar.” Diogenes was a beggar.

But Diogenes laughed even louder than Alexander. I don’t think anybody else would have laughed, crossing the river that separates this world from that, like Diogenes did.

Alexander said, “Why are you laughing?”

He said, “I am laughing because you are right, the meeting is strange – the meeting of an emperor with a beggar. But you don’t understand who the emperor is and who the beggar is. I am the emperor and you are the beggar. That is the really strange thing. That’s why I am laughing.”

And it is said, Alexander bowed down his head in sadness.

It was such an absolute truth, how could he deny it? Empty-handed he had entered into the world, empty-handed he was coming back. He had never known a moment of joy. And this man, Diogenes, he lived in joy, he lived a blissful life, he lived the life of being.

Let me remind you again, there are three possibilities: being, doing, having. Having is the lowest possibility – people who live through having: have this, have that. The world of doing is a little better, but just a little better: do this, do that.

The highest is the world of being.

There is no desire to do, no desire to have anything: one simply is. And it is not that one is inactive; great creativity flows but it is no longer a doing. One is not a doer: God is the doer. One is in the state that Sufis call fana.

One is no more, one is just a hollow bamboo; God starts singing his song and the hollow bamboo becomes a flute.

When you are just a being, you become a flute. And then life is a song and a dance and a bliss and a benediction.