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The first thing -- it is not only you who only exists in the eyes of others; everybody is existing that way. That is the common way of existence. You use the other as a mirror.

Others' opinions become very important, of immense value -- because they define you. Somebody says you are so beautiful; in that moment you become beautiful. Somebody says you are a fool; in that moment you start suspecting -- maybe you are a fool. You may get angry, you may deny, but deep down you have become suspicious about your intelligence.

Somebody says you are so holy and you start behaving like a holy man, because you have to keep your image.

Once the society has decided that you are a criminal, you start behaving like a criminal. Because now what is the point? They have already decided that you are a criminal. Whether you are or not is not going to matter much, so why not be?

Once a person goes to the jail, he becomes a permanent visitor there; he comes again and again. Once the society has known that he is a criminal and he has been punished, once he has been branded as a criminal, he decides, 'Now, what is the point?'

Psychologists say that if in the family you have been treated as a fool or a buffoon, by and by you start playing the role. You have to accept it because you don't know who you are. At least people call you a fool; they give you a certain definition. You can rely on them.

Once a small boy is told that he is stupid -- in the house, in the school -- he starts behaving in a stupid way, because that becomes his definition. Otherwise he does not know who he is.

First thing to understand -- it is not only you who exists only in the eyes of others; everybody else is existing in the eyes of others. This is the world. This is what in India we call the world of maya, illusion.

You exist in others' eyes and others exist in your eyes. It is a mutual deception. They don't know who they are, you don't know who you are. You define them, they define you. It is a mutual trick. They play the game of defining you; you play the game of defining them.

And all definitions are false, because your soul is never mirrored in anybody's eyes. If you want to know who you are, you will have even to close your eyes -- you will have to go withinwards. You will have to forget the whole world, you will have to forget what they say about you. You will have to go deep inside you and encounter your own reality.

That's what I am teaching here -- not to depend on others, not to look in their eyes. There are no clues in their eyes. They are as unaware as you are -- how can they define you?

I have heard about two astrologers who used to come to the marketplace of a certain town every morning to sit there and tell people their future. Just in the morning they would come and they would spread their hands before each other, just to know their own future, what is going to happen on that day whether they are going to earn money or not. And one astrologer would say about the other, and the other would say about the first, and they would both be happy. It was of course free of charge, because both were serving each other.

Now, those people were predicting about others' future!

Once it happened, I was staying in a city and a few friends brought a very famous astrologer to see me. He only sees the hand if you pay him one thousand and one rupees. He was thinking that of course he would be paid. He looked at my hand and then he asked for his fee. I said, 'Can't you see that I am not going to pay? You cannot see this much? If you are a real astrologer and you know my future, you should know at least yours.'

You are looking into each other's eyes to find who you are.

Yes, some reflections are there, your face is reflected. But your fact is not you; you are far behind the face. Your face has been changing so much that you can't be your face.

Do you remember how you looked on the first day when you entered your mother's womb? There was no face at all. You were there, but there was no face. You could not have been seen with the naked eye; only a microscope would have helped to see. And there was no face, you were just a body, a cell. But you were there. Then you started growing and many faces passed.

And then you were born. If somebody brings a picture of you the day you were born, do you think you will be able to recognize that this is you? Yes, if somebody says -- your mother and father -- that this is you, you may believe, but you cannot recognize that this is you. Constant change... your face is a flux. It goes on changing every day, every moment.

You are not the face. Somewhere deep down hidden is your consciousness; it is never reflected into anybody's eyes.

Yes, a few things are reflected: your actions. You do something; it is reflected into others' eyes. But your doing is not you. You are far greater than your actions.

Actions are just like dry, dead leaves falling from a tree. Action is like a dead, dry leaf fallen away from you -- it is not you. In your actions there is no definition for you. It is as if you go under a tree and collect all the dry leaves and you think you have known the tree. The tree is far bigger, alive.

Any action, the moment it is completed, is dead. It is part of the past, it is no more alive, it is a dead leaf. Yes, many actions happen to you as leaves happen to a tree. But they go on happening. And there are moments when all the leaves are gone and the tree remains naked, bare against the sky... no leaves. So leaves cannot define the tree, they come and go. In the fall they disappear, in the spring they come again. Great foliage comes, great greenery comes, great flowers come -- but the tree is something else.

You are that being -- the tree. Actions come and go; actions don't define you, they are reflected. And in fact people don't talk about your actions, they talk about their interpretations about your actions. They don't say what you have done, they immediately evaluate it.

For example, if you are angry, they think you are doing something bad. They don't reflect your anger, they reflect their attitude about anger. Now modern research into the human mind says that anger is beautiful, it is not bad. in fact repressing anger is bad -- that is the new interpretation. If you repress the anger it becomes hatred -- hatred is chronically repressed anger. If you simply express your anger you never accumulate enough anger to create hatred.

Just like a small child -- in one moment he is so angry, fire, as if he can destroy the whole world, and next moment he is playing with the same boy, or sitting in your lap, laughing, giggling -- he has completely forgotten. He carries no ill-will, he carries no hatred.

Whatsoever comes, passes. Anger comes like a breeze and passes.

If you repress anger then you go on piling it, inside it goes on accumulating. It becomes pus, and then it explodes one day in hatred. A person who becomes easily angry can never murder. A person who never becomes angry and always is in control -- beware of him. He can murder someday because he is accumulating.

Now, this is a new interpretation. I'm not saying whether this is right or wrong, I am simply saying interpretations change. In the past, anger was bad and an angry person was an evil person. Now the Humanistic Potential Movement has created a new interpretation. They say anger is good, it simply shows aliveness; it is pure energy, it is a communication; it is natural, it is human, nothing is wrong in it, don't repress it -- enjoy it.

The new psychology says if you enjoy anger you will become more capable of enjoying love. The old psychology used to say that if you become angry you will lose all love, then your love will disappear.

Now the interpretation has completely changed. Now if you repress anger you will become hateful; hatred will be accumulated. And if you express anger, it is nothing but an expression of love. In fact you become angry only with a person you care about, otherwise you don't bother.

Your son is doing something; you become angry because you care, because you love. Your wife is doing something; you become angry because you love, you care. The neighbour's wife is doing the same thing. Let her do -- who bothers? You never become angry because there is no relationship. Anger is relationship.

Again let me remind you I am not saying who is right, who is wrong. I am simply saying that interpretations change and people don't reflect you or your actions; they reflect their interpretations.

Now if an old, traditional man is watching you angry, in a tantrum, jumping and jogging and throwing things, he will say you are mad. And the new humanist will say you are human.

I have heard: The young nurse had only just finished her training and had the misfortune to come across a particularly difficult patient on her first day in the ward. He complained about everything, expected everybody to attend to his every want without delay, and generally made a complete nuisance of himself. The poor nurse was tired beyond endurance, and, remembering her lectures on nurse-patient relationships, finally lost her control and muttered angrily, 'Ah you -- you human being!'

Now even 'human being' can be used in a condemnatory sense: 'Ah you -- you human being!' It depends on your interpretations.

Your being is never reflected in the eyes of others. Your being you have to come to know only in one way -- and that is by closing your eyes to all the mirrors. You have to enter into your own inward existence, to face it directly. Nobody can give you any idea of it, what it is. You can know it, but not from others. It can never be a borrowed knowledge, it can only be a direct experience, a direct experiencing, immediate.

So, don't be worried about it.

I feel not that I have transcended the ego, but as if I have no ego, no being, no essence. I feel so unreal. Where am I?

You are just in between these two worlds. It happens to every meditator. Hm? You had one identity collected from others' eyes, culled from others' opinions. Then you start moving inwards; that identity becomes vague, vaguer, starts disappearing. You don't know who you are, and all that you know about yourself is disappearing.

Just in between you stand one day. This is a transitory moment. You have not come in, and you have left the without far away. You are just standing on the threshold. The world is no more there, but you are also not yet. In this moment one feels very unreal, just a phantom, because one has no idea who one is, and all the ideas that one had are lost.

And in fact nobody can transcend ego because ego does not exist. When we say 'transcending the ego' it simply means coming to know that the ego does not exist. It is not something real that you can transcend or you can drop, it is an unreal idea you have to simply understand. That very understanding is transcendence.

Now let me repeat the whole question.

I feel most of the time as if I only exist in the eyes of others, as if I react to their expectations of me. I feel not that I have transcended the ego, but as if I have no ego, no being, no essence. I feel so unreal. Where am I? What can I do -- or not do?

You are on the threshold. You have come to understand that your identity in the eyes of others is false. Hence you cannot create your ego. The very food for the ego has disappeared. You feel unreal.

Ego has been up to now your only reality, and you are feeling lost, you don't know where you are, but I know where you are. You are just in the middle of two worlds -- this world and that. You are just in a transitory moment between sansar and sannyas -- between the world and the real renunciation.

Now, at this moment you are not expected to do anything, because whatsoever you do will take you again back into the world. Doing takes people into the world. Nothing is expected from you to be done. You are not to do anything, you are simply to wait and watch, not do. Not doing will help.

Don't do anything and don't try to change the situation, because if you try changing it you will again fall back to your own known, familiar world; you will again cling to your old identity. You simply wait. Just by waiting, by and by you will slip into the inner world.

Nothing is needed to do about it, only non-doing helps. It is just as if a stream has become muddy. What do you do to clean it? You simply sit on the bank; by and by the dust settles back. Again the stream is flowing clear, crystal clear. Just wait.

Sit in between these two worlds. I know it is very inconvenient, very uncomfortable. One wants to have some reality, and it is very unreal. But wait. This is what, on the path, is called austerity, tapascharya. This is the arduousness, the real arduousness -- when one is losing the old and the new is not coming. You have taken a jump from the old and you have not been able to find where to land -- just hanging in between, in a limbo.

It is uncomfortable, but just wait. Things will settle by themselves.

In the inner world, action is not needed; only inaction is helpful. Inaction is the action of the inner world. Lao Tzu calls it wu wei -- inactive action, passive action. You don't do anything, you simply wait and things happen just by your waiting. It is good that you are freed from the opinions of others. It is better to be unreal than to be falsely real. Your unreality has a reality in it.

When you are just real in others' eyes, you are falsely real. You only appear to be real, you are not real. And now you have understood, beware -- the trap is big and all around, and everybody is ready to force you back into the trap, because nobody likes you to get out of their trap.

The father wants you to do things the way he wants them to happen. The mother wants you to do the things as she wants them to be done. The wife has her own ideas, your children, they have their own ideas. And everybody thinks that he has the right clue, and they all go on driving you crazy.

I have heard:

The familiar screen was carefully placed in position around the patient's bed, and the nurse came in with a tape measure. The patient remained silent and unprotesting as the nurse measured him from head to toe and from shoulder to shoulder, but could contain himself no longer when she measured the distance from the mattress on the bed to the height of his rather large stomach. 'What on earth are you doing, nurse?' he asked weakly. 'I am measuring you for a coffin,' was the unexpected reply. 'But I am not dead!' 'Be quiet! Do you want to make a fool out of the doctor?'

Now, the doctor says, and he knows better whether you are dead or alive. 'Be quiet!' she says. 'Do you want to make a fool out of the doctor?'

Whatsoever you do, you will be wrong, because you will be going against somebody's wishes, somebody's ideas. It is very difficult to please all, and if you go on trying to please.all you will be simply wasting your life.

And nobody is pleased, nobody can be pleased, it is impossible to please anybody.

Stop fulfilling expectations of others, because that is the only way you can commit suicide. You are not here to fulfill anybody's expectations and nobody else is here to fulfill your expectations. Never become a victim of others' expectations and don't make anybody a victim of your expectations.

This is what I call individuality. Respect your own individuality and respect others' individuality. Never interfere in anybody's life and don't allow anybody to interfere in your life. Only then one day you can grow into spirituality.

Otherwise, ninety-nine percent of people simply commit suicide. Their whole life is nothing but a slow suicide. Fulfilling this expectation, that expectation... some day it was the father, some day it was the mother, some day it was the wife, husband, then come children -- they also expect. You have to fulfill their expectations. Then the society, the priest and the politician, and all around everybody is expecting. And poor you there, just a poor human being -- and the whole world expecting you to do this and that.

And if you don't fulfill their expectations... and you can't fulfill all of their expectations, because they are contradictory.

I was staying in a family and I asked the small boy, 'What are you going to become?' He said, 'I don't know. I think I will go mad.' 'What do you mean?' He said, 'My father wants me to become an engineer, my mother wants me to become a doctor. My uncle says, "Be a businessman, only then you can...." 'Another uncle, he says be a professor because that is the most simple profession. And I don't know. But this much I know -- that if all expectations are fulfilled, I will go mad.'

That's how many people have gone mad. And when I am saying many people have gone mad, don't make an exception of yourself. You have gone mad fulfilling everybody's expectations. And you have not fulfilled anybody's; nobody is happy.

This is the beauty. You are lost, completely destroyed, and nobody is happy. Because people who are not happy with themselves cannot be happy in any way. Whatsoever you do, they will find ways to be unhappy with you, because they cannot be happy.

Happiness is an art that one has to learn. It has nothing to do with your doing or not doing.