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Understanding is not something that knows any when.

It is not of time, so it is not predictable. I cannot say today or tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. It can happen right this moment, it may not happen for lives together.

It is unpredictable. It is unpredictable because it cannot be caused. It happens when it happens; understanding comes to you. All that you can do is not to create it; you cannot create it. And the understanding that is created by you will not be much of an understanding, either.

So don’t ask how; there is no “how” to it.

“How” means some technique, some method, to create understanding. Understanding is not a thing that can be manufactured. Then what is it? – it is already the case.

You understand, but the understanding goes against your investments. Whatsoever I am saying is so simple that it is impossible not to understand it. I am not talking about difficult things, I am not talking philosophy. I am making simple statements just like “two plus two is four.” You need not be a great genius to understand it.

And you understand it perfectly well. It is not that you don’t understand it; the question is something else. You don’t want to understand it. You understand it, but you don’t want to understand it. You want to avoid it, you want to postpone it; hence you ask, “When?” “How?” Those are tricks, strategies, to postpone for tomorrow.

I say, “Now!” Don’t ask when. And don’t ask how, because “how” brings the future in. Then you say, “I will practice; it can’t happen just now. I will practice tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and slowly, slowly, gradually, one day it will happen.” And meanwhile you remain the same. It is a trick.

What I am saying is so obvious, but it goes against your investments.

You have invested too much in your ignorance. Your whole life up to now has been lived by an utterly wrong kind of mind, and you have invested all that you had, your whole life. Now suddenly you see the point; you become afraid. Seeing it means that you have been a fool up to now. Seeing it means that up to now all has been futile, that up to now you have not really lived. This is too much, you cannot swallow it. You create a new trick. You say, “I will try to understand.”

You have understood. It is already there. Now please don’t play games. And remember, if you cannot live this understanding that is happening to you today, you will not be able to live it tomorrow either because tomorrow the investment would have become even more. You will have invested one more day in your wrong attitudes, wrong structures; it will become more and more difficult. That’s why it becomes difficult. The older you are, the more difficult it becomes.

Why do you see so many young people coming to me? The reason is their investment is not that big. They can still hope to change their life and live. When old people come, their investment is too big. Unless they are very courageous and really young inside, they will not be able to take the jump.

They have lived their whole life in one way; now suddenly I am showing them a different path to be followed. It is so new; it will be uncomfortable, inconvenient, insecure. And now not much time is left. They are getting old, death is coming. To risk in such a moment becomes difficult.

They understand perfectly well, but they don’t want to understand. They want to go on dreaming, they want to continue the dream.

Mulla Nasruddin one night dreamt that Khidr, the Sufi hidden master, was standing before him and asked, “What do you want, Nasruddin?”

Poor Nasruddin couldn’t ask much. That’s how people are. If God suddenly appears and asks you, “What do you want?” Just think, what comes to your mind? A house, a car, a bank balance… You cannot even ask for something worthwhile.

Mulla said, “A hundred-rupee note.” Poor man, that was the last thing that he could imagine.

But Khidr is also something; he said, “I will give you one rupee. Two.”

Mulla said, “No, a hundred!”
“Three.”

And this way it continued, this haggling continued, in the dream. It came to ninety-nine, and Khidr was very adamant. He said, “I will not give a single pai more. Ninety-nine? Take it or leave it!”

And Mulla said, “I will take a hundred! And how miserly you are! Just for one rupee? Why not make it a hundred?”

And the fight became so hot that Mulla awoke himself and opened his eyes. Khidr disappeared, and the notes disappeared.

The wife was sitting by his side because he was talking so loudly that she had become awake and she was listening. Great haggling was going on and talk about money, and she was also interested. And she didn’t want to disturb him; something great was happening. “Eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two…” And it went on “…ninety-nine.” And Mulla said, “Ninety-nine, no! Hundred! I will take only a hundred.”

And then suddenly he opened his eyes, and the wife said, “What is happening?” And Mulla said, “You keep quiet!”

He closed his eyes again and said, “Okay, give me ninety-nine.” But now the dream is gone; now there is no Khidr, nobody.

And he said, “Okay, ninety-nine I say! Where are you? Ninety-eight! Ninety-seven!” And he started coming down but nobody now was there, and not even one rupee. And he was very angry and said, “How foolish I am! I should have accepted ninety-nine. Just for one rupee… This Khidr is a miser. And I am also a foolish man; now I cannot find him.”

That’s the situation.

If you understand me, the dream will be broken. And you are always nearabout ninety-nine. It is just going to happen tomorrow. One more day, a little more effort… And the hundred-rupee note is just hanging there in front of you like a carrot.

You say to me, “Wait, Bhagwan (Osho). Just let me try a little more. And you can go on telling me, you can go on teaching me, but tell me when and how.” And you go on working hard to get this hundred-rupee note which is always there around the corner but is never in your hands.

It will never be in your hands. And you are not ready to awake from your sweet dream.

It is not a question of understanding; it is so simple. But you have lived a certain life, your habits have become fixed, your structure has become frozen. Even when you understand, your mind is cunning enough to distort it, to create meanings in it which are not there. It can project its own ideas in it.

What I am saying is simple, utterly simple. Anybody with an innocent mind can understand it. But the problem is you have prejudices, you have your own ideas. You would like to understand it accordingly, according to your own prejudices.

The good Father came upon Pat, the town disgrace, in a highly inebriated condition, tacking skillfully from telephone post to gate, and back again.

“Pat, Pat, drunk again?”
“Are you? So am I, Father.”

“Tut-tut, this is no time for levity. You in this beastly condition, Pat, after faithfully promising me two weeks ago that you would nevermore drink again – and after taking the pledge. It’s a burning shame to you, and a sin against God and the Church, and sorry I am to be obliged to say so.”

“Father Daly,” said Pat, in a tone half tipsy, half laughing, “do you say you are sorry to see me so?”
“Yes, indeed I am.”
“Are you sure you’re very sorry?”
“Yes, very, very sorry.”
“Well, then, Father Daly, if you’re very, very sorry, I’ll forgive you.”

This is how it goes.

I say one thing, you manage it to mean something else. And you are doing it and you know that you are doing it. It is not a question of when and how – either now or never.

A young Scotsman of good family and good social position had a great fondness for drink. His family and his friends had done almost everything to break him of the habit, with no success. A friend suggested that they try giving him a severe shock. As a means to this end, they produced a coffin, and the next time he came home under the influence, they dressed him like a corpse, darkened the room, placed a few lighted candles around the coffin, and left a friend there to watch him.

He awoke shortly and appeared greatly puzzled by the surroundings, when, catching sight of somebody in the room, he remarked, “Where am I?”
“You’re dead,” was the solemn reply.
“Dead?” he exclaimed. “How long have I been dead?”
“Three days.”
“Well, well,” he mused. “Are you dead as well?”
“Aye, I’m dead as well,” said his companion.
“That’s funny. How long have you been dead?”
“Three weeks,” replied the other sadly.
The bibulous one brightened up considerably and said, “Well, if you’ve been dead three weeks, and I’ve only been dead three days, you must know the place better than I do. Where can we go and get a drink?”

The old mind, the old structure, the old habits, go on persisting. They will follow you even in your death. That’s exactly what happens – you change only your body, your mind continues. Your mind enters another womb, with all its rotten past. And again you start living the same repetitive life.

Don’t ask me when you are going to understand me. You have understood me. Now please don’t postpone it anymore. It has already happened. It is such a simple thing; I am not giving you puzzles, I am giving you bare, naked truths. And there is no question of how.

Listening to me, not interfering with what I am saying, not distorting what I am saying, the understanding will arise on its own. It is arising but it is going to be against your investments, that is true. And unless you dare, you will not be able to come out of your old past; you will not be able to come out of your old ego.

Great daring is needed; not understanding – understanding is already happening – courage. And what is courage?

Courage simply means a readiness to risk the known for the unknown. If the known has not given you anything, why be afraid of the unknown? Let’s try it. You are not going to lose anything because you don’t have anything. Why not try it? Either you get something or you don’t lose anything; anyway you are not going to be a loser.

But people think they have. They think they have lived a tremendously beautiful life, a life of richness. These are just your beliefs. You have been just dragging along. Your life has been drab and flat; no poetry has ever happened in it, no dance. You have not known anything of the beauty and the grandeur of existence. You have not touched even for a moment the divinity of this beautiful universe.

You have not known anything of God, and only that is what matters. Only that is what gives richness, only that is what means life. If you have not touched the divine, if you have not been touched by the divine, if you have not been moved by the divine, if you have not been penetrated by the divine, if you have not allowed God to happen to you, all that has happened is just a dream.

Seeing it, one jumps out of the dream. This is courage – to jump out of the known dream into the unknown. It is a risk. Who knows what is going to happen in the unknown?

But one thing is certain – by changing from the known to the unknown you will grow, you will become richer.