307

Such beautiful and coherent discourses are possible because I am not there. Once I am there, they will no longer be beautiful. Not only that: they are beautiful because you are listening when you are not there. Once you are there, they will no longer be beautiful. The beauty exists only in an egoless space. You come, and ugliness follows.

“If you are not there, and there is no thought any more…”

Yes, I am not there, and there is no thought any more. That’s why this river goes on flowing, because there is nobody to hinder it, nobody to obstruct it.

“It seems like you are aware and understand what you are saying.”

It only seems. Don’t be deceived by the appearance. I am not aware. I am drunk – drunk with awareness maybe, but I am drunk. But this drunkenness is called awareness. If your awareness is not also drunkenness, it is not awareness yet. If you are not drunk with awareness, you are not drunk yet. When awareness and drunkenness become almost synonymous, only then is there buddhahood, then is there enlightenment.

“It seems like you are aware and understand what you are saying.”

It only seems: it is not so. I am drunk. And it seems that I understand what I am saying – I don’t understand what I am saying; I am simply allowing it to be said. I am not trying to understand what I am saying because that would be a duality; then I would be two – someone who is trying to understand what is being said. Then I would be in a dichotomy. And that’s what happens when you say you are watching what you are saying all the time, whether you are saying it right or wrong. You are always trying to be consistent, logical, this and that.

I am absolutely inconsistent. I am not trying in any way to understand what I am saying. I allow it. Because that is my understanding: unless you allow, nothing of worth flows. If you try to say something that is meaningful, the meaning will be superficial. If you simply say it without any effort on your part, if you simply allow the divine, the whole, to flow through you, it is tremendously meaningful: then the meaning is ultimate.

And I would also like you not to try to understand what I am saying – because that is the only way to miss it, a perfect way to miss. If you want to miss what I am saying, try to understand. Just listen, there is no other need. It is a song to be heard, it is a dance to be watched.

I am a certain emptiness and I would like you to participate in it. Be in rapport with me, don’t try to understand, because then the intellect enters and you are no longer total. If you are total, whatever comes out is beautiful. If you are not total, at the most you can create an appearance of beauty, but it will not be beauty. Beauty is always of the total.

Please don’t try to understand me; otherwise you will become a great knower, but you will miss knowing. Then you will become a rabbi, a pundit, a maulvi. But you will miss the real understanding that I am showering on you. Remember this: understanding is not needed – only a deep drunkenness that is also awareness is needed.

Be with me. When you are trying to understand, you are with yourself; you are trying to interpret me according to your mind, knowledge, information. You are trying to look at me according to your past; your eyes are clouded with dust, you will not be able to see me. Just be a mirror: reflect me, don’t try to understand me. Echo me, don’t try to understand me. And there will be understanding.