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Good Anand Geet. Dying is always easy, living is difficult. To become a martyr is very easy, any stupid person can do that, in fact only the stupid become martyrs. Otherwise who wants to become a martyr? But it is easier to die because it happens in a single moment and once you are dead you are dead, there is no more to it. But to live is the real problem, because life is long.

You say: “I will die for you, I think…”

I know you cannot even die because that “I think” is not reliable. Thinking is never reliable, only feeling is reliable. Thinking is deceptive; people come to me and say, “Bhagwan, I love you, I think” – how can love come out of thinking? There is no possibility, it is like trying to squeeze oil out of sand. Thoughts don’t have any love. Thoughts can have much hatred, can have much anger, rage, but they don’t have any love. You cannot take love out of them.

When you say, “I think I love,” you are deceived by the mind. Love is a feeling. When you say, “I will die for you, I think…” what you are actually saying is that you love me and you are ready to die for me. But through thinking that is not possible; at the last moment the thinking will say, “What are you doing? It is your life.” You don’t really mean it.

You say: “…I don’t believe a single word you say, not a single word.”

Because if you believe what I say, you will have to live it. I am not here to sacrifice you on any altar because all altars have to be destroyed and all temples razed to the ground. All altars have been dangerous to man – man has been killed on many altars, Hindu and Christian and Mohammedan, but man has always been killed. I don’t teach you that you have to offer yourself. No – I teach you life, not death. If you know life, you will know death too because death is the culmination of life; it is not against life, it is the crescendo of the song of life. It is the last alleluia.

I teach you life. But if you trust me then you will be getting into trouble. You will have to transform yourself; you will have to go through many, many mutations. That’s why your mind says, “I don’t believe a word you say, although I am ready to die for you.” You are not ready to allow a single word of mine to become a seed in your heart, and you are ready to die for me? You are not ready to accept me as a guest in you, and you are ready to die for me?

In the first place, I don’t want you to die, I want you to live and live authentically. Death will come in its own time. When the time is ripe, death is beautiful; when the fruit is ripe, it falls on its own accord. When you have lived your life totally, death is a joy because it is a relaxation into the universe again. The wave disappears into the ocean again to rest – for another life sometime, for another wave to rise.

It is just as the whole day you live and then night comes. Night is so beautiful, you can go to bed and forget all the turmoil, the anxiety, the work, the tiredness. You drop into a small death every night. And blessed are those who really drop into death every night because in the morning they are resurrected, they are reborn. They are again fresh, they are again ready to do many things that life requires to be done. They are no longer exhausted, their heart is again dancing, they are fresh. And they are ready to jump into the turmoil of life and to live another day.

Just like that, you will die in this body and you will rest in the earth and you will rest in the sky and you will rest for the time being. When you are ready to be born again – another day, another resurrection, another body – you will be back again. This will go on and on till you finish the job that has been given to you, till you fulfill your destiny; till you come to realize that the physical body is not you, that not even the bliss body is you, that you are a buddha.

The day you recognize that – not verbally, not intellectually, not as “I think” but totally, wholly, the recognition is absolute, there is no doubt about it, no uncertainty about it, it is not a logical conclusion but an experience, an existential experience, you are a witness to it – then you disappear. Then you will not be coming back on this earth in a bodily form. Then you will be born into God, without body, then you will become God, then you will float into eternity. Then you will be a lotus flower, invisible to ordinary eyes, then you will be a pure fragrance forever and forever.

But till that is attained, each death is a new birth. And remember, I am here to teach you how to live this moment, this day. If you die right now you will be unripe. Death will be pain, death will be a suffering, and death will be meaningless. People live meaninglessly and die meaninglessly, and because they live meaninglessly they can be exploited. Because your life is so meaningless anybody can come and can give you a meaningful death. He can say “Die for Islam” or “Die for Christianity,” or for “Christ’s sake” or for “Buddha’s sake,” die! He gives you a meaning. You are meaningless and you say, “Okay. Life is meaningless, let me try this. Maybe this makes me meaningful.” This is a kind of suicide and Islam and Buddha and Christ are just rationalizations for the suicide. You are committing suicide, with beautiful words around you.

No, I don’t want to be an altar for you. Nobody has to die for me, my sannyasins have to live for me. Life, living, is arduous because it cannot be a momentary impulse, it is not impulsive. If I say “Die!” you can jump from a mountain – it happens in an impulsive moment, and once you have taken the jump you cannot take it back, finished. But when you have to live, a thousand times you can take your steps back. And you will take your steps back a million times because life cannot be impulsive.

I don’t teach you impulsiveness, I teach you transformation. So please, nobody has to die for me – never. If you love me, live for me, love for me, let your life be a song, a joy, a celebration. When you are happy, you are with me. When you are dancing, you are with me; when you are loving, you are with me. That is my work, that is my mission.

But in another sense I understand; it is very difficult to believe in my words, almost impossible. I say “almost” because there are people who trust. That’s why I say almost – it is possible, but it is arduous, hard, because what I am saying is of another world. I bring you the message, the gospel, of another world. That world is hidden in this world, but still it is another for you, it is a separate reality; you have not known it, you have not seen it, how can you trust? In that sense I can understand. How can you believe? But I am not saying to believe either, because belief will not be of any help. All beliefs are harmful, belief as such is poison.

I am not saying believe in me, I am simply saying: look at me, feel me, and if a desire to experiment arises, experiment with me. Ihi passika – come and see. I would like to say to you exactly as Buddha said to his disciples: ihi passika. I don’t say come and believe, I say come and see. It has already happened here. The rose has bloomed –come close to me and your nostrils will be full of the fragrance of it. Come and see!

If you can see my rose. you will attain a great trust in your own rose. It will not be a trust in my rose, because that is of no use. Seeing that a man just like you – as fragile as you, made of body, bones and blood just like you, as vulnerable to death as you – a man just like you has bloomed, will give you a trust in yourself. Then why can it not happen to you? That’s my work, to bring you close.

Sannyas is nothing but an invitation to come a little closer – a little more, so you can see, so that you can feel. And through that seeing, a trust is bound to arise; not in me, but in yourself – that this can happen to you too. That’s what Buddha calls shraddha. That word cannot be translated. It has been translated as faith, as belief, as trust – but all translations miss the point. Buddha’s word shraddha means confidence – not just trust, not just belief, not just faith, but confidence. Confidence in whom? – confidence in your own being, that if it can happen to one man it can happen to all. Seeing that it can happen to one, a trust, a confidence, arises in you that “It can happen to me too.”

Only then will you understand what I am saying. Before that it is difficult. If you can avoid misunderstanding, that’s all I can expect of you. Understanding I don’t expect – just avoid misunderstanding. Just listen to me as you listen to pure music. What do you do when you listen to pure music? You simply listen. You don’t try to understand, you don’t try to figure out what it is, what the meaning is. You don’t bother about the meaning, you listen to it. What do you do when you listen to a bird calling in the early morning? You simply listen. You are thrilled with it, you feel the joy of it.

Here I am also a bird calling in the morning. Listen to me as you listen to music or wind passing through the pine trees. Listen just like that, in that listening you will be attuned to me. First misunderstandings will disappear, and when misunderstandings have become impossible, then understanding arises on its own accord. You need not bring it, you cannot bring it. It comes, it descends on you.

Otherwise there is bound to be misunderstanding.

I have heard…

A great film director and his wife were on safari in the African jungle when, just as they were walking along a narrow path in the thickest part of the bush, a huge lion leaped out at them, grabbed his wife in its massive jaws, and began to drag her off. “Shoot, John!” she yelled to her husband. “Shoot!” “I can’t,” he yelled back. “I’ve run out of film!”

Now a film director is a film director…

A man and his wife on a visit to London were feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. One of the pigeons settled on the husband’s head and relieved itself and flew away. “Well, don’t you just stand there doing nothing,” said the husband angrily to the wife. “Give me some paper. Give me some paper!” “Don’t be ridiculous,” said the wife. “That pigeon will be miles away by now.”

You get it?

And the last…

For Mother’s Day, the teacher gave the class a topic for composition: “There is only one mother.” That was the topic.

One kid wrote: “Yesterday I fell off a tree and hurt my knee. My mother heard me crying and came and gave me a big kiss. The pain was gone. There is only one mother!”

Another kid wrote: “Yesterday my friends were beating me up. I came home crying. Mother gave me a big kiss and told me she loved me. There is only one mother!”

And little John wrote: “Yesterday I came home very hungry. My mother said, “Go to the kitchen. On the table there are two bananas.” And I said, “There is only one, mother!”