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All hopes are false. To hope is to be in the false. So it is not a question of creating false hopes: whatsoever you can hope will be false.

Hope comes out of your falsity of being. If you are real there is no need for any hope. Then you never think about the future, about what is going to happen. You are so real, so authentic that the future disappears.

When you are unreal then the future becomes very significant, then you live in the future. Then your reality is not here and now, your reality is somewhere in dreams, and you make those dreams look real because through those dreams you gain your reality. As you are, you are unreal. That’s why so much hoping goes on.

All hopes are false – you are real, and my whole effort is how to throw you to yourself.

The ego is all false hopes combined together. Ego is not a reality, it is the collectivity of all your dreams, of all that is unreal, of all that is false. The ego cannot exist in the present. Look at this phenomenon. The ego always exists either in the past or in the future, never here and now – never, never. That is impossible. Whenever you think of the past, the ego comes, the I comes. Whenever you think of the future, the I comes. But when you are here, not thinking of past and future, where is your I?

Sitting under a tree, not thinking of past and future, just being there, where are you? Where is the I? You cannot feel it. It is not there. The ego has never existed in the present. Past is no more, future is yet to be. Both are not. Past has disappeared, the future has not yet appeared. Both are not. Only the present is and in the present nothing like the ego is ever found.

So when I say drop the ego, what do I mean? I am not giving you a new hope, I am taking all your hopes away. And that is the difficulty – because you live through hope, so you feel that if all hopes are taken away you will be dead. Then the question will arise: Why live? For what? Why move from one moment to another? For what? The goal has disappeared with the disappearance of hope. So why go on and on if there is nowhere to reach?

You cannot live without hope. That’s why it is so difficult to drop the ego. Hope has become synonymous with life.

So whenever a man is hoping, he appears to be more vital, appears to be more alive, appears to be very strong. When he is not hoping he appears to be weak, depressed, thrown back to himself, not knowing what to do, where to go. And whenever there is no hope you feel meaninglessness come into you. Immediately you create another hope; a substitute is created. If one hope is frustrated, immediately another is substituted – because you cannot live in the gap, you cannot live hopelessly.

I tell you that that is the only way to live. Without any hope, life is real; for the first time life is authentic.

So the second thing to be understood is: when I say it is easy to drop the ego, I don’t mean that it will be easy for you to drop it. I mean it is easy to drop it because the very phenomenon of ego is so unreal. If the ego is false, how can it be difficult to drop it? If the dream is just a dream, how can it be difficult to come out of it? If it were real, then there would have been difficulty. If a dream is just a dream, where is the problem to come out of it? You can come out!

The dream cannot catch hold of you, the dream cannot prevent you. The dream cannot become a barrier. The dream has no force – that’s why we call it a dream. It is easy to come out of a dream. That’s what I mean when I say it is easy to drop the ego. But I don’t mean that it will be easy for you, because the dream is still a reality for you, it is not a dream. The ego is not false to you, it is the only reality. Everything else is false.

We are living around the ego. We are seeking more and more egotistical journeys – somebody through wealth, somebody through status, power, prestige, somebody through politics, somebody through religion, priesthood. There are millions of ways. But the end, the result, the goal is the same: seeking more and more the I, seeking more and more the ego.

To you it is a reality; and I say it is the only reality. The false has become the real. The shadow has become the substance. That’s why it is difficult – not difficult because ego is very powerful. No, it is difficult because you still believe in it, in its power. If you believe in it, it is going to be difficult, because on the one hand you want to drop it, and on the other hand you go on clinging to it. It is going to be difficult. When I say to you it is a dream, you want to believe it because you have suffered so much through it.

Not that you feel the truth of what I am saying – if you feel the truth of what I am saying you will drop it immediately. You will not ask how. There is no how to it. You see the point and you drop it.

You don’t see the truth of what I am saying. When I say it is not realized that the ego is false and can be dropped, when I say that the ego can be dropped, you create a hope out of it. Because you have been suffering so much through it, you create a hope that if the ego can be dropped then all suffering will be dropped. You become happy with this hope.

I am not creating the hope, you are creating the hope. I am simply stating a fact that this is the construction of the ego. This is how an ego is structured, this is how an ego is created and this is how it can be dropped. And because it is false, no effort is needed. Just seeing the point and it disappears.

A man is running, scared, frightened to death, and running because of his own shadow. You stop him and tell him: “You are foolish! This is your own shadow – nobody is following you and nobody is going to murder you. There is nobody except you. You have become scared of your own shadow.”

But once you start running the shadow also runs faster. The faster you run, the faster the shadow follows. Then the logical mind can say that you are in danger, and the logical mind will say that if you want to escape run faster and faster. But whatsoever you do the shadow will be following you. And if you cannot get rid of it, you will get more and more scared. You are creating the whole thing out of yourself.

But if I say to you: “This is just a shadow, nobody is following you” – and you realize the point, you look at the shadow and you feel the point – will you ask me how to drop this shadow? Will you ask about some technique, method, some yoga: how to drop it? You will simply laugh. You have dropped it! In the moment you see that this is just a shadow and nobody is following you, it has been dropped already. There is no question of how. You will have a good laugh. The whole thing was nonsense.

The same happens with the ego. If you can see the truth of what I am saying, the thing has happened. In the very seeing of it the thing has happened. There is no more how to it. If you still ask how, the thing has not happened and you have not seen the point. But you have created a hope out of it, because you have been suffering through this ego. You have always wanted to drop it, but this wanting has always been half of your mind.

All your suffering has come through the ego, but all your pleasures have also come through the ego. A crowd applauds you, appreciates you – you feel good. That is the only bliss you have known. Your ego rises high, reaches to a peak, becomes an Everest. You enjoy it. And then the crowd condemns you and you feel hurt. The crowd becomes indifferent; you are crushed by it. You fall into a valley, a depression. You have been gaining pleasure through the ego, and you have been suffering through it. Because of the suffering you want to drop it, but because of the pleasures you cannot drop it.

So when I say that the ego can be dropped easily, hope is created in you. Not that I am creating it, your greed takes it. It doesn’t become a realization, it becomes a new greed, a new search for gratification. You feel that now there is a way, and there is a man who can help you to drop the ego and all the misery that ego creates. But are you ready to drop all the pleasures that the ego creates too? If you are ready it is such an easy thing – just like dropping a shadow. But you cannot drop half of it, and you cannot carry half of it. Either the whole will go or the whole will cling to you. This is the problem, this is the difficulty.

All your pleasures and all your sufferings are related to one phenomenon: you want to preserve the pleasures and you want to drop the sufferings. You are asking the impossible. Then it is difficult – not only difficult, it is impossible. It is not going to happen to you. Whatsoever you do will be futile, no result will come of it.

You create hope out of it – for heaven, the intense blissfulness of a buddha. Listening to me or listening to a Jesus or a Buddha, hope is created. But I am not creating it, you are creating it. You are projecting hope on it. And this is the problem, the complexity: that every hope is food for the ego again. Even this hope of reaching a paradise, a heaven, becoming enlightened, is a hope. And every hope is food for the ego.

Who is trying to become enlightened? The one who is trying to become enlightened is the problem. Nobody ever becomes enlightened. Enlightenment happens, but nobody ever becomes enlightened. When the room is empty, enlightenment happens. When there is nobody to reach enlightenment, enlightenment is there. Because of the language, because of the duality of the language, whatsoever is said about such deep things becomes false.

We say: Gautam Buddha became enlightened. This is false. Gautam Buddha never became enlightened. Gautam Buddha was the un-enlightenment. When he was not there, when he became absent, enlightenment happened. When suddenly one day he realized that he was following an absurd pattern, when he realized that: “I am the problem, so whatsoever I do will create more problems….” It is not a question of doing right or wrong, this or that. Whatsoever you do will strengthen the ego. Once Buddha realized this – but this realization took many years of effort – when he realized that: “Whatsoever I do will help my ego more and more,” he simply dropped doing. In that moment of realization he simply became a non-doer, absolutely inactive.

Remember, this is the problem: you can even create activity out of your inactivity, or you can create activity just to help inactivity come to you. But then you miss. You can stand still, you can sit silently, but if you are making effort to stand still, your standing is false. You are not standing, you are moving. If you are sitting silently and there is effort, if you are trying to be silent, that silence is false. You are not silent.

When Buddha realized that he was the problem, and that every activity of his gave more substance to the ego, he simply dropped. Then he was not making any effort to create a non-active state. He was not doing at all. Whatsoever was happening was happening. The wind was blowing, and the tree must have been dancing; and then the full moon came, and the whole existence was celebrating. And the breathing coming in, going out, and the blood circulating in the veins, and the heart beating, and the pulse – everything was happening, but he was not doing anything. In this non-doing Gautam Siddhartha disappeared.

By the morning there was no one to receive enlightenment, but enlightenment was there. Under that bodhi tree a vacant vehicle was sitting – breathing of course, heart beating of course, better than ever. Everything functioning perfectly, but no doer there – blood circulating, the whole existence around – alive, dancing. Every atom in Buddha’s body dancing, alive. It had never been so alive, but now energy was moving of its own accord – nobody pushing it, nobody manipulating it. Buddha became a white cloud. Enlightenment happened.

It can happen to you also, but don’t create any hope out of it. Rather, seeing the point, drop all hopes. Become hopeless, perfectly hopeless. It is difficult to become perfectly hopeless. Many times you reach hopelessness but it is never perfect. One hope drops, you feel hopelessness. But immediately you create another hope to cover it up, and hopelessness is gone.

People go on moving from one master to another; that is movement from one hope to another. They go to one master with hopes that he will give through his grace, that through his energy the thing will happen. Then they try, then they wait with a very strained mind, because a mind which hopes can never be at ease. They wait with a very impatient mind, because a mind which is filled with hope cannot be patient. And then they start feeling uneasy because the thing is not happening. So this master is wrong, they must move to someone else. This is not movement from one master to another, this is movement from one hope to another. People move from one religion to another; conversions are there just because of hope.

You can go on doing it for many, many lives. You have been doing that.

Now try to see the point. It is neither a question of a master nor a question of a right method. It is a question of a direct insight, an immediate penetration into the phenomenon of what is happening, why you hope, why you can’t be without hope. And what have you gained out of all your hoping? See it. It drops by itself. You are not even required to drop it. That’s why I say it is easy, and I know well it is very difficult – difficult because of you, easy because of itself.

The phenomenon is easy, you are difficult.

And this can happen any moment. When I say this can happen any moment, I mean the phenomenon of enlightenment, of egolessness, is not caused by anything. No cause is needed. It is not an outcome of many causes, it is not a byproduct. It is simple insight. It can happen to a sinner, it may not happen to a saint. So no necessary condition is needed really. If he can see, it can happen even to a sinner. If he becomes hopeless, if he feels that there is nothing to be gained and achieved, if he comes to see that the whole thing is just an absurd game, it can happen. It may not happen to a saint because the saint goes on trying to achieve. He is not yet hopeless. This world has become futile, but another world has become meaningful. He has to leave this earth, but there are heavens beyond – he has to reach there.

And even people near a Jesus or Buddha go on asking things like this. Just on the last night, when Jesus was going to be caught and the next day killed, his disciples asked him: “Master, tell us: in the kingdom of God, when you will be sitting on the right side of God’s throne, what will be our positions there? Where will we be sitting, in what order?” God sitting on his throne, Jesus, the only begotten son on his right side, and then these twelve disciples: “Where will we be sitting and what will be the order?”

People around Jesus asking such a foolish question – but this is how the human mind is. They don’t ask anything of this world – they have become beggars – but they ask of the other world. They are not really beggars, they are hoping. They have staked on this other world, but it is a bargain: “Where will we be there? Who will be sitting next to you?”

There must have been competition among those twelve disciples. There must have been politics, ambition, somebody up, somebody down, somebody becoming the chief. There must have been much conflict, inner politics, undercurrents of violence and aggression. Even with Jesus one starts hoping. Hope is deep-rooted in you. Whatsoever is said, you convert it into a hope. You are a hope-creating mechanism, and this hope-creating mechanism is the ego.

So what is to be done? In fact, there is nothing to be done. You only need clearer eyes, more perceptive eyes, more penetrating eyes. All that is needed is to have a fresh look about you, at your being, at whatsoever you have been doing, hoping – a fresh look.

And I say to you, in that fresh look, in that innocent look, ego drops by itself, on its own accord. It is the easiest phenomenon, and at the same time the most difficult.

But remember well, I am not creating any hope in you.