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You can suffer in a dream, you can suffer in a nightmare. While it lasts, to all practical purposes, it appears real. When you awake, you know it was not real – and even then you know that you had suffered. You may still be perspiring, you may still be trembling because of the nightmare. Your heart may still be beating faster than usual. Awake, you know it was just a dream, but still you suffered. Not only that, but even now when you are awake, there is a hangover. The aftereffects are still continuing.

You suffer from an ego that does not exist. In fact, you suffer because it does not exist and you go on believing it exists. If you believe in something that is not, you are bound to suffer because you will try in every possible way to feel it exists. But it cannot exist.

Just watch; whenever you suffer, watch. Where does it hurt? You will always find it is the “I,” the ego that hurts. You would like to live a life where there is no suffering, but that life is not possible if you continuously carry the ego with you. You cannot make a life around you so that suffering disappears. If you carry the ego, again and again you will bump into some reality that will hurt the unreal. Whenever there is an encounter between reality and unreality, the unreal causes suffering.

I have heard an anecdote about a very famous man, Oscar Wilde. At a function where the views of celebrities were being canvassed, Oscar Wilde was asked to compile his list of a hundred best books. “I fear,” said he, “that would be impossible.” “Why?” he was asked. He said, “Because I have only written five.”

You go on looking at life just from one single point – you. Humanity used to believe the earth was the center of the universe and man, of course, the center of the earth; and you, of course, the center of humanity.

I have heard…

There was a professor of philosophy in the University of Paris. One day he declared, “I am the greatest man in the world!” The students laughed; he was a poor philosopher. But whenever he said something he must mean something, so they asked. And they asked, “You being a logician, please prove it.”

He brought a map of the world into the class, and said to the students, “Which is the greatest country in the world? Can you tell me, can you show me?” They were all French, so of course France was the greatest country in the world. So he said, “Now the whole world is not the question. If I can prove I am the greatest man in France, then I am proved.”

They said, “That looks right.” But now they started feeling a little uneasy. He said, “And which is the greatest city in France?” Of course they were all Parisians, so it was Paris. Now they became even more afraid; he was bringing the truth home. And then he said, “Which is the greatest and the holiest place in Paris?” Of course, it was the university. “And which is the greatest department in the university?” Of course, it was the department of philosophy. And he said, “I am the head of the department!”

When for the first time it was discovered the earth was not the center of the universe, it damaged the human ego tremendously. The church fought it, because it was not only a question of the earth; deep down it was a question of the human ego. If the earth is not the center, then man cannot be the center; and if earth is just a far off outer post, and not at the center of existence, man may be, at the most, a coincidence. The so-called religious people struggled against the idea.

Galileo, an old man, was called into the court, and was asked to confess his sin – that he had committed a mistake – and to admit it. He had said and proved that it is not the sun that moves around the earth; on the contrary, it is the earth that moves around the sun. If the earth moves around the sun, then the sun is the center.

He said, “I can admit I have committed a mistake, and I confess, but there is one thing I must say. Whether I confess, whether I admit it or not, makes no difference. The earth moves around the sun. It will not change its course just because Galileo asks to be forgiven. You can kill me, and I am ready to ask to be forgiven. I am ready to admit I have committed a mistake. My admitting is not going to help; the earth will go on moving around the sun. The earth is not at the center.”

Why was the church so adamant? There was reason in it, very, very significant reason in it. Once the earth is not at the center, man is not at the center. Then you disappear in a vast universe. In fact, religious people should have been in favor of it because they had been against the ego. But religious people, really religious people, are very rare and few.

The whole effort of religion is how to drop the ego. The whole effort is how to penetrate the phenomenon of the ego and to see the unreality of it. It is unreal, and I know your suffering is real. The unreal can cause real suffering. There is no problem in it because the unreal becomes almost real when you believe in it. If you believe in a ghost, then the ghost is there.

In my town, just near my house, there was a very old tree. My window was just near the tree, and I didn’t like people walking, coming and going, so I spread a rumor that there was a ghost. By and by it became a reality. First people laughed, but even in their laughter there was fear. I had an old servant, so I told him one day to just sit in the tree and when people passed by, to just create noise. The whole town recognized the fact that this was the truth. My family knew that I wanted absolute silence near that tree so nobody would pass. But by and by, they also became afraid: “Who knows?”

I told them, “You know this is just a trick!” But they said, “When the whole town believes, and nobody walks on that path in the night, and even in the day people are afraid, who knows?”

Once you believe, an unreal thing becomes real. Your belief makes it real; then it hurts, then it hurts almost as if it were real. It is only a question of belief. Man is a believing animal. Whatever you believe, you make it real by your belief. And you can come to know the reality only when you drop all beliefs.

Remember, you can face reality only when you drop all beliefs, all conceptions about it, and you come naked, nude, and empty – carrying no philosophy, no belief, nothing, not even the belief: “I am.” That too is a belief. Just come empty, innocent, not knowing anything. Then the mystery will be revealed to you; not before it.

The ego is one of the most unreal things, but one wants to believe in it, one wants to be someone. To be nobody needs great courage. To be a nothingness needs infinite daring. Only a Buddha or a Jesus, rare human beings, come to realize that emptiness. And through that emptiness is realized the fullness of life.