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All questions are silly and so are all answers. Questions come out of the mind like leaves come out of the trees. Questions are part of the mind that has to be dropped; questions keep the mind nourished.

A question is really a search for food. The answer is the food. The question is a groping: the mind is feeling hungry, it wants to be strengthened; it wants to be fed, it searches for food. Wherever it can find something satisfying… Any answer that makes the mind knowledgeable, that gives the mind the feeling “Now I know,” functions as a food. And the mind can go on and on asking, collecting answers, becoming knowledgeable.

The more knowledgeable the mind is, the more difficult it is to drop it. And it has to be dropped, because unless questioning ceases in you, you will never be silent. Unless questioning disappears totally, you will not find that space, that serenity, that stillness, which can make you aware of who you are, and of what this reality is.

Remember, reality is never going to come to you in the form of an answer. It has never happened that way; it is not going to happen that way. It can’t happen that way, it is not in the nature of things. Reality comes to you when there is no question left; reality comes to an unquestioning state of awareness.

So the first thing to be remembered is: all questions are silly, and all answers are too. Then you will be a little puzzled – why do I go on answering your questions? If you look deep down into my answers, you will see that they are not answers. They don’t nourish your mind, they destroy your mind, they shatter you. They are meant to be shocks. The purpose of my answering is to hammer your mind – it is hammering; it is not answering.

In the beginning, when you come here for the first time and you don’t understand me and my purpose, you may think that I am answering you. The longer you are here, the deeper you become attuned with me, the more you know that my answering is not to give you answers. It is not to make you more knowledgeable – just the opposite. It is to take your knowledge away, to make you unknowledgeable, to make you ignorant – ignorant again, innocent again – so that questioning disappears.

And when there is no questioning, there is a totally new quality to your consciousness. That quality is called wonder. Wondering is not questioning, it is feeling mystified by existence. Questioning is an effort to demystify existence, it is an effort not to accept the mystery of life; hence we reduce every mystery to a question. The question means the mystery is only a problem to be solved and once solved, there will be no mystery.

My effort in answering you is not to demystify existence but to mystify it more. Hence my contradictions. I cannot be consistent – I am not answering you. I cannot be consistent, because I am not here to make you more knowledgeable. If I am consistent, you will have a body of knowledge – very satisfying to the mind, nourishing, strengthening, gratifying.

I am deliberately inconsistent, contradictory, so that you cannot make any body of knowledge out of me. So if one day you start gathering something, another day I take it away. I don’t allow you to gather anything. Sooner or later, you are bound to be awakened to the fact that something totally different is transpiring here. It is not that I am giving you some dogma to be believed in, some philosophy to be lived by, no, not at all. I am utterly destructive, I am taking everything away from you.

Slowly, slowly your mind will stop questioning. What is the point? When no answer answers, then what is the point? The day you stop questioning is a day of great rejoicing, because then wondering starts. You have moved into a totally new dimension; you are a child again. Jesus says: “Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God.” Certainly, he means unless you are ignorant again, innocent again, unquestioning and wondering.

There is a difference between the question of a child and a grownup person. The difference is of quality. The child asks not to be answered, he is simply being articulate about his wonder. If you don’t answer the child he forgets about his question and he starts asking another question. His purpose is not to be answered; his purpose is simply that he is talking to himself. He is being articulate about his wonder, he is trying to figure out what it is – the wonder, the mystery. He is not hankering for an answer, so no answer will satisfy him. If you give him an answer, he will ask another question about the answer. His wondering continues.

When a grownup person – educated, sophisticated, well read, informed – asks a question, he asks it out of his knowledge, to gather more knowledge. The mind always hankers for more and more. If you have money, it hankers for more money; if you have prestige, it hankers for more prestige; if you have knowledge, it hankers for more knowledge. The mind lives in the “more.”

This is the way you go on and on avoiding reality. Reality is a mystery; it is not a question to be asked. It is a mystery to be lived, a mystery to be experienced, a mystery to be loved – a mystery to be dissolved in, to be drowned in.
I am answering you, not to answer but to simply destroy the question. I am not a teacher. The teacher teaches you; the master does not teach you, he helps you unlearn.

You say, [“This sounds like a silly question.”]

- Not only does it sound, it is. All questions are – what can I do? What can you do?

You say, [“I am not sure that I want to become enlightened.”]

- That shows how the mind functions, it is never sure of anything. The mind is always unsure; it lives in unsureness. The mind lives in confusion; it can never have any clarity. Clarity is not part of the mind at all; clarity is the absence of the mind, confusion is the presence of the mind. Confusion and mind are synonymous.

You can’t have a clear mind. If you have clarity, you cannot have the mind; if you have the mind, you can’t have clarity. The mind is always divided against itself, it lives in conflict. Divisibility is its nature, hence those who live in the mind never become individuals, indivisibles. They remain divided: one part wants this, and another part wants that.

The mind is a crowd of many desires; it is not a single desire. The mind is multi-psychic, and all the fragments are falling apart in different directions. It is a miracle how we go on keeping ourselves together. It is a hard struggle to keep oneself together. Somehow, we manage, but that togetherness remains only on the surface. Deep down there is turmoil.

You fall in love with a woman; are you sure that you are in love – really sure? I have never come across a lover who is really sure. You may even get married, but are you sure… you may have children, but are you sure that you really wanted to have children? That’s how you are living: nothing is sure, but one has to do something or other to keep oneself occupied, so you go on keeping yourself occupied. But surety is not of the mind, it cannot be, and the same problem will arise on every level. The same problem is facing you again.

You say, [“I am not sure that I want to become enlightened,”]

- but there must be a certain desire, otherwise why the question? A part of your mind must be saying, “Become enlightened” – just a part. Another part must be saying, “Are you mad? Have you lost your senses? You have a wife at home, and children, and work, and you love your country – and you are trying to become enlightened? You must have become a victim of mass hypnosis: so many people in orange, it is dangerous to live with such mad people – so many mad people, enjoying and laughing, and loving and looking so happy! Keep on remembering you have a wife, children, a job. Keep alert!”

But again and again the desire will come. When so many people are interested in enlightenment, there must be something in it. You can deceive one, you can deceive two, but how can you deceive so many… thousands of people interested in enlightenment? It can’t be all bullshit. So a desire arises to have a little taste of it, and fear is there too.

This is the situation; always it is so, in everything it is so. You want to purchase a car, and it is the same: whether to purchase a Chevrolet, or a Ford or a Benz? If your wife is not there to help you, you will never purchase any car! Women are more decisive; they are still less in the mind than men. They function out of the heart; their feeling side is still alive. Fortunately, they are not yet so civilized; they are still primitive, a little wild, leaning toward the intuitive and not toward the intellect, still capable and courageous enough to act decisively, to act intuitively, to act illogically.

All decisions come from the heart. The mind is never decisive, it cannot be. If you want to decide through the mind, you never can. I am not talking about great things like enlightenment and the existence of God or the existence of life after death. I am not talking about great things, just small things – whether to purchase this soap or that, or which toothpaste – and you will find the same difficulty. The mind is fragmentary, divided. Hence my consistent insistence that you get out of the mind and start living. The mind only thinks and never lives. It thinks beautiful thoughts, but they are thoughts all the same, just dreams.

Get out of the mind if you want to live. Get out of the mind if you want to live this moment. The mind cannot live in this moment, because it has to decide first, and the moment is lost in thinking, and by the time the mind has decided – if it ever decides – that moment is gone already. You are always lagging behind. The mind is always running after life, and lagging behind and missing it continuously.

Many of you must have dreamed something like this: Anand Maitreya continuously dreams that he is going to catch a train, and in the dream, he always misses it. Many people, I think almost everybody, has dreams of that kind – that you are just going to make it, just going to make it…and you miss it. By the time you reach the platform, the train has left. You see it leaving, but it is too late; you cannot get on it. Anand Maitreya’s dream is a very significant dream and a universal one. This is simply how the mind functions; this dream symbolizes the mind: it is always missing the train. It is bound to be so, because the mind takes time to think, and time cannot stop for you; it goes on and on slipping out of your hands.

You never have two moments together in your hands, only one single moment. It is such a small moment that there is no space for thinking to move, no space for thoughts to exist. Either you can live it, or you can think. To live it is to be enlightened; to think is to miss. Enlightenment is not a goal that you have to decide whether to accept it or not. It is not a goal. Enlightenment is the realization that we have only the present moment to live. The next moment is not certain – it may come, it may not come. In fact, tomorrow never comes. It is always arriving and arriving, but never arrives. The mind lives in the tomorrows – and life is possible only in the present.

Jesus says to his disciples, “Look at the lilies in the field, how beautiful they are! Even the great Solomon was not so beautiful attired in all his grandeur as these poor lily flowers.” What is the secret? The secret is that they think not of the morrow. They live now; they live here.

To live now is to be enlightened, to live here is to be enlightened, to be a lily is to be enlightened. This very moment! Don’t think about what I am saying. Don’t think about it, just be here. This is the taste of enlightenment. Once you have tasted it, you will want to taste it more and more.

Don’t make a goal out of it; it is not a goal, it is the most ordinary state of consciousness. It is nothing extraordinary; it is nothing special. Trees are enlightened and the birds are enlightened, and rocks are enlightened, and the sun and the moon are enlightened. Only man is not, because only man thinks and goes on missing. The moment you realize that you are missing because you are brooding too much, then small glimpses start happening. Small gaps in the traffic of the mind, small gaps when there is no traffic: those are the moments of meditation.

They can happen anywhere. Yes, in your country too! So, no need to be worried – you need not be in India. India has no copyright on enlightenment: it is not patented yet, it cannot be patented. You can be enlightened anywhere. You can be enlightened remaining a husband, a father, a mother, a wife. You can be enlightened as an engineer, as a doctor, as a carpenter, as a vagabond – even as a hippie. You can be enlightened anywhere. Enlightenment is not something you have to work for, to strive for. It is something that you have to relax for – not strive, but relax. Relax, and this moment you are enlightened. Many times you will become enlightened, and many times you will become unenlightened again, just because of the old habit.

You say, [“I am surprised to see so many people around who seem to have that desire.”]

- If they have that desire, they will never become enlightened. Either: you can have the desire, or you can have enlightenment; you can’t have both. Either: you can eat the cake, or you can have it; you can’t do both. If you have a desire for enlightenment, then enlightenment is never going to happen to you – never, never – because desiring is what prevents it, so enlightenment cannot be desired; that will be a contradiction in terms. Either: you are enlightened or you are not, it is as simple as that. Enlightenment is not caused by anything, it is your nature. Thus, it is not a question of making a great endeavor. It is not an enterprise; you need not plan for it. It is already the case!

That is Atisha’s first preliminary: Truth is. Enlightenment is. It is as much as the sunlight showering all around, but you can remain with closed eyes, and you are in a dark night although the sun is showering everywhere. Open your eyes and the night disappears and there is no darkness. Even when you were thinking there was darkness, there was not. It was a very private affair, idiotic; it was something eccentric that you were doing.

To be unenlightened is something that you have earned; great effort has been invested in being unenlightened, and continuously you have to go on making an effort to remain unenlightened. Just drop making any more efforts to remain unenlightened, and you are enlightened. Enlightenment is your natural state; it is what you are.

So please don’t misunderstand my people. Newcomers are certainly desirous; they have come out of desire, in search of something, but those who have been here with me a little longer are no longer in any desire. They are living moment to moment, enjoying the extraordinary ordinariness of life. Small things – sipping hot tea in the morning: you can sip it in an enlightened way, and you can sip it in an unenlightened way. If, sipping hot tea early in the morning, you are not in the moment but thinking of something else – you have to go to the morning discourse – you are unenlightened. You missed an enlightened cup of tea, and remember, if that is your habit, you will miss the discourse too – because this again is nothing but a cup of tea. Then in the discourse, you will be thinking, “I have to do the Sufi meditation, I have to rush to do this and that and then come back.”

It is not a question of one moment; it is a question of your pattern, your gestalt. If this is your gestalt, that you are always rushing ahead of time, thinking of the next moment, then you remain unenlightened. And this is your effort, this is something that you are doing.

For enlightenment, nothing has to be done, only this understanding: “Why should I go on keeping myself unenlightened?” That’s why one day I decided: “Enough is enough. I have lived so many lives in an unenlightened way.” And since then I have lived in an enlightened way. This is simply an understanding; it is not a desire.

You say, [“I feel very much attached to my country and love my work there.”]

- Perfectly good! Love your work, love your country, go back – but live there in such a simple moment-to-moment way that you remain enlightened. Don’t lag behind, don’t rush ahead. Just be herenow, wherever you are, whatsoever you are doing.

[“Still,”] you say, [“I want to take sannyas – is that possible? Is it not a contradiction?”]

- It is a contradiction, but you are living in contradictions, and this is the last contradiction. Before you can come out of your contradictory life, your life of conflict, you have to close the doors of that life. Sannyas is nothing but closing the doors – the last thing. It is simply a declaration that “I have lived in the mind for so long, and nothing but misery has been my experience. Now I am taking a jump out of the mind into the unknown. I am going into a totally different kind of life.”

Sannyas is just a gesture from your side that yes, understanding has dawned, and you would like to come closer to me to see what it actually is. To be close to a master, to be relating to a master, to be intimate with a master, is nothing but an approach toward your own ultimate understanding, your own enlightenment.

Your mind will make you very much frightened of the unknown; it will drag you back. And it is always safer to live with the known; it is familiar, you are efficient in living with it. To move into the unknown, you will need a guide – a guide who has moved into the unknown, who lives in the unknown, who lives in innocence. Just to imbibe the spirit you need the guide… not for any guidance, but just to imbibe the spirit of the unknown, the joy of the unknown, the celebration of the unknown. Once you start drinking something of the master, you will not go back to the old ways of the mind. That’s what sannyas is all about.

Yes, you can take sannyas. In the beginning, it is bound to be the same conflict: whether to take it or not, whether to go into it or not. It is natural, because that’s how you have functioned for many lives. This has become your second nature.

I persuade you, I seduce you into sannyas. Great persuasion is needed, great seduction is needed. That’s why I have created sannyas; otherwise there was no need; you could have come here, listened to me, and gone. You would have listened to me, but you would not have come close to me. This is a bridge. You would have heard me, but you would not have tasted of my silence. You would have known what I say about love, but you would not have known my love. Sannyas makes it possible. It is an energy field; it is a buddhafield. It is communion: nonverbal, heart-to-heart, and one day, being-to-being.