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You seem to be very old fashioned. The world has changed a lot since these kinds of stories were written. Now just the vice versa exists. Touch a prince and he becomes a frog, kiss a prince and immediately there is a frog.

This fable is no longer applicable. But it will be good to go a little deeper into it. Why were such kinds of stories invented? – why in the first place? What is their psychology? The psychology is to cover up something ugly about human beings. The reality is that the moment you kiss a woman or a man, the moment you fall in love with a man or a woman, immediately the process starts that the man starts becoming a frog, the woman starts becoming a frog.

Now, this is a fact, and you all know it. And these fables were created to cover up this reality. These fables were created to deceive you, that this is not so: that, in reality, kiss a frog and he becomes a prince. To deceive you about the reality of life, these stories were created. Small children read these stories and believe in them, and later on they are very much disillusioned.

These stories are fantasies, wish fulfillments. That’s how man would like things to be. Kiss a frog and the frog transforms into a handsome prince. These are wish fulfillments; it does not happen, what happens is just the contrary. But how to hide it? How not to look at it? Create beautiful fables around it.

Ninety-nine percent of religion and a hundred percent of literature consists of deceptions. It goes on talking about things as they are not, never have been, and never will be.

But man is the animal who lives through illusions. He cannot live with reality; reality is too much, it hurts. Have you not seen it in your own life? Fall in love with a woman; she was so beautiful when she was unavailable; when she was beyond your grasp she was like a Cleopatra. And once you are married to her you are fed up with her, bored to death. Now you cannot believe how you managed to see Cleopatra in this woman; she looks ugly in every possible way.

And the same is the case from her side. She was thinking you were a charming prince, like the princes in the fables on their beautiful horses. She thought she had found her charming prince. And when she lives with the reality, he snores in the night, he stinks, and he has such dirty habits – he smokes, she cannot even kiss him because he smells so much of smoking. And suddenly she becomes aware that the charming prince was never there in reality; it was a projection, she had projected him. Every day the person becomes more and more ordinary. The reality is: kiss a prince and he becomes a frog.

But then how to live? If all these realities are made known, then life will become impossible. So we create fantasies, fables, fictions, to create consolation, to create a little cozy atmosphere. If it is not real, at least you can dream, you can fantasize, you can believe that if it is not real today, tomorrow it is going to be real. Go on kissing the frog, and sooner or later he will become a prince. These are make-believes.

People believe in the immortality of the soul because they are conscious of death – not that they know the soul is immortal, but just because they see everybody dying, they know the certainty of death. Now, how to escape from the certainty? Create a fiction. Remember, I am not saying that the soul is not eternal, I am simply saying that people’s belief that the soul is eternal is a fiction. The belief is a fiction.

People believe in a God who cares, because they feel so uncared for. Nobody cares about them, they feel so left alone, nobody seems to be interested in them; whether they live or die will not matter. They have to create a father figure high in heaven who cares for them. Even if nobody cares, God cares. It is a great solace.

In the name of religion, in the name of literature, in the name of poetry, music, we have been creating fictions –we create a few buffers around ourselves, so the shocks of reality don’t reach to us. You must have seen buffers on railway trains. Between two bogies, two compartments, there are buffers, so if somehow some accident happens, the compartments don’t run into each other and the shock of the accident can be absorbed by the buffers. Cars have springs so that you don’t feel the bumps on rough roads. Those springs go on absorbing the bumps, the shocks; they are shock absorbers. Man has created many psychological shock absorbers around himself.

And what I would like to say to you is this: that unless you drop all shock absorbers you are never going to be free. Only truth liberates. Although in the beginning, truth shocks very much – but that’s how it is, that’s how things are, that’s how nature functions. You have to open yourself, you have to be vulnerable to all the shocks of life. It will hurt, it will wound, you will cry, you will weep, you will be in a rage against life. But slowly, slowly you will start seeing that truth is truth, it is pointless to be in a rage against truth. And once the rage has subsided, the truth has a beauty of its own. Truth liberates.

The real work of a master is how to destroy the absorbers of the disciples. And it is really very hard work – hard in the sense that the disciples resist in every possible way. They protect their absorbers, and if they feel that there is some danger, they create more absorbers around themselves. If they see that somebody is after them to snatch their absorbers, they become very defensive, very protective and they create more armors around themselves.

The real master cannot give you solace, he can only give you freedom. He can give you bliss, but he cannot give you consolation. And he will have to destroy many things in you which you have cherished for long, nourished for long. He will have to take away all the clothes that protect you, he will have to leave you nude in reality. It frightens, it scares, but that is the only way you can grow. Growth has to be with reality, not against reality. And once you have tasted something of reality as it is, you will never gather any other buffers or shock-absorbers again.

You say: [I feel like the frog in the fairy tale who gets kissed and starts growing up to be the handsome prince.]

You must be dreaming. Things are not done that way here. You came here as a charming prince. You have been kissed, and now you are a frog. But there is nothing wrong with being a frog – frogs are beautiful people.

You say: [But I’m still wearing ‘froggy’ clothes…] Of course – you are still a frog! [...and they are too tight] – you are imagining – [and the princess isn’t interested and wouldn’t it be nice just to be a frog again?]

What are you talking about? You don’t need any help, you are already one. Accept your “frogginess” and forget all about the princess. In fact I have never seen a frog interested in a princess – foolish idea! Become interested in another frog! And in that way I can help you. I have so many frogs here.