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Deva Ashoka, the first experience of freedom is always embarrassing. The first ray of light to the blind is bound to be embarrassing.

One who has always lived in chains, a sudden message from the king that he is freed... it is always embarrassing. He had become accustomed to live a certain kind of life, he had evolved a certain style of life. There was security in the prison; he had settled. Now everything unsettles. It is not only the question that the chains are being taken away; now he will have to face the great wide world again. He will have to learn all that he has forgotten, he will have to relearn. It is going to be difficult, and he will look a little amateur compared to others. Even walking on the street without the chains to which he has become accustomed will be a little odd; he will not feel at ease.

When the French revolutionaries freed the prisoners from the great French prison of Bastille, they were surprised: the prisoners were not ready to go out. That was the biggest prison of France, where only people who had been sentenced for their whole life were kept. There were people who had been in the prison for thirty years, forty years, even fifty years. Now, just think of a person who had come to the prison when he was only twenty, and had lived in the prison for fifty years. He has completely forgotten about the world, how it looks.

Fifty years living in a dark cell with heavy chains.... Those chains had no lock because there was no need ever to unlock them. They were chained for his whole life; they were permanent, heavy. For fifty years he has slept with those chains on hands and feet; he has become utterly accustomed to that life. And the food comes at the right time, he has not to worry about it. It is not much of a food, but still, something is better than nothing.

He has no responsibility, he need not care about anything, everything is being done for him. Maybe, slowly slowly, he had started thinking that he is not a prisoner but a king whose every need is fulfilled. Others take every care. Maybe, slowly slowly, he had convinced himself that the people who stand on guard are not there to prevent him from going out, but they are his bodyguards. And this is natural. When you live fifty years in a prison you have to create such rationalizations, such hallucinations, such beautiful theories. We all have done things like this.

Then one day suddenly the revolutionaries came and forced the prisoners to get out. The prisoners fought back -- they were not ready. This is something to be understood. Even when they were freed against their will, fifty percent of them came back in the night to sleep at least in their cells. Where else should they sleep? One more important thing -- a very important thing -- happened. They demanded their chains, because they could not sleep without them. Fifty years sleeping with that heavy load of chains, it may have started sounding like music. Turning in the night, and the chains and the sound... now without chains they must be feeling so light that sleep was impossible.

This is the situation of all human beings.

We are brought up in such a way that we only believe that we are free, but we are not. While nations exist, no man is really free. While politicians go on dominating humanity, the world will remain in slavery. They go on persuading you that you are free. You are not. There are a thousand and one walls around you -- maybe very transparent so that you can look through the walls, and that gives you a feeling that you are free, but you are not.

While there are religions in your head -- Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Jainism, Buddhism -- you are not free. A mind cannot be free. Freedom means freedom from the mind. Only a no-mind knows the taste of freedom. But to be a no-mind is so risky; you will have to lose all that you have become accustomed to, all that you have become so attached to.

All your possessions are contained in your mind: your philosophies, your religions, your concepts, your theories, all are contained in your mind. If you drop the mind -- and that's what meditation is all about, dropping the mind -- you will feel as if you have been robbed, as if you have suddenly been forced to be naked, as if suddenly inside you have become empty. You will miss that old fullness, although it was only junk.

But people's idea is that it is always better to have something than nothing, whatsoever that something is. Even to be miserable is better than to be nothing, even to be in pain is better than to be nothing. People are so much afraid of being nothing. And nothing is freedom; nothing means no thing, no body, no mind. And when the first glimpse arrives -- just a whiff of no-mind, a small breeze from the beyond -- Ashoka, it is embarrassing. Enchanting and embarrassing, both -- calling you forth to come out of your grave, and yet scary.

But now, when the call has been heard, it has to be respected. When you have seen a little glimpse that you are the creator of your own misery, it will be very difficult for you now to go on creating it. It is easy to live in misery when you know others are creating it -- what can you do? You are helpless. That's why we go on throwing responsibilities on others. There are people who think they are in misery because of past karma, past life karma. The whole idea is so foolish: put your hand in the fire now and you will be burned next life.

Life is immediate. That's what life is -- immediacy. Life never postpones. You do something beautiful, and in that very doing you are rewarded; not that you will have to wait many lives for the reward. You do something ugly, and in that very act is the punishment; the punishment is not separate from the act.

This is one of my fundamental things -- you have to understand I am against the whole idea of karma. It is a strategy of the mind to throw responsibility on the past. And once the responsibility is thrown on something -- whatsoever it is, x, y, z, it doesn't matter what it is -- you can relax in your misery and you can remain miserable. What can you do? You start feeling like a victim. Now the past cannot be changed; what has been done has been done, you cannot undo it now, you have to accept it.

It is because of this foolish idea of karma that the East has suffered so much. People are poor, and they say what they can do? They are hungry, starving, dying, and they go on thinking what can they do? They have done something wrong in the past, they have to suffer for it. A great invention of the priests to keep people in misery and yet contented, in great suffering yet creating no trouble for the status quo.

The greatest idea against revolution that has ever been invented is the idea of karma. That's why in the ten-thousand-year history of India there has never been a revolution. Unless the Indian mind changes totally, there is not going to be any revolution. Revolution seems to be absolutely un-Indian. The Indian consciousness is so much burdened with the idea of karma, with the past, that you cannot create any revolt in this country.

This is strange. One of the most ancient lands of the world, and yet a revolution has never happened. People like Buddha, Atisha, Kabir, have walked on this earth, and yet not a single revolution. Yes, revolutionaries have happened -- Buddha is a revolutionary -- but the country remained unaffected. In fact, Buddhism disappeared from this country for the simple reason that it was too revolutionary. It didn't fit with the conformist mind of the country, it didn't fit with the idea of accepting that whatsoever is, is; nothing can be done, no hope.

People go on throwing the responsibility on the past, or on fate, kismet, or on God. And if these things have become out of date, then the social structure or the economic system of the society, capitalism or communism or fascism -- but they need something as an excuse so that they can remain free, free from the arousal of the vision that "I am responsible for my suffering and nobody else." Even if people drop God, society, karma, etcetera, then they start finding new ways.

Freudians will say you are suffering because of the unconscious. Freud says there is no hope for man, man will always remain miserable. All that we can manage is to keep him normally miserable; that is all that can be done. The best that can be done according to Freud is that people can be kept within limits of misery, that's all. Miserable they are going to be, there is no hope of a blissful humanity. Why? -- because of the unconscious. The unconscious instincts are in conflict with society. And Freud says if you allow the unconscious instincts full play, then the society, the culture, the civilization disappears and you will be back in the world of the jungle, and you will suffer.

Or, if you allow the society to have control over you, to inhibit your unconscious instincts, then there is a consistent conflict between your unconscious and the social code. And because of that conflict you remain miserable. There seems to be no way out.

The really religious person is one who stops finding excuses for his misery. It needs guts to accept that "I am responsible," that "This is my choice, I have chosen my life this way," that "My freedom is there, has always been there, to choose whatsoever I want. I can choose misery, I can choose bliss."

Man's soul consists of freedom. I teach you freedom. But freedom means taking the responsibility, total responsibility for your life, on your own shoulders, not throwing it onto somebody else.

Ashoka, something beautiful has happened to you, something tremendously significant. Embrace it. Don't feel embarrassed -- embrace it. Love it, cherish it, nourish it, welcome it. Some truth has knocked on your door.

You say: [Today I saw clearly that I really am causing my own suffering and that I don't have to, and something heavy lifted from my chest when I saw that I was not just going around in circles. Thank you, thank you, Bhagwan. But oh, I am so afraid of becoming light and permeable!]

I can understand it. It is difficult to drop chains, prisons, bondages, slaveries. We have invested so much in them, and for so long.

I can understand. You say: [It is all so embarrassing!]

It is. But still, now there is no going back. Even if you want to go back, there is no going back. That glimpse will haunt you, that glimpse will follow you like a shadow, that glimpse will remind you again and again: "Ashoka, you are responsible, and you are doing it again. Watch. You are again choosing misery, while the other alternative is available."

One Sufi mystic who had remained happy his whole life -- no one had ever seen him unhappy -- who was always laughing, who was laughter, whose whole being was a perfume of celebration.... In his old age, when he was dying, on his deathbed and still enjoying death, laughing hilariously, a disciple asked, "You puzzle us. Now you are dying, why are you laughing? What is there funny about it? We are feeling so sad. We wanted to ask you many times in your life why you are never sad. But now, confronting death at least, one should be sad. You are still laughing -- how are you managing it?"

The old man said, "It is simple. I had asked my master -- I had gone to my master as a young man; I was only seventeen and already miserable, and my master was old, seventy, and he was sitting under a tree, laughing for no reason at all. There was nobody else there, nothing had happened, nobody had cracked a joke or anything, and he was simply laughing, holding his belly. I asked him, 'What is the matter with you? Are you mad or something?' He said, 'One day I was also as sad as you are. Then it dawned on me that it is my choice, it is my life.'"

"Since that day, every morning when I get up, the first thing I decide is... before I open my eyes I say to myself, 'Abdullah'" -- that was his name -- 'what do you want? Misery? Blissfulness? What you are going to choose today?' And it happens that I always choose blissfulness."

It is a choice. Try it. When you become aware the first moment in the morning that sleep has left, ask yourself, "Abdullah, another day! What is your idea? Do you choose misery or blissfulness?"

And who would choose misery? And why? It is so unnatural -- unless one feels blissful in misery, but then too you are choosing bliss, not misery.

It has been good, Ashoka. Now let this insight gather more roots in you, help it. Slowly slowly you will become more and more attuned to this new feel of life and existence -- it is an attunement. And once you have learned how to be in harmony with this inner blissfulness, you will become aware of higher and higher peaks of bliss.

There are climaxes and climaxes, peaks beyond peaks. One peak leads to another peak, one small harmony soon opens a door for a bigger harmony, and so on, so forth, ad infinitum.