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Let the other party bother. Why should you be worried? But my feeling is that you have not asked the question rightly. You must be worried about those who have to pay the rent to you if they disappear.

It happened…

A man came to a psychoanalyst and he was very worried and going berserk. The psychiatrist asked, “What is your problem really?”
He said, “I am worried. The worry is that I have to pay ten thousand dollars I owe to people. And there seems to be no way! And I am thinking to commit suicide, because this is becoming too heavy and I cannot live with this heaviness.”
And the psychoanalyst said, “Don’t you be worried. Just look at me: I had to pay one thousand dollars to a man. I simply dropped the idea of paying and all worry disappeared.”
And the man said, “I know it – I know about it. You tell me something else.”
The psychoanalyst asked, “How do you know it?”
He said, “I am the man to whom you were going to pay $1000 – that too is part of my worry. This won’t help! Give me some other idea.”

Why are you worried: [If I disappear who will pay the rent?] Is rent so very important? Are you here only to pay the rent?

I have heard…

The Scotsman was visiting London for the day and called upon a lady of pleasure in Soho. After he had partaken of her bodily delights, he gave her a hundred pounds.
“Why, that’s incredibly generous of you!” exclaimed the surprised lady. “No man has ever given me so much. And yet, from your accent you sound Scottish, which makes it even more incredible for you to be generous. Which part of Scotland do you come from?”
“From Edinburgh,” replied the Scotsman.
“How fantastic! My father works in Edinburgh.”
“I know,” said the Scotsman. “When your father heard I was coming to London he gave me a hundred pounds to give to you.”

Do you come from Scotland? What part? Thinking of paying the rent? There is nobody to pay the rent, there is nobody to be paid, really no rent either, no house either. That’s what Ikkyu says: all is dream.

Have you not heard this: A madman was asked, “What are the differences between psychoanalysts, psychologists and psychiatrists?”
The madman said, “Psychologists build castles in the air, psychoanalysts live in them, and psychiatrists collect the rent.”

What are you talking about? Forget all about it! Disappear! And remember, when you disappear as an ego, that does not necessarily mean that you disappear from the world – the world continues. Kabir disappeared as an ego but continued to remain a weaver, continued to work, but now it is no longer serious, now it is just a dream. If others are enjoying, why disturb them? You can disappear and still pay the rent. Don’t be worried about it, unless you don’t want to pay the rent and only for that reason you want to disappear. That is another matter. Otherwise, what is the problem? Disappear and still pay the rent!

[If I disappear, who will pay the rent? Yesterday you talked of natural and unnatural. Money, it seems, must come into the unnatural category. With the ego and the mind, it is relatively easy to deal with it. But if we are to live in the marketplace and to live naturally, will money not become a problem?]

Money is not a problem at all, unless you want to make it a problem. Down the ages, the so-called religious people have been very worried about money – such a foolish thing to be worried about. Play with it! If you have it, enjoy; if you don’t have it, enjoy. What else can you do when you don’t have it? Enjoy! When you have it, what else can you do? Enjoy! Don’t make unnecessary problems about it. Money is a toy, when you have it, play with it.

But my feeling is: people who can’t play with money, who renounce money, are very serious about it. Then they become very afraid about money, because deep down clinging is there. Do you know that the chief disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, can’t look at money? If you bring a one rupee note – which is worthless, which has no monetary value at all – he closes his eyes. Now what kind of attitude is this?

And this is thought to be very saintly; it is praised all over the country, that he is so free of money. If you are really free of money, why do you close your eyes? Is that one rupee note so attractive that you have to close your eyes? Is there some fear that if you don’t close your eyes you may jump upon the man? Something must be there. This looks a little obsessive; there must be great fear, otherwise why close your eyes? So many things are passing and you don’t close your eyes – just poor money!

Money is nothing but a device to exchange things, but people who are really misers deep down, clingers, are very much in despair and misery. They think that it is money that is causing their misery; it is not money that is causing misery. How can money cause misery? It is miserliness that is causing the misery. Thinking that it is money that is causing misery, they renounce money, they escape from the world of money. Then they are continuously afraid; in their dreams they must be entering into banks and opening treasures and things like that – and making love to money. That is bound to happen.

Money is not a problem. It can be used. If you have it, use it; if you don’t have it, then use the freedom that comes from not having money. This is my approach. If you are rich, enjoy; richness has a few things which no poor person can enjoy. I have been both rich and poor, and I tell you honestly, there are a few things only rich people can enjoy. Enjoy when you are rich. And I tell you again, I have been both rich and poor, and there are a few things which only poor people can enjoy. And there is no way to enjoy both together.

So, whenever, whatsoever is happening, enjoy it. A poor person has a kind of freedom. Poverty has a kind of cleanness, a relaxedness, contentedness. The mind is not very worried; there is nothing to worry about. You can sleep perfectly well; insomnia is impossible for a poor man. So sleep well and snore, and enjoy the freedom that comes from poverty.

And sometimes when you find yourself rich, enjoy richness, because there are a few things that only a rich person can enjoy. You can have great paintings on your walls; a poor man cannot have that. You can have the best music in your house; the poor man cannot have that. You can create a Zen garden around your house; the poor man cannot do that. You can read poetry, you can paint, you can play on the guitar, you can sing, you can dance, you can meditate – a thousand and one things become available.

My approach is: whatsoever is the case, just see what you can make out of it. If it is poverty, become a buddha, start wandering; take a begging-bowl – and enjoy the beauty that only a beggar can have. He belongs nowhere. Today he is here, tomorrow he is gone. He is a flow; he clings nowhere, he has no home. He need not worry that the rains are coming and the roof has to be fixed. He need not worry that somebody may steal something from him – he has nothing.

Enjoy poverty when you are poor, and enjoy richness, then become a Janak, an emperor, and enjoy all the beauties that become available through money. My approach is total. I don’t teach you to choose. I simply say: whatsoever is the case, the intelligent person will make something beautiful out of it.

The unintelligent person suffers. If he has money he suffers because money brings worries; he does not enjoy the music that money can bring, the dance that money can bring, the painting. If he has money, he does not go to the Himalayas for a rest, to meditate and to sing and to shout in the valleys and to talk with the stars. He worries, loses his sleep, loses his appetite – he chooses wrongly when he has money. And this man, if somehow he becomes poor, if he becomes poor by God’s grace, then he suffers poverty. Then he is continuously worried that “I don’t have this and I don’t have that.” You have poverty! Enjoy it.

But there are people who are wrong in every situation: wherever they are, they will always choose the negative part of it, and they will suffer. And there are people who enjoy wherever they are, and I call those people intelligent people, and I would like my people to be intelligent people.

In my childhood it happened: once my father was very angry, so he locked me into the bathroom. I meditated! What is the point…? After three, four hours, he became worried. He was at the shop, but he was restless. He became worried about what had happened to me, and no message had come from the home – my mother had not sent any message, no servant had come to say what had happened to me. Have I disappeared, or what? Or has somebody opened the bathroom? So he could not do his work there; he had to come. He came close and he listened and there was silence. He knocked and I told him, “Don’t disturb me.” That was the last time he punished me that way. It was pointless! He said, “I became so worried I could not do my work in the shop – I had to come.” I said. “This is nonsense! – I enjoyed it.”

In my school when I was small, in second grade, my teacher was very strict and he used to punish us by demanding: “Go and run seven times round the school. Run!” And he gave me this punishment: to go seven times.
I said, “Why not seventeen?”
He said, “Are you mad?”
I said, “This is such a good exercise and every morning I would like to do it.”
I started doing it every morning. He would see me and he would beat his head; he would say that I had destroyed his punishment by making it an exercise. I used it! Then he stopped giving me punishment.

Why not use an opportunity, whatsoever it is? And if you are alert you can find opportunities everywhere – even if you are imprisoned you can use that as a great opportunity. And there are people who are under the sky, free, and not using that opportunity. Money or no money, house or no house, the question is not what you should have: the question is what you should do, whatsoever you have.

My emphasis is totally different. You disappear, and then let things happen. If you feel good to be in the marketplace, then that is natural, because there are born shopkeepers. Don’t think that there are only born poets; that is wrong, there are born shopkeepers, too. Whatsoever you try to make of them, they will become shopkeepers; wherever they are they will open a shop. They cannot avoid it.

Have you not heard about the Jew? A ship was moving and it was attacked by a crocodile, a great crocodile, a very great crocodile. And they started throwing things in her mouth: chairs and things, tables and a bag of oranges, and finally the Jew. But again and again the crocodile came to attack.

Finally they decided, “This is not going to help. We go on giving it things; just for a few moments the crocodile becomes engaged, and again it comes.” So all together they attacked and cut open the belly of the crocodile, and do you know what they saw? The Jew was sitting on the chair, the table was in front of him, he had opened the bag of oranges and he was selling to other people who had been swallowed by the crocodile before.

You cannot escape, where will you go? There are born shopkeepers. So if you are a born shopkeeper, even when you have disappeared you will be in the marketplace. But then it will have a totally different quality to it: you will enjoy it. It is God’s world, a beautiful dream. You will know those customers are dream customers, and the things that you are selling to them are just dreams, and the money that you are collecting is just a dream. Why not enjoy it? That enjoyment is not a dream.

Let me remind you again: everything is a dream, but if you can consciously enjoy it, that joy is not a dream – that joy is the goal of all religions. And you can enjoy more if everything is a dream. Then there is nothing to be worried about. If success comes, good; if failure comes, good.