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Man is too full of himself and that is his undoing. Man should be like a hollow bamboo, so the existence can pass through him. Man should be like a porous sponge - not hard - so that the doors and the windows of his being are open, and existence can pass from one end to another without any hindrance; in fact, finding no one inside. The winds blow - they come in from one window and they go out from another window of his being. Nobody is found within.

This emptiness is the highest bliss possible. But you are like a hard, unporous rock, or like a hard steel rod. Nothing passes through you. You resist everything. You don't allow. You go on fighting on all sides and in all directions as if you are in a great war with existence.

There is no war going on, you are simply befooled by yourself. Nobody is there to destroy you. The whole supports you; the whole is the very earth on which you are standing, the very sky in which you breathe, you live. In fact, you are not - only the whole is.

When one understands this, by and by one drops the inner hardness; there is no need for it. There is no enmity; the whole is friendly towards you. The whole cherishes you, loves you. Otherwise, why are you here? The whole brings you forth, like a tree is brought forth by the earth. The whole would like to participate in all your blessings, in all the celebrations that are possible. When you flower, the whole will flower through you; when you sing, the whole will sing through you; when you dance, the whole will dance with you. You are not separate.

The feeling of separateness creates fear, and fear makes you unporous. The feeling of insecurity, as if the whole is going to destroy you, the feeling that you are a stranger here, an outsider, and that you have to fight your way inch by inch towards your destiny, makes you a hard steel rod. Of course, then many things simply disappear from your life. You live in anguish, you live in anxiety, you live in intense pain, but you live this of your own accord. Be porous. Be floating. Fight is not needed at all. Rather, a merger.

These are the two attitudes open to man: the attitude of a warrior and the attitude of a lover. It is your choice - you can choose. But remember... certain consequences will follow. If you choose the path of the warrior and you become a fighter with everything that surrounds you, you will always be in misery. This is creating a hell around you; in the very attitude of fighting the hell is created. Or you become a lover, a participant, then this whole is your home; you are not a stranger. You are at home. No fight. You simply flow with the river. Then, ecstasy will be yours; then each moment will become ecstatic, a flowering. There is no hell except you and there is no heaven except you. It is your attitude, how you look at the whole.

Religion is the way of the lover: science is the way of the fighter. Science is the way of the will, as if you are here to conquer, to conquer nature, to conquer nature's secrets; as if you are here to enforce your will and domination on existence. This is not only foolish, it is futile also. Foolish because it will create a hell around you, and futile because finally you will become more and more dead, less and less alive; you will lose all possibilities of being blissful. And, in the end, you will have to come back from it, because you can go for a while on the path of the will, but only frustration and more frustration will happen through it. You will be defeated more and more. You will feel more and more impotent, and more and more enmity will be around you. You will have to come back from it-grudgingly, resistant, but you will have to come back from it. Finally, nobody can rest with a fighting attitude, because with a fighting attitude no rest is possible, you cannot relax.

The path of religion is the path of love. From the very beginning you are not fighting anybody. The whole exists for you, and you exist for the whole, and there is an inner harmony. Nobody is here to conquer anybody else. It is not possible. Because how can one part conquer another part? And how can a part conquer the whole? These are absurd notions which only create nightmares for you, nothing else.

See the whole situation... you come out of the whole and you dissolve into it, and, in between, you are every moment part of it. You breathe it, you live it, and it breathes through you, it lives through you. Your life and its life are not two things - you are just like a wave in the ocean. Once you understand this, meditation becomes possible. Once you understand this, you relax. You throw off all the armour that you have created around you as a security. You are no longer afraid. Fear disappears and love arises.

In this state of love, emptiness happens. Or, if you can allow emptiness to happen, love will flower in it. Love is a flower of emptiness, total emptiness - emptiness is the situation. It can work both ways. So there are two types of religion. One which creates emptiness in you and around you so that a flowering becomes possible; you have created the situation, now the flower bubbles up automatically. Finding no resistance, the seed suddenly blooms into a flower. There is a jump in your being, an explosion. Buddhism and Zen follow this path - they create emptiness in and around you.

There is another path also, a second type of religion, which creates love in you, which creates devotion in you. Meera and Chaitanya love, and they love the total so deeply that they find their beloved everywhere; on every leaf, on every stone, is the signature of the beloved. He is everywhere. They dance because there is nothing else to do but celebrate. And everything is ready - only the celebration has to start on your part. Nothing else is lacking. A bhakta, a lover, simply celebrates, enjoys. And in that enjoyment of love and celebration, the ego disappears and emptiness follows.

Either you create emptiness, like a Buddha, Tilopa, Sekkyo and others or you create love, like Meera, Chaitanya, Jesus. Create one and the other follows, because they cannot live separately, they don't have any separate existence. Love is one face of emptiness; emptiness is nothing but love in another aspect, they come together. If you bring one, you invite one, the other follows automatically as a shadow of it. It depends on you. If you want to follow the path of meditation, become empty. Don't bother about love - it will come of its own accord. Or, if you find it very difficult to meditate, then love, then become a lover, and meditation and emptiness will follow you.

This is how it should be because there are two types of human mind: the feminine and the male. The feminine mind can love easily but to be empty is difficult. And when I say feminine mind, I don't mean females, because many females have male minds, and many males have feminine minds. So they are not equivalent. When I say feminine mind, I don't mean the feminine body - you may have a feminine body but not a feminine mind. The feminine mind is the mind that feels love easier, that's all. That is my definition of the feminine mind: it is one who feels love easily, naturally, who can flow into love without any effort.

The male mind is one for whom love is an effort - he can love but he will have to do it. Love cannot be his whole being - it is just one thing of many other things, not even the most important. He can sacrifice his love for science, he can sacrifice his love for the country, he can sacrifice his love for any trivial affair, for business, for money, for politics. Love is not such a deep thing with him, a male mind. It is not as effortless as it is for a feminine mind. Meditation is easier. He can become empty easily.

So this is my definition: if you find being empty easy, then do that. If you find it is very difficult, then don't be unhappy and don't feel hopeless. You will always find love easier. I have not come across a man who finds both difficult. So, there is hope for everybody. If meditation is difficult, love will be easier, it has to be. If love is easier, meditation will be difficult. If love is difficult, meditation will be easier. So just feel yourself. And this is not concerned with your body, not with your physical structure, your hormones. No. It is a quality of your inner being.

Once you find it, things become very, very easy, because then you won't try on the wrong path. You can try on the wrong path for many lives but you will not attain anything. And if you try on the right path, even the first step can become the last, because you simply, naturally, flow into it. Nothing like effort exists, effortlessly you flow.

Zen is for the male mind. Soon I will balance it by talking about Sufism, because Sufism is for the feminine mind. These are the two extremes - Zen and Sufism. Sufis are lovers, great lovers. In fact, in the whole history of human consciousness, more daring lovers than Sufis have never existed, because they are the only ones who have turned God into their beloved. The God is the woman and they are the lovers. Soon I will balance.

Zen insists on emptiness, that's why in Buddhism there is no concept of God, it is not needed. People in the West cannot understand how a religion exists without the concept of a God. Buddhism has noconcept of any God - there is no need, because Buddhism insists on simply being empty, then everything follows. But who bothers? Once you are empty, things will take their own course.

A religion exists without God. This is simply a miracle. In the West, people who write about religion and the philosophy of religion are always in trouble about how to define religion. They can define Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, easily, but Buddhism creates trouble. They can define God as being the center of all religion, but then Buddhism becomes a problem. They can define prayer as the essence of religion, but again Buddhism creates trouble, because there is no God and no prayer, no mantra, nothing. You have only to be empty. Even the concept of God will not allow you to be empty; prayer will be a disturbance; chanting will not allow you to be empty. Simply being empty, everything happens. Emptiness is the secret key of Buddhism. You are in such a way that you are not.

Let me explain a little more about emptiness to you, then it will be possible to go into this Zen anecdote.

Physicists have been working for three hundred years to find the base, the substance of matter, and the deeper they reached, the more they were puzzled. Because the deeper they groped, the less and less substantial matter was; the less and less material matter was. And when they really stumbled upon the source of matter, they simply couldn't believe it, because it was against all their conceptions. It was not matter at all: it was simply energy. Energy is non-substantial. It has no weight. You cannot see it. You can only see the effects of it; you can never see it directly.

Eddington, in 1930, said that we were in search of matter, but now all new insight into matter shows that there is no matter, it looks more and more like a thought and less and less like a thing. Suddenly the insight of Buddha became very, very significant again, because Buddha did the same with human matter, the human stuff. Physicists were trying to penetrate matter in an objective way to find out what was there inside it, and they found nothing. Total emptiness. And the same was discovered by Buddha in his inner journey. He was trying to find out who was there inside - the substance of human consciousness - but the more he penetrated, the more he became aware that it becomes more and more empty. And when he suddenly reached to the very core, there was nothing. All had disappeared. The house was empty. And around this emptiness everything exists.

Emptiness is your soul, so Buddha had to coin a new word which had never existed before. With a new discovery you have to change your language. New words have to be coined, because you have revealed new truths and old words cannot contain them. Buddha has to create a new word. In India people had always believed in the reality of the soul, atma, but Buddha discovered that there was no soul, no atma. He had to coin a new word - anatta. Anatta means no-self. The deepest hidden in you is emptiness - a state of no-self. You are not; you only appear to be.

Let me explain to you in a different way because it is one of the most difficult things to understand. Even if you understand intellectually, it is almost impossible to trust it. You are not? Your being seems so taken for granted. And you can always ask foolish questions. Buddha was asked again and again: If you are not, then who is speaking? If you are not, then who becomes hungry? And who goes begging in the town? If you are not, then who is standing before me?

The emperor Wu, in China, asked Bodhidharma immediately: If you say that you are not and nothing is, and emptiness is the very substance of your inner being, then who is this fellow talking to me, standing before me? Bodhidharma shrugged his shoulders and said: I don't know. Nobody knows, and Buddha says that nobody can know, because it is not a substance that you can encounter as an object; it is nosubstance, you cannot encounter it. This Buddha calls realization: when you come to understand that the innermost emptiness cannot be known, it is unknowable, then you have become a realized man.

It is difficult, so let me again explain it to you. You go to a movie. Something beautiful is happening there. The screen is empty. Then the projector starts working. The screen disappears because the projected pictures hide it completely. And what are these projected pictures? Nothing but a play of light and shade. You see somebody throwing a spear on the screen, the spear moves fast. But what is happening exactly? The movement is only an appearance, it is not happening. It cannot happen. In fact a movie is not a movie at all, because it has no movement; all the pictures are still. But an appearance is created through a trick. The trick is that many still pictures of the spear in different positions are flashed on the screen so fast that you cannot see the gap between two pictures -and you have the feeling that the spear is moving. I raise my hand. You take a hundred pictures of my hand in different positions and then flash them so fast that the eyes cannot catch the gap between two pictures. Then you will see the hand being raised. A hundred still pictures, or a million still pictures, are projected and the movement is created. And if the film is a three dimensional film and somebody is throwing a spear, you may be so much taken in by it, that you may lean to the right or to the left to avoid the spear. When three dimensional pictures came into existence for the first time, they scared people. With a horse running at you, you become afraid because the horse is soon going to enter the hall; and you may even lean to the right or left, as the case may be, to avoid the clash. The movement is false; it is not happening there, it is just fast-moving still pictures. And the falseness is not apparent unless you see the film moving very slowly, being projected very slowly.

The same, in a different sense, is happening in life. Thoughts are projected by your mind so fast that you cannot see the gap between two thoughts. The screen is completely covered by the thoughts and they move so fast that you cannot see that each thought is separate. That's what Tilopa says: Thoughts are like clouds, without any roots, with no home. And a thought is not related to another thought; a thought is an individual unit, just like dust particles, separate. But they move so fast you cannot see the gap between. You feel they have a unity, a certain association. That association is a false notion, but because of that association, ego is created.

Buddha says: Fast-moving thoughts create an illusion, as if there is some center to them, as if they are related to one thing. They are not related, they are without roots - like clouds. When you meditate you will understand that each single thought is an individual thought, not related to another. Between the two is the emptiness of your being. They come and go, but they come and go so fast that you cannot see the intervals. Ego is created. And then you start feeling that there is somebody as a center in you to which everything belongs - thoughts, actions. But Buddha says that there is nobody inside you. When you go deeper you will understand the truth of it: it is not a philosophical doctrine.

Buddha can be defeated very easily by argument; he was thrown out of this country because Indians are great arguers. They have done nothing else for five thousand years but argue, and through argument Buddha can be defeated because the whole thing seems to be absurd. Buddha is saying that there are actions, there is no actor; there are thoughts, there is no thinker; there is hunger, there is satiety; there is illness, there is health; but there is no center to which they all belong. They are just like clouds moving in an empty sky, not related to each other at all. Through experience nobody can defeat Buddha, but through logic it is very simple.

Soon Buddha became aware that through logic he could be defeated very easily. So what to do? India had great scholars in those days, great pundits, great logicians, hair-splitters. So Buddha simply declared: I am not a metaphysician, I am not a philosopher, and I have no doctrine to offer. These are not conclusions of my intellect. If somebody wants to understand them, he will have to come and livewith me, and do whatsoever I say. And after a year, if he lives with me silently in meditation, then I am ready to argue with him, never before.

And it happened that although many great scholars came to him, this was his condition. Sariputta came. He was a very famous scholar, and he had five hundred of his own disciples. They were great scholars in their own right: they knew all the Vedas, they knew all the Upanishads, they knew all the wisdom of the centuries, and they had very, very keen intellects. Sariputta came and Buddha said: You have come, that's good. But for one year you have to remain silent, because I have no doctrine to propose, so there is no possibility of any argument. I have something in my being to share, but no doctrine to propose. So, if you like, you can be here.

Then came Moulunkaputta, another great scholar, and Buddha said the same to him: For one year you sit silently by my side, not raising a single question. For one year you have to let your mind subside and penetrate into the intervals. After one year, exactly one year, if you have some questions, I will answer. Sariputta was also sitting there. He started laughing. Moulunkaputta asked: "What is the matter? Why are you laughing?" Sariputta said: "Don't be befooled by this man. If you have to ask anything, ask immediately, because after one year you will not be able to ask anything. This has happened to me. One year, meditating silently, questions disappeared. One year, meditating silently, the argumentative mind disappeared, and the arguer disappeared. One year, sitting by the side of this man, one becomes empty; and then he laughs, and then he plays tricks, and then he says: 'Now you ask. Where are your doctrines and principles and arguments?' And nothing arises inside. So, Moulunkaputta, if youhave to ask, right now is the moment - otherwise, never."

Buddha said: "I will fulfil my promise. If you remain one year and if you have any questions, I will answer, whatsoever the questions." Moulunkaputta remained. One year passed. He forgot completely about the year passing and that the day had come back; but Buddha remembered. After one year, on exactly the day, he said to Moulunkaputta: "Now you stand, Moulunkaputta, and you can ask." Moulunkaputta stood there silent, with closed eyes, and then he said: "There is nothing to ask, and there is nobody to ask. I have completely disappeared."

Buddhism is an experience and Zen is the purest of all Buddha's teachings - the very essence. And the center around which the whole experience moves is emptiness. How to become empty? That is what meditation is all about: how to become so silent, that you cannot even see yourself - because that too is a disturbance. Feeling that "I am", is also a disturbance - even that goes. One is completely effaced, utterly effaced. The sheet is clean, it becomes like a summer sky - clouds are no longer there, just the depth, the infinite blueness, ending nowhere, beginning nowhere. This is what Buddha calls the anatta, the innermost center of non-being, of no-self.

Buddha says: "You walk, but there is no walker; you eat, but there is no eater; you are born, but there is nobody who is born. You will be ill, and you will become old, but there is nobody who becomes ill and becomes old. And you will die, but there is nobody who dies." And this is what eternal life is... not being born, how can you die? Not being there, how can you be ill or healthy? These things happen, and if you become a deep witness to them, by and by you will know that they happen on their own accord. They are not concerned with you. They are not in any way happening inrelation to you. Unrelated, homeless, rootless - this is the utter enlightenment. Knowing this, that things happen, like dreams, one is not bothered this way or that, one is neither happy nor unhappy. One simply is not.

Buddha says: "You can never be happy, because, in the very insistence that you are, unhappiness hides. You can never be liberated, because you are the bondage. Liberation is not of you, liberation is from you."

This is the deepest core ever touched, the deepest core.

Mahavir says: "You will be enlightened."
Buddha says: "You are the hindrance."
Mahavir says: "You will live in moksha, in the ultimate state of consciousness, blissful, eternally blissful."
Buddha says: "Unless you die, you will never attain to that state."

You are the only barrier, the only hindrance, the obstacle. When you are not, that state is. That state is not yours, you cannot claim it; in fact, because you are, you don't allow that state to be. It is already here within you, this very moment, but you don't allow it to function. You try to control it, manipulate it. The ego is the great manipulator, the controller, and the whole effort of all the buddhas is how to drop the control. Once the control is dropped, the controller disappears.

That is what I am trying to do with you with these many meditations. The effort is how to drop the control, how to drop the great manipulator. You whirl in a Dervish dance. In the beginning you are there. Soon you feel nausea, but that nausea is not only physical, it is deeply spiritual. You start feeling nausea when the moment comes forcontrol to be dropped. When that moment nears, you start feeling nausea. The nausea is that the control is being lost. You feel dizzy; you feel that you may fall down. These are not just physical things - deep inside the ego is feeling as if it is being thrown off the track. The ego is feeling dizzy. It is feeling that if this whirling continues for even a little longer, I will not be able to be there. You start to feel like vomiting. In fact, that vomit is not only physical, just one part is physical; a deeper part is the vomit of the ego. If you continue to feel disturbed, there will be a physical vomiting, but if you don't bother about it, soon physical vomiting will disappear. And then the real vomit will happen: one day, suddenly, the ego is vomited. Suddenly an ugly phenomenon within you escapes; suddenly the disease from you is thrown out; suddenly you are ego-free. It happens unexpectedly. When it happens for the first time, you cannot even believe it; you cannot believe that, without the ego, you are. There is nobody inside, and you are; and you are so perfect and so beautiful and so blissful without anybody being there!

The ego has to be thrown off-center, because it has become so deeply rooted in your mind, through many lives. It has usurped the whole being; emptiness has been thrown into the background, into the unconscious, and the ego has usurped the throne. Now the ego has become the king, and it goes on manipulating everything.

This parable, this small anecdote, will tell you many things about how the ego can be thrown off-center.

# This discourse is too long for 1 audio fragment.
# Here ends part 1. Go to Pearl 586 for part 2.