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Because our life is so meaningless, we go on finding any excuse for any kind of significance. Our life has no significance, so we go on hoping in anything that there must be some significance in it. Man cannot live without significance. Significance is inner nourishment.

And because we don't create any significance in our life — because we are not creative — we don't create God in our being, we remain empty. And to be empty hurts — hurts like hell.

Then one goes to the astrologer or goes to the palmist; one shows the hand, maybe there is some significance in the stars, or in the lines of the hand or in the birth chart. And one starts seeking and searching everywhere — desperately. Anything that can give you a feeling that yes, you are significant, that something special is happening to you, you pounce upon. That's why astrology lives, palmistry lives, the I Ching lives; and people go on looking into these things.

That's why psychoanalysis has become so significant. Your life has no meaning, maybe your dreams have meaning? Go to the psychoanalyst, he will show you great meanings in your stupid dreams. You cannot find, but he will find, he will manage: he will show you what your dreams mean. And you will feel very very grateful, and you will feel very happy that you have significant dreams.

People go on hankering for significance.

One thing to be remembered: this hankering is not bad, but let this hankering become creative. Don't search in accidental things for any meaning. There is none! This is just accidental that you met somebody on the train, and then again on the plane, then again on the bus — it is just accidental! This world is a small world, and becoming smaller and smaller every day.

It is nothing to brag about or to brood about, but it shows something: life is empty — utterly empty. You would like to find some indication from somewhere — anything.

Just the other day one sannyasin wrote that she saw Teertha in her dream. 'Now what is the significance? There must be some significance,' she thinks. Ninety-nine percent of dreams are just rubbish, just fragments of thoughts that you go on gathering during the whole day. In the dream those fragments go on moving in the mind. And then in the morning when you remember those fragments, you start looking for significance. Then you have to find some significance.

Now the woman thinks whether it is a message that she should do Encounter because she has seen Teertha? Or is there some other meaning hidden in it?

Life has no hidden meaning; life has obvious meaning, unhidden. There is not a thing hidden from the very beginning! Just you are not aware, so you cannot see it. And when you are not aware, still you hanker for it so you go on imagining. And then each and every thing can become precious because you want something to be precious in your life.

There is nothing much in it. This world is becoming a small village. Now here you can find people from all over the world. It is no more the old world; the distances are gone. You can go round the world within twenty-four hours. You can reach any place within a day, within hours.

But what I see in it is a great desire for significance. That is good, but you are looking in a wrong direction.

Create some meaning. Dance the dance that you were born to dance. Sing the song that you are carrying in your heart. Be yourself, and there will be significance. And then you will not need to go to any astrologer or palmist or tarot reader, or things like that. Then there will be no need — you will have significance.

But significance never comes passively. It comes only when you are creative. Do something. And I am not saying that significance is only when you are very famous — when you become a Picasso then there is significance, no. You can paint a small picture for your child, and if your child is happy there is significance. You can paint a picture for your husband. If he likes it, that's enough. Or you can even paint a picture just for your own joy, and if you like it, or you like it while you are painting it — you get absorbed into it — there is significance.

Significance comes only whenever you create beauty, whenever you create truth, whenever you create good: Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam. These three things create significance: beauty, good, truth. Be true, and there will be significance. But you remain untrue, and you go to the astrologer to find significance.

Become beautiful. Beautify your being, let grace surround you, and there will be no need to go to any tarot reader, you will know that you are significant. You will continuously find a blissfulness surrounding you, you will not feel that you are here unnecessarily. You will not think for a single moment that you are accidental. You will know that God's hand is behind you, because he is breathing life in you.

The English words 'is' and 'am' come from a Sanskrit root 'asmi'. 'Asmi' means: breath-life. Your 'isness', your 'amness', your being is nothing but God's breath in you. But we have not recognised it, so we search desperately in every nook and corner for meaning. Stop this search.

This happened only as a coincidence. Don't be much worried about it. Meditate over this story. This will show you that the world is really very small.

A flea phoned up a rental agency asking for accommodation, and the agent said, 'Oh, yes, we have a very nice vacancy, just come in.' But it turned out to be a Pole's armpit, and after a few days the flea phoned the agency again and said, 'I really can't stand it — the noise, the smells, the crowded conditions — could you give me something nicer? Something really posh?'

So the agent said, 'Well, yes, we do have something — just come in — it's Omar Sharif's moustache.'

'Lovely,' said the flea. 'I'll take it.'

But after a week he phoned up the agency again and said, 'Sorry, but I really must find someplace else. All the oysters and champagne are really getting to be too much, not to mention the incessant pulling, stroking and scratching. It's really not liveable.'

'Very well,' said the agent. 'I do have one vacancy now — very very exclusive, very cosy and very expensive — it's Raquel Welch's pubes.'

'I'll take it,' said the flea.

The agent heard no more until a month later, the phone rang and it was the flea.

'What's the matter?' asked the agent. 'Don't tell me you don't like Raquel Welch's pubes either?'

'Oh, yes, I liked it fine,' said the flea, 'but I'm back in Omar Sharif's moustache!'

Enough for today.