BELOVED BHAGWAN,
I HAVE GOT A FUTURE-EGO. IT KEEPS TELLING ME WHAT A SUPER PERSON
I AM GOING TO TURN OUT TO BE IN A FEW YEARS' TIME WHEN I AM
FINISHED WITH THIS TRIP. IT IS VERY SMUG AND IN THE MEANTIME, LIKE
RIGHT NOW, IT IS PRETENDING TO BE SO HUMBLE, SO MALLEABLE, SO
ADAPTABLE, AND SO UNTOUCHABLE. COULD YOU HELP ME TO GET AT IT?
IT IS BUGGING ME.
Who is this me?
If you think the ego is bugging you, who are you? It is again an ego trip. Now the ego is
taking a very subtle form. When the ego is not, you are not. Ego is all that defines you,
that makes you say 'i' or 'me'. Ego is your definition, your boundary, ego divides you
from others. It is ego, that's why you can say 'i' and 'you'. If the ego disappears, who is 'i'
and who is 'you'?
Now you are taking a very subtle form. You say the ego is bugging you. Who are you
then? Just see the point. If you don't see the point you can go on playing the game ad
infinitum. You can become humble and the ego will be there. You can even become
egoless and the ego will be there. Ego is very subtle and very cunning are its ways.
A psychiatrist once asked his patient, Mulla Nasruddin, if the latter suffered from
fantasies of self-importance.
'No,' replied the Mulla.'On the contrary, I think of myself as much less than I really am.'
Now you are going on a very pious trip. The ego can become pious. It can become so
humble that nobody can feel it. You may even start feeling,'Now it is not bugging me,'
but if 'me' is there, it is there.
The poison has become very purified but a purified poison is more poisonous. That's why
ordinary people have ordinary egos, but the so-called religious people have pious egos --
they are more dangerous.
And you say, I HAVE GOT A FUTURE-EGO. No, the ego is always of the past, it
cannot be of the future. Even when you are thinking of the future it is nothing but
projected past. Even if you are thinking,'Tomorrow I am going to become the greatest
man in the world,' the idea of the greatest man and the idea of the tomorrow both come
from your past. The past accumulated is the substance of the ego. In the past many things
were happy and many things were unhappy -- in the future you will like to modify. You
would like to drop all that was unpleasant and you would like to collect all that was
pleasant. That is your future ego, but it is not future, it is simply the past reshuffled,
chosen again, selected. In the past there were many things you did not like -- in the future
you will drop them. But the ego belongs to the past, ego IS of the past, ego is a ghost
following you -- it comes from the past. And it is always dead.
Just think: if you have no past, can you have any ego? Meditate over it. If your mind is
suddenly completely washed of the past -- now there are techniques available,
mindwashing techniques -- if your mind is completely washed of the past will you have
any ego? How will you have an ego? You will again become like a child, again innocent,
you will again have to start from ABC. Again you will create an ego because
mindwashing cannot help, the roots are deeper. The seeds are hidden very, very deep
inside you; they will again sprout, again the tree of the ego will start spreading. But it is
of the ego, it is of the past.
You don't know the future so how can you think about it? You can only think about the
past redecorated, refined, modified.
IT KEEPS TELLING ME WHAT A SUPER PERSON I WILL TURN OUT TO BE IN
A FEW YEARS' TIME WHEN I AM FINISHED WITH THIS TRIP. If this is a trip, you
will never be finished with it. You may be finished with this but then you will choose
another trip. Trips never end, they never come to any end -- one changes one train for
another, one town for another, one master for another, one religion for another, but the
trip continues. If this is not a trip, only then can it end. If to be with me has nothing to do
with the future, if to be with me is of the present, if you are here now with me, then it is
not a trip. We are not going anywhere -- at least, I'm not going anywhere. You may be
but I'm not going anywhere. So with me there is going to be no trip. If you want to be
with me you have to drop all trips.
SANNYAS is not a trip. It is an understanding in which you drop all the trips, in which
you say,'Now I have arrived. Finished. Now I am not going anywhere. Now there is no
future and no desire to go anywhere. Now I have to come to terms with the present, now I
will be living in the herenow.'
If SANNYAS is also a trip for you then it is not going to help much. It will become like
other trips, sooner or later you will be fed up with it, frustrated with it. Every trip is going
to end in a frustration, no trip can fulfil you, because the fulfillment is in the herenow. A
trip is directed somewhere else. A trip is desire, hope. And fulfillment is not a desire, not
a hope; fulfillment is just to be herenow and just to accept the way you are, the being you
are.
And start enjoying. I am not preparing you for any subtle enjoyment in the future, my
whole method is to enjoy it right now. Who knows? There may be no future. Why waste
this moment? Enjoy, delight! There is no need to sacrifice this moment for any other
moment, because any other moment, if it is ever to come, is going to be just like this
moment. So why sacrifice this moment? I am against all sacrifice. I don't tell you to
sacrifice the present for the future -- that has been told to you by your parents, your
teachers, your educational system, your society. They all say sacrifice the present for the
future. I say don't sacrifice anything. Live it, delight in it, so that you can learn how to be
blissful. Once you know it, even in the future you will be able to delight.
Those moments are going to be the same, can't you see the fact? In the past it is the same
time. In fact, the very idea that time is passing is stupid. We are in time, nothing is
passing. It is our desire that gives the delusion of passing time. Once you drop the desire
suddenly you start laughing: nothing is passing, everything IS. It is the same, it has
always been the same, it will always be the same. It is the same eternity surrounding you
like an ocean. Live in it, enjoy it. Through enjoyment you will become capable of more
enjoyment -- more brings more. The richer people become richer, poorer people become
poorer. Says Jesus -- a very Zen saying -- that if you have, more will be given to you, and
if you don't have, even that will be taken away. Very anti-communist, very Zen. If you
have, more will be given to you. And if you don't have, even that will be taken away from
you. It looks unjust.
But Jesus' saying is tremendous truth. Yes, that is the truth, one of the most fundamental.
If you have, more will be given to you because you will create the capacity by having it.
Nobody is going to give unless you have more capacity.
Have you watched? If you don't use a machine, it lasts. If a watch is guaranteed for ten
years and you don't use it too much it will last for twenty years, thirty years.
But just the opposite is the case with life. If you don't use it, it will not last more, it will
simply disappear from you. If you don't use your legs, legs will disappear; if you don't
use your eyes, eyes will disappear; if you don't use your awareness, awareness will
disappear. That's why man is not a machine. Don't use the machine and it lasts longer;
don't use man, don't use your potentiality, don't use your body-mind, and you will start
disappearing.
It is life's nature -- the more you use it, the more you get.
Enjoy, otherwise your capacity to enjoy will disappear, will be atrophied, paralysed. And
tomorrow you will be there paralysed, atrophied -- then who is going to enjoy tomorrow?
Omar Khayam says that he is worried about these religious people. They say that in
heaven wine is flowing in streams -- Mohammedans say that -- but they prohibit wine
here on the earth. So Omar Khayam says,'I am very much worried about these people. If
they don't get accustomed here, how are they going to enjoy heaven? And in heaven there
are beautiful women, but these religious people say don't enjoy them here. That is a sin.'
Omar Khayam seems to be absolutely logical. He says,'What will you be doing there?'
When I was reading Omar Khayam I remembered an anecdote. Two old women were
talking -- eighty years old. One woman said to the other, 'Are you aware or not that your
husband is chasing girls?' She said,'I know it, but let him chase them. He is like a dog
who chases a car but when he gets it, he cannot drive it.'
So these religious people, if they enter heaven some day, they will be like dogs chasing
cars. Once they get it, they don't know what to do, they cannot drive it!
Enjoy. Heaven is not in the future, it is herenow, already present. It is your surround. The
more you enjoy, the more you become capable of enjoying.
Yes, Jesus is right. If you have, more will be given to you; if you don't have, even that
will be taken away from you.
And when I say these things, remember, everything is addressed to you personally. The
mind is very cunning. If I say something you can always rationalise that I am saying it to
somebody else. This is not your question certainly, so I am addressing it to somebody
else -- you can laugh and enjoy. The question may be anybody's but my answer is
addressed to you personally. Never think of the neighbour; think only of yourself.
I will tell you one anecdote.
Father Loran was delivering his Sunday sermon.'Someday' he said,'every man in this
parish will die.'
Suddenly the priest heard MacLean laughing in the third row, but he continued.'As I was
saying, every man in this parish will die.' Again MacLean began chortling.
Father Loran looked at him and said,'Why, why do you laugh when I say everyone in this
parish will die someday?'
'Ha Ha!' exclaimed MacLean.'I am not from this parish.'
No comments:
Post a Comment