BELOVED BHAGWAN,AM I OKAY?
YOU CANNOT BE -- CERTAINLY NOT. Otherwise the question will not arise. The
very question says something is wrong somewhere, otherwise who will bother to ask it?
'Okayness' is such a feeling that when it is there you know it. It is just like a headache:
you never ask anybody else, "Have I got a headache?" And if you ask they will laugh.
They will say, "Have you gone mad?" If you have, you have, and you know! If you don't
have, you don't have, and you know.
Okayness is an inner well-being. A great, beautiful feeling arises in your being, and goes
on spreading -- ripples upon ripples. Everything seems to be light. Everything seems to
be weightless. You don't walk -- you run. You don't run -- you dance. You feel as if
gravitation does not exist. You start flying. You move in unknown bliss. You go on
drifting, very peacefully, towards the shore of the unknown. And everything seems to be
beautiful, a blessing -- you are blessed and you can bless others.
When it is there, there is no question. When it is there, you need not have any certificate
from anybody. You know it! It is self-evident. And if okayness is also not self-evident,
then nothing can be self-evident.
Mulla Nasrudin and his wife were on a row-boat. The wife was shivering in the row-boat
while Nasrudin was fishing: "Tell me again," she cried between blue lips, "how much fun
we are having -- I keep forgetting."
Nobody can go on forgetting if there is bliss.
A man purchased a secondhand car, and then after seven days he went back to the place
he had purchased it from and he asked the salesman, "Please tell me again about this car.
He said, "Why?"
He said, "I go on forgetting. You praised it so highly, and it gives me so many troubles.
Just to encourage me, tell me again. I need a little encouragement."
Why do you ask, "Am I okay?" Do you need some encouragement? Remember: I am not
a secondhand car salesman. And I am not going to encourage you. If you are unhappy,
then my suggestion is: be unhappy -- there is no need to be okay. Be unhappy. Go into it
to the very rock bottom of it. Let it be there! Listen to its message -- there must be a
certain message in this unhappiness, because God never sends anything without any
message in it. Don't try to hide it.
Unhappy? -- then be unhappy. Be truly unhappy -- go to the very hell of it. And if you
can go WITHOUT any rejection on your part, without any fight on your part; if you can
simply relax and let it happen, you will gain tremendously out of it. You will see that
unhappiness is there, but you are not unhappy -- you are the witness of it, you are the
observer. It is there! Certainly it is there, but it is like a cloud that surrounds you -- you
are not the cloud. And once you realise that, you have transcended. Then a totally
different kind of okayness arises in you which is spiritual, which cannot be taken away
from you.
But people don't go deep in their unhappiness. This is what I call real sadhana: to go into
your unhappiness. Don't avoid, don't escape. People don't look into their moods; people
try to deceive themselves. People want somehow to carry on smiling always and always.
But do you know? -- even in heaven, angels don't sing all the time. There are moments
when they cry and weep. And you can believe me -- I am an eye-witness. But nothing is
wrong with tears. Tears can be beautiful, if you welcome them.
Go deep in your unhappiness; it is going to reveal many things to you.
I have heard:
A farmer was driving his horse laboriously along a dusty road. He came to a man sitting
beside the road, pulled his team to a halt and called out: "How much longer does this hill
last?"
"You ain't on no hill," the stranger called back. "Your hind wheels are off."
But people don't look deep down in their being. They think they are on a hill -- the hind
wheels are no more there. You can go on a flat road, on a superhighway and you will feel
you are on a hill, always going up, and it is difficult and more difficult. And, of course,
without wheels you will always be in turmoil; rough will be the road.
Don't ask me whether you are okay or not. The very question decides that you are not.
But people are such questioners; they go on asking everything. Maybe you are okay, but
you cannot remain without a question; that too is a possibility.
Mulla Nasrudin went to the hills on the suggestion of his psychotherapist, and from there
he wired back after a week: "I am feeling happy -- why?"
Now you cannot even feel happy without asking; now analysis is needed -- why?
The mother went to see the analyst and asked, "Tell me -- I gotta daughter in college --
she doesn't use drugs -- she's not pregnant -- she doesn't drink -- she got the highest
marks in her class and she writes to us every day -- tell me -- where did we go right?"
Where did we go right? Now that becomes the problem. Questioning has become such a
deep-rooted habit that sometimes when it is not needed at all, then too, you go on making
questions. You cannot allow your being to remain without questions. Allow it! Because
that is the moment when the answer will come to you -- when there is no question.
Don't go on questioning and questioning and questioning. It is meaningless. I answer you
only so that you learn how not to question. I don't answer you so that you can become
more knowledgeable. I answer you only as a help, so that one day you can remain
without questions. That very day a great revelation will open its doors to your being.
When there is no question, the answer arises from your innermost depths. If you are too
much concerned with the question, the answer will never arise -- you won't allow it space
to arise.
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