Choose!

Desires go on promising you – more is always promised – and they say, “Do this and that, and why be in a hurry when enlightenment is always possible? You can attain any time; there is no hurry. You can postpone it. It is a question of eternity, a concern of eternity; why not enjoy this moment?”

You are not enjoying it but the mind says, “Why not enjoy this moment?” And you have never enjoyed; because a man without inner understanding cannot enjoy anything. He simply suffers; everything becomes a suffering to him. Love – a thing like love – he suffers even that. The most beautiful phenomenon possible to a man asleep is love, but he suffers even through that. Nothing better is possible when you are asleep. Love is the greatest possibility, but even you suffer from that. Because it is not a question of love or something else – sleep is suffering, so whatsoever happens you will suffer. Sleep turns every dream into a nightmare. It starts beautifully, but something somewhere always goes wrong. In the end you reach to hell.

Every desire leads to hell. They say every road leads to Rome – I don’t know, but of one thing I am certain: every desire leads to hell. In the beginning desire gives you much hope, dreams: that is the trick. That’s how you are trapped. If the desire from the very beginning says, “Be alert: I am leading you to hell,” you won’t follow it. The desire promises you heaven, and promises you – “Just a few steps and you will reach it; just come with me” – allures you, hypnotizes you and promises you many things, and you, being in suffering, think, “What is wrong in trying? Let us try a little this desire also.”

That too will lead you to hell because desire as such is a path to hell. Hence, Buddha says, “Unless you become desireless, you cannot be blissful.” Desire is suffering, desire is a dream, and desire exists only when you are asleep. When you are awake and alert, desires cannot befool you. Then you see through; then everything is so clear that you cannot be befooled. How can money befool you and say that you will be very, very happy when there is money? Then look to rich people: they are in hell also – maybe a rich hell, but it makes no difference. A richer hell is going to be worse than a poor hell. Now they have attained money, and they are simply in a state of constant nervousness.

Mulla Nasrudin accumulated much wealth, and then he entered a hospital, because he couldn’t sleep and he was nervous and constantly trembling and afraid – afraid of nothing in particular. A poor man is afraid of something in particular; a rich man is simply afraid. If you are afraid about something in particular, something can be done. But he is simply afraid. He does not know why, because he has everything; there is no need to be afraid, but he is simply afraid and trembling.

He was entered into the hospital, and for breakfast a few things were brought, and in those few things was a bowl of quivering gelatin. He said, “No. I cannot eat this.” The doctor asked, “Why are you so adamant about it?” He said, “I cannot eat anything more nervous than me!”

But a rich man is nervous. What is his nervousness, the fear? Why is he so scared? Because every desire is fulfilled, and still the frustration remains. Now he cannot even dream, because all dreams he has passed through; they lead nowhere. He cannot dream and he cannot gather courage to open the eyes also, because there are involvements. He has promised many things in his sleep.

When Buddha disappeared one night from his palace, he wanted to tell his wife that, “I am going.” He wanted to touch the child who was just a day before born, because he would not be back again. He went to the very door of the room. He looked at the wife. She was so fast asleep, must have been dreaming; her face was beautiful, smiling, child in her arms. Then he waited for a few seconds on the door; then he turned. He wanted to say, but then he became afraid. If he said something, then the wife is bound to cry and weep and create a scene.

And he is afraid of himself also, because if she weeps and cries, then he may become aware of his own promises, that “I will love you forever and ever, and I will be with you forever and ever.” And what about this child who is only one day born? And she will, of course, bring the child before me, and she will say, “Look what you’ve done to me. Then why you gave birth to this child? And now who will be his father? And am I alone responsible for him? And you are escaping like a coward.” All these thoughts came to him, because in sleep everybody promises. Everybody goes on giving promises not knowing how he can fulfill them, but in sleep it happens because nobody is conscious what is happening.

Suddenly he became aware that these things will be brought and then the family will gather – and the father and everybody else – and he is the only son of the father, and the father is looking at him, and in his sleep he has promised him also. Then he simply escaped: he simply escaped like a thief.

After twelve years, when he came back, the wife asked him the first thing that had come to his mind that night when he was leaving. The wife asked, “Why didn’t you tell me? The first thing I would like to ask – for these twelve years I was waiting for you – why didn’t you tell me? What type of love is this? You simply left me. You are a coward.”

And Buddha listened silently. And the wife was silent and he said, “These all thoughts had come to me. I had come just to the door, I had even opened the door. I looked at you; in sleep I had promised many things. But if I am going to be awake, if I am getting out of the sleep, then I cannot keep the promises given in sleep. And if I try to keep the promises, then I cannot awake.

So you are right. You may think I am a coward; you may think that I escaped from the palace like a thief, not like a warrior, not like a man of courage. But I tell you, exactly the opposite is the case, because when I was escaping, to me at that moment, that was the moment of greatest bravery because my whole being was saying, ‘This is not good. Don’t be a coward.’ And if I had stopped, if I had listened to my sleepy being, then there was no possibility for me to awake.

And now I come to you; now I can fulfill something, because only a man who is enlightened can fulfill. A man who is ignorant, how can he fulfill anything? Now I come to you. That moment if I had stopped I couldn’t give you anything, but now I bring a great treasure with me, and now I can give it to you. Don’t weep, don’t cry; open the eyes and look at me. I am not the same man who had left that night. A totally different being has come to your door. I am not your husband. You may be my wife, because that is your attitude. Look at me – I am totally a different person. Now I bring treasures for you. I can make you also aware and enlightened.”

The wife listened. The same problem always came to everybody. She started thinking about the child. If she becomes a sannyasin and moves with this beggar – her ex-husband, now he is a beggar – if she moves… and what will happen to the child? She has not said anything, but Buddha said, “I know what you are thinking, because I have passed that period where promises given in the sleepy state all crowd together and say, ‘What are you doing? – Your child…’ You are thinking that, ‘Let the child become a little more aged, let him be married, then he can take over the palace and the kingdom,’ and then you will follow. But remember, there is no future, no tomorrow. Either you follow me right now or you don’t follow me.”

But the wife… And a feminine mind is more asleep than a male mind. There are reasons for it, because a woman is a greater dreamer, she lives more in hopes and dreams. She has to be a greater sleeper, otherwise it will be difficult for nature to use her as the mother. A woman must be in a deep hypnotic state, only then she can carry a child nine months in the womb and suffer, and then give birth and suffer, and then bring up this child and suffer, and then one day this child simply leaves her and goes to another woman… and suffer.

It is such a long suffering, a woman is bound to be a greater sleeper than man. Otherwise, how can you suffer so much? And she always hopes. Then she hopes with another child, then with another child, and her whole life is wasted.

So Buddha said, “I know what you are thinking, and I know you are a greater dreamer than me. But now I have come to cut all the roots of your sleep. Bring the child. Where is my son? Bring him.” The feminine mind played a trick again. She brought Rahul, the child who was twelve years of age now, and she said, “This is your father. Look at him – he has become a beggar – and ask him what is your heritage, what he can give to you. This is your father; he is a coward! He escaped like a thief not even telling me, and he left a one-day-old child. Ask him your heritage!”

Buddha laughed, and he told Ananda, “Bring my begging bowl.” And he gave the begging bowl to Rahul, and he said, “This is my heritage. I make you a beggar. You are initiated. You become a sannyasin.” And he said to his wife, “I cut the very root. Now there is no need to dream. You are also awake because this was the root. Rahul is already a sannyasin; you are also awake. Yashodhara, you also awake, and become a sannyasin.”

The moment always comes when you are in the transit period from where sleep turns into awakening. The whole past will hold you back, and the past is powerful. Future is powerless for a sleepy man. For a man who is not sleepy, the future is powerful; for a man who is fast asleep, the past is powerful, because a man who is fast asleep knows only dreams that he had dreamed in the past. He is not aware of any future. Even if he thinks about the future, it is nothing but the past reflected again; it is just past projected again. Only a man who is aware becomes aware of the future. Then the past is nothing.

Keep it in the mind. You may not be able to understand right now, but someday you may understand. For a sleepy man, cause is more powerful than the effect; seed is more powerful than the flower. For a man who is awake, effect is more powerful than the cause, flower is more powerful than the seed. The logic of sleep is: the cause produces the effect, seed produces the flower. The logic of awakening is just the reverse: it is the flower who produces the seed; it is the effect who produces the cause; it is the future who produces the past, not the past that produces the future. But for a sleepy mind, the past, the dead, the gone, is more powerful. It is not…

The yet-to-be is more powerful: the yet-to-be-born is more powerful because life is there. Past has no life. How can it be powerful? Past is already a graveyard. Life has already moved from there: that’s why it is past. Life has left it, but graveyards are very powerful for you. The yet-to-be, the yet-to-be-born, the fresh, that which is going to happen, for a man of awakening that becomes more powerful. The past cannot hold him back.

The past holds you back. You always think about past commitments; you always linger around the graveyard. You go again and again to visit the graveyard and pay your respects to the dead. Always pay respects to the yet-to-be-born, because life is there.

HOW A SEED CAN FLOWER WITHOUT THE BIT IN BETWEEN.

Yes, it can flower because it is already flowering. It creates the seed, not the seed creates the flower. It is the flower that is going to be, which has created the whole seed. But for you to remember is: only an opening is needed. Open the doors; the sun is there waiting for you. Life is not, in fact, a progress in reality. It appears like progress in sleep.

The being is already there – everything as it is already, perfect, absolute, ecstatic – nothing can be added, there is no way to improve upon it. Then what is needed? Only one thing, that you become conscious and see it. This can happen in two ways. Either you can be shocked out of your sleep: that is Zen. Or, you can be brought, persuaded, out of your sleep: that is yoga. Choose! Just don’t hang in between.