Spontaneity

Discover Your Originality

Buddha said to his disciples, and this was his last message on the earth: “Be a light unto yourself.” Live according to your own light, not following and practicing somebody else’s light because that will make you only a carbon copy, and howsoever beautiful the carbon copy is, it is still a carbon copy.

Discover your originality – and it cannot be done by practicing! Practicing means imposing some ideas from others, trying to act as others would like you to act. Act as you would like to act. Take the risk – it is dangerous.

To be religious is to live in danger – it is not security. To live in religion means constantly exploring the unknown and ultimately the unknowable.

Be a seeker, never be a believer. If you cannot say, “I know God,” please don’t say, “I believe in God,” because that is falsifying. That is not even being true about God, not even being sincere with God. With whom are you going to be sincere then? If you don’t know, say, “I don’t know.” At least that is true. Don’t pretend that you know because pretensions are dangerous. They will deceive others and they can deceive you too.

Only a seeker can become a meditator. Meditation means absolute silence. It is only in silence that one comes to know, one comes to love, one comes to dance in tune with existence.

The seeker has to be innocent like a small child. Yes, Jesus’ definition is right when he says: “Only those who are like small children will be able to enter into the kingdom of my God.” He is talking about seekers – like small children. But one distinction has to be made: when I say like small children, or when Jesus says like small children, he does not mean childish; he means innocent, yet mature. Innocence has its own kind of maturity: a ripeness of innocence, when innocence has flowered.

What is the difference between a childish person and a person who is like a child? The difference is the childish person has no awareness at all. Yes, he’s innocent: when he feels hungry, he feels hungry and he eats; and when he feels sleepy, he sleeps – but his spontaneity has a deep background of unconsciousness. The spontaneity is there, but it is unconscious.

When the spontaneity is there, and in the background of consciousness is awareness; when the awareness is there and still you don’t interfere with the spontaneous… You are so disciplined in your consciousness that you don’t create any unnatural discipline for yourself; your awareness helps you to be natural, to be spontaneous, non-interfering, non-repressive, but yet you are aware.

These two things have to be understood. There are people who are unconscious and innocent; they are childish. They will not enter the kingdom of God, they are not seekers. Then there are people who are conscious and have become unnatural; because of their consciousness they have started interfering with their natural life. These people are so-called monks, sadhus; they are also not ready for the kingdom of God.