Kaa

Live Your Life

Let me tell you an anecdote…

Once Mulla Nasrudin had been away for a while and arrived back in town wearing a long beard. His friends naturally kidded him about the beard and asked him how he happened to acquire the fur-piece.

The Mulla with the beard began to complain and curse the thing in no uncertain terms. His friends were amazed at the way he talked and asked him why he continued to wear the beard if he did not like it.

“I hate the blasted thing!”, Mulla told them.

“If you hate it then why don’t you shave it off and get rid of it?”, one of his friends asked.

A devilish gleam shone in the eyes of the Mulla as he answered, “Because my wife hates it too!”

But that does not make you free. The hippies, the yippies and others, are not really rebellious people, they are reactionaries. They have reacted against society. A few are obedient, a few are disobedient, but the centre of domination is the same. A few obey, a few disobey, but nobody looks at his own soul. A really rebellious person is one who is neither for society nor against society, who simply lives his life according to his own understanding. Whether it goes against society or it goes with society is not a consideration, it is irrelevant. Sometimes it may go with the society, sometimes it may not go with the society, but that is not the point to be considered. He lives according to his understanding, according to his small light. And I am not saying that he becomes very egoistic about it. No, he is very humble. He knows that his light is very small, but that is all the light that there is. He is not adamant, he’s very humble. He says, ‘I may be wrong, but please allow me to be wrong according to myself.’ That is the only way to learn. To commit mistakes is the only way to learn. To move according to one’s own understanding is the only way to grow and become mature. If you are always looking at somebody to dictate to you, whether you obey or disobey makes no difference. If you are looking at somebody else to dictate to you, to decide for or against, you will never be able to know what your life is. It has to be lived, and you have to follow your own small light. It is not always certain what to do. You are very confused. Let it be so. But find a way out of your confusion. It is very cheap and easy to listen to others because they can hand over dead dogmas to you, they can give you commandments – do this, don’t do that. And they are very certain about their commandments. Certainty should not be sought; understanding should be sought. If you are seeking certainty you will become a victim of some trap or other. Don’t seek certainty, seek understanding. Certainty can be given to you cheap, anybody can give it to you. But in the final analysis you will be a loser. You lost your life just to remain secure and certain, and life is not certain, life is not secure. Life is insecurity. Each moment is a move into more and more insecurity. It is a gamble. One never knows what is going to happen. And it is beautiful that one never knows. If it was predictable, life would not be worth living. If everything was as you would like it to be, and everything was certain, you would not be a man at all, you would be a machine. Only for machines is everything secure and certain. Man lives in freedom. Freedom needs insecurity and uncertainty. A real man of intelligence is always hesitant because he has no dogma to rely upon, to lean upon. He has to look and respond. Lao Tzu says, ‘I am hesitant, and I move alertly in life because I don’t know what is going to happen. And I don’t have.any principle to follow. I have to decide every moment. I never decide beforehand. I have to decide when the moment comes!’ Then one has to be very responsive. That’s what responsibility is. Responsibility is not an obligation, responsibility is not a duty – it is a capacity to respond. A man who wants to know what life is has to be responsive. That is missing. Centuries of conditioning have made you more like machines. You have lost your manhood, you have bargained for security. You are secure and comfortable and everything has been planned by others. And they have put everything on the map, they have measured everything. This is all absolutely foolish because life cannot be measured, it is immeasurable. And no map is possible because life is in constant flux. Everything goes on changing. Nothing is permanent except change. Says Heraclitus, ‘You cannot step in the same river twice.’ And the ways of life are very zig-zag. The ways of life are not like the tracks of a railway train. No, it does not run on tracks. And that’s the beauty of it, the glory of it, the poetry of it, the music of it – that it is always a surprise. If you are seeking security, certainty, your eyes will become closed. And you will be less and less surprised and you will lose the capacity to wonder. Once you lose the capacity to wonder, you have lost religion. Religion is the opening of your wandering heart. Religion is a receptivity for the mysterious that surrounds us. Don’t seek security; don’t seek advice on how to live your life. People go to the Master and they say, ‘Tell us how we should live our life.’ You are not interested in knowing what life is, you are more interested in making a fixed pattern. You are more interested in killing life than in living it. You want discipline to be imposed on you. There are, of course, priests and politicians all over the world who are ready, just sitting waiting for you. Go to them and they are ready to impose their disciplines on you. They enjoy the power that comes through imposing their own ideas upon others. Master is not for that. He is to help you to become free. And when he says that he is here to help you to become free, he is included. He is to help you to become free of him also. Then it is alive. So the first thing is: don’t ask anybody how you should live your life. Life is so precious. Live it. I am not saying that you will not make mistakes, you will. Remember only one thing – don’t make the same mistake again and again. That’s enough. If you can find a new mistake every day, make it. But don’t repeat mistakes, that is foolish. A man who can find new mistakes to make will be growing continuously – that is the only way to learn, that is the only way to come to your own inner light.