Cats are always willing– but you have to be ready to be mice. Cats can speak only to mice. Become rats, and cats will deliver discourses. They always deliver, but the whole point is of your being receptive at that level. Trees are speaking: become a tree and you understand. Birds are speaking: become a bird and you understand.

And you cannot understand me if you don’t become a Buddha. I am delivering the discourse but don’t be deceived by it, don’t think that you are understanding it also. I am talking– that is certain. But are you hearing me? That is not so certain. You appear to listen to me, but that’s more or less appearance. Sometimes I talk for one and a half hours, but rarely you listen–sometimes for a single second or two seconds or three seconds, then again you are fast asleep. The words go on falling on your ears. You appear to be listening but listening is of no use if you are not understanding. Listening is not listening if you are not understanding it. If you are not transformed through it, what is the point of listening? The tape-recorder goes on listening to me and recording better than you can record, but the tape-recorder is not going to become a Buddha.

Just by listening to me you are not going to become Buddhas. Listening should penetrate. It should be so total that when you are listening you are completely dissolved in it. Then every word goes into your very core, hits you deep down, penetrates you. Understanding arises through that penetration– it is not verbal.