If you understand what I have said, then there is no need to do anything. If you don’t understand, then much will have to be done.

You are doing meditations because understanding is missing. If understanding comes to you, there is no need for any meditation. If you understand, then your whole life becomes a meditation. Then whatsoever you do, you do meditatively. You eat meditatively, you sleep meditatively, you walk meditatively. Then meditation is not something set apart– it is like breathing or the beating of the heart. It becomes a quality of your being. Not that you do meditation; you become meditative. Whatsoever you do, meditation follows you like a shadow. If you understand, then meditation is not something to be done; it is a consequence of understanding.

But if you don’t understand, then meditation has to be done, because only through meditation, by and by you will be cleansed and understanding will become possible. They are interrelated. Either you understand– then meditation follows; or you don’t understand then you have to meditate and understanding follows. They are interdependent.

Don’t ask which is first– the egg or the hen. Neither is first; they are interdependent. The hen cannot be there if the egg has not been before, and the egg cannot be there if the hen has not been before. But one has to start from somewhere. Don’t get confused. Go to the market– either purchase a hen or bring an egg, but do something. Just don’t sit and contemplate philosophically that first you must decide which is which and which is first. Then you will never be able to decide. Nobody has ever been able to decide which comes first. In fact, they appear as two; they are not two. The egg is nothing but unmanifested hen, and the hen is nothing but manifested egg. The hen is nothing but the egg’s way of producing more eggs. They are interconnected.

So either understanding or meditation. If you understand, then there is no need. But don’t deceive yourself, because deception is very easy. You can think, ’Yes, I understand.’ You can think that you understand, because it is very ego-enhancing to think that you understand– and so what need is there to meditate? But if understanding really happens, then all problems disappear immediately. If problems still linger on, then you must have deceived. If anger continues to be there, if hatred continues to be there, if jealousy continues to be there, if fear continues to be there, then you have deceived yourself. Then please, start meditating.

Then much cleansing has to be done. Meditation is nothing but catharsis. Meditation is throwing out all junk from inside. If the mirror is clear, it reflects perfectly. That is what understanding is– a clear mirror of consciousness. But if the mirror is covered with dust, then first you have to wash the dust, clean the mirror. That is what meditation is. Meditation is just cleaning the mirror. Understanding is the clean mirror, the cleaned mirror. So if you feel that you are not yet able to understand what is being said to you here, then continue meditating. Someday you will be able to see it. If you have understood, then there is no point. But understanding means that now there are no problems.

Just a few days ago, a man came and he said that he has been meditating for years, and I asked him, ’How are you feeling?’ He said, ’Beautiful, perfect. Meditation has helped me tremendously. I have become completely silent and I see visions and light and things like that.’ I said, ’Then it is perfectly okay. Why have you come to me?’ He said, ’But this anger and sex and greed– they continue.’ Then I said, ’You must have deceived yourself. You must have seen a dream of light, of visions, of silence. You must have persuaded yourself that you have become silent, because it is impossible to become silent, to be full with light, and then continue to be angry, greedy– it is impossible. Either you have deceived yourself or you are trying to deceive me.’ If you understand, then there is no need to do anything. Then simply everything disappears. You are awake. The sleep is gone and all the dreams have disappeared.

One zen master awoke one morning. He called one disciple who was passing by and said, ’Listen. I had a dream. Would you like to interpret it?’ The disciple said, ’Wait.’ And he went out and brought a bucket of water and told the old man to wash his face. The old man did so, and laughed and blessed the disciple and said, ’Right. This is the right interpretation of the dream.’
Then another disciple who was passing was called and the master said, ’Look, I had a dream and I asked this disciple to interpret it and he brought a bucket of water. Now, would you like to interpret it?’ The disciple said, ’Wait.’ He went out and came back with a cup of tea. He said, ’Please drink a cup of tea. Finished! The dream is finished, so why bother about it?’

When you are awake, you are awake. When you have understood that it is a dream, it needs no interpretation. Finished! A dream means it is not. What is the need to interpret something which is not? Of course, Freud would not like the story at all. He has created a great business. He was a jew. He turned psychoanalysis into a great business. Now it is one of the greatest firms in the world; even General Electric and Ford, they are nothing. Psychoanalysis is going to remain....

The Eastern attitude says that once you realize a dream is a dream– finished! A full-point has come. If you understand what I am saying, that very understanding is enough. If you don’t understand, then you have to meditate. Then don’t deceive. Intellectual understanding won’t help. Of course, whatsoever I am saying you can understand intellectually. Intellectual understanding is not understanding. Whatsoever I say, you hear, you listen to it, you know the language, and everything is clear. But that is not understanding.

Understanding is a total phenomenon. Just listening, and just by listening something happens within you– a turning... what Buddha used to call a paravritti, a conversion. Buddha used to say that there is only one miracle. He called it the turning-about in the deepest seed of consciousness– paravritti. Listening to me, something happens in your consciousness– a turn-about. You are no more the same. Not that you have accumulated some intellectual knowledge from me, and you have become more informed. No, suddenly you are no more the same. Somebody had come to listen to me; somebody else goes back. A gap, a discontinuity, a death has happened... a crucifixion and a resurrection.

It rarely happens. Understanding is very rare. It needs tremendous courage to die and be reborn in a single moment. But it happens. If it has not happened, then go on continuing meditations. One day meditations will prepare you. The mirror will become more and more clear. One day the reflection will be perfect and understanding will come to you. Understanding means a total transformation of your being.

Don’t be too concerned with words; rather, be concerned with me. Don’t be too concerned with what I say to you; rather, be concerned with what I am herenow. Then there is more possibility for transformation and understanding.

If you just go on listening to me, you can find ways to avoid, escape. Words are just words. No word is real. They are just artificial devices– useful, but very limited. Language comes into existence by coincidences. It has no ultimacy about it. That’s why there are so many languages. For the same thing, there are thousands of words in the world. There are almost thousands of languages. It is artificial. Whether you call a rose a rose or you call it gulab makes no difference to the rose. The rose is blissfully unaware of what you call it. Otherwise the rose would get confused. There are one thousand words for the rose. It will be impossible for the rose to bloom any more if it becomes too linguistic, if it becomes too intellectual. The rose does not bother about what you call it. And whether you call it a rose or you call it gulab, what difference does it make? A rose remains a rose. Language is artificial, coincidental.

I have heard a very beautiful story, almost unbelievably true:
Joseph and Mary were on their way to Bethlehem to be taxed. Mary, being great with child, was on the donkey, of course. Joseph walked patiently at her side. It happened that Joseph turned his ankle on an unexpected stone in the road and nearly fell. Caught by surprise, he muttered under his breath, ’Jesus!’
Mary turned to him, eyes sparkling, and said, ’Just the name for the child.’

That’s how all language comes up– just coincidences.

Don’t be very concerned with what I say; be concerned with what I am. And then a different type of understanding, not intellectual at all but total– that goes deep down in your guts, that starts circulating in your blood, that starts beating in your heart, that you start breathing in and out, that becomes a part of your very being– arises. Then there is no need of meditation.

But before that, please don’t deceive yourself. Because I know– many of you will be thinking, ’Very good. So now there is no need to meditate.’ No, meditation cannot be dropped unless you have come to understanding. Continue. I know everything is right now as it should be. Everything is perfect. I can see you as perfect beings, buddhas, luminous beings full of light, but you are not aware. Just by my saying, it cannot happen to you. You will have to cleanse your eyes, your perception. Meditation is just medicinal. It helps to clean the eyes. It helps to clean the perception. It gives you a clarity to see.

❂ ❂ ❂

The last question.

Listen to it carefully, because this is how the mind tries to be clever, tries to be cunning, and can deceive you. Of course, nobody else is deceived, but you can deceive yourself. And when you deceive yourself, there is no possibility of getting out of it, because there is nobody else to get out of it. You are alone there. The deception can become permanent.

Listen first to the question... a beautiful question in a way.

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The other day you said, 'Don't follow me!' Later, you advised us to become sannyasins. It seems to me a contradiction. I don't follow you. Please explain.
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Whatsoever I am saying is all contradictory. Now drop worrying about contradictions. I accept totally my contradictoriness, so you need not worry; that is finished forever. Now think about something else.

It is so easy to see a contradiction; even a child can do that. It is not of any worth. It does not show a great intelligence. To see a contradiction, intelligence is not needed in fact. Even a stupid mind can see the contradiction. But if you can see something in the contradiction which is not contradictory, you rise in intelligence, you rise higher.

It is easy to see the contradiction between life and death. They are contradictory. No need to prove it, no logic is needed. It is a simple fact... apparently so– but go a little deeper. Life and death are not contradictory; they are two poles of the same energy, of the same wheel. Death is not against life; death is the very culmination of life, the very crescendo. Death does not end life; in fact, death allows life to be. If there is no death, there will be no life. Death creates the very possibility for life to be. How can they be contradictory? They are complementary. If you have intelligence– not just a logical, trained mind, but intelligence which can see deep, beyond the surfaces, can move to the very center– then you will see that all great religions and all great religious teachers have always been contradictory and yet consistent.

Now let me tell you how it happens.

"The other day you said, 'Don't follow me!'"
- You have seen the contradiction. Now let me create another contradiction.

"The other day you said, 'Don't follow me!'"
- Now, if you don’t follow me, you will be following me. Get it? If I say don’t follow me and you don’t follow me, of course, you are following me. The only way not to follow me is to follow me then. Become a sannyasin. You can see my contradiction; you cannot see your own? You say, 'I don't follow you.' Exactly, precisely that is what all of my followers are expected to do.

Let me tell you one anecdote...
A stranger came into a bar in which there were only the bartender, a dog and a cat.
As the stranger ordered his drink, the dog rose, yawned, and said, ’Well, so long, Joe,’ then walked out.
The stranger’s jaw dropped. He said to the bartender, ’Did you hear that! The dog talked.’
’Don’t be a jackass,’ said the bartender. ’A dog can’t talk.’
’But I heard him.’
’You just think you heard him. I tell you dogs can’t talk. It’s just that wise-guy cat over there. He’s a ventriloquist.’

It is easy to see others’ contradictions– very easy. One really relishes it. But a real intelligence tries to see the contradictions in oneself.

Yes, I say don’t follow me. But for that, great preparation is needed. Because if you don’t follow me, you will follow somebody else. That will not make much of a difference. When I say don’t follow me, I mean don’t follow. If you don’t follow me and you follow Jesus, if you don’t follow me and you follow Buddha, what difference does it make? If you don’t follow me and you follow Karl Marx or Mao Zedong, what difference does it make? Or– let me come to the exact point– if you don’t follow me and you follow yourself, what difference does it make? When I say don’t follow me, I mean don’t follow.

But a great preparation will be needed so that all the tendencies within you which help you to follow can be dropped. That is the meaning of sannyas. Sannyas is nothing but a situation in which all the inner tendencies to follow, to imitate, to believe, by and by drop. Sannyas is not following me. Sannyas is just being with me.

Let the difference be absolutely clear to you. Sannyas is not following me. Sannyas is just being with me, in my presence. Sannyas is not imitating me. Sannyas is just to be with me to follow your own destiny. I am here to help you to be yourself. Sannyas is just a trust; it is not a belief. I don’t promise you anything. I don’t give you any system of thought. Hence I am contradictory, because if I am not contradictory, you will create a system of thought around me. I am continuously contradictory... each moment I go on contradicting. And the reason is that when you look at all of my assertions you will not be able to create any system. And if you follow me, people will laugh at you. They will say, ’You are contradictory.’

Only through intense contradiction, the logic, the system-making mind can be destroyed and shattered. There is no other way. I am contradictory so that if you really love me and if you are really close to me, by and by you will be able to drop the mind which says it is contradictory, it is illogical. It is– because it is beyond logic. It is– because it is higher than logic. There is a logic in it which is higher than all logic. It is a little crazy– but the craziness is a little higher than what you call sanity.

R. D. Laing has said somewhere that each breakdown is a breakthrough also. I don’t agree totally. Each breakdown, he says, is a breakthrough also. I don’t agree. I know each breakthrough is preceded by a breakdown, but each breakdown is not followed by a breakthrough.

A breakdown is simply a situation in which your so-called logical mind cannot function. It comes to a barrier beyond which there is no go for it– it simply breaks down. That’s when we say a man has become mad. I also help you to become mad. Of course, my madness is with a method. First you have to break down so that a new breakthrough can be possible. First you have to be dismantled, destroyed, so that you can be recreated.

I am not in favour of renovation of old buildings, no. Laxmi is in favour of it, but I am not. She has her difficulties. I am completely in favour of dismantling and then making a new start from the very A B C.

By becoming a sannyasin, you allow me to destroy you. A great trust is needed. It is not a following; following is very cheap. It is moving in danger, it is taking a tremendous risk. And moving with such a man who is so contradictory that you are going to get crazy sooner or later. Whatsoever I am saying today, tomorrow I will contradict. Only one thing is certain: that I will remain contradictory. Only with one thing am I consistent, and that is my inconsistency.

But if you allow me... sannyas is simply a gesture that you allow me... then I can dismantle you. And then, out of that dismantling, a totally new being can arise; Whatsoever society has done, I can undo, that’s all... I can undo, that’s all. Sannyas is not a following, it is a friendship. You are not going to become my shadows and follow me. You are going to come along with me, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. It is a love-affair, a friendship. But remember, if you don’t follow me, you will be following me. So better take sannyas.

Enough for today.