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That's natural. My meaning is my meaning, your meaning will be your meaning. How can they be the same? They cannot be. Your interpretation will come out of you, it will grow out of you. It has nothing to do with Hakuin's song. When you read the Bible you don't read Jesus, you read yourself there. When you read the Gita you don't read Krishna, you read yourself there. Your interpretation is not there in the book, your interpretation is projected onto the book, the book is just an excuse. It is natural.

Here, you have gathered around me. If there are a thousand sannyasins here, there are a thousand meanings that they give to each of my statements. And it is very rare that you get to the meaning that I want you to get from it. The moment you get that meaning, you start participating in my being. In that moment you disappear, your mind disappears. In that moment you melt into me and you allow me to melt into you.

Hakuin's song you may have read, but it was your own song that you must have got out of it. Unless you come to a point of not-knowing, you will not know the meaning of Hakuin as Hakuin wanted it to be. If you want to understand what I am saying to you, you will have to come to this awareness, to this not-knowing, to this no-mind, that I am. Only then. To know Buddha one has to become a Buddha, to know Christ one has to become a Christ. There is no other way to know; you cannot remain yourself and know them. To know them is risky. You will have to risk all that you have got, you will have to risk all your knowledge.

That's why many people don't even try — it seems to be demanding too much out of them. Yes, they are ready to go a little way with Buddha, Christ, with me — a little way. And they go only up to that point where they feel I am agreeing with them. The moment they see that I am moving in a direction with which they don't agree, they stop immediately. And unless you go with me headlong to the very end, you will not know what the message was.

Remember it: When you are listening to me put your whole mind aside. Just listen for the sheer joy of listening. As you listen to a bird calling, as you listen to the wind passing through the trees, just listen that way. There is no need to be worried what its meaning is. And then you will come closer to the real meaning.

An Italian immigrant was being examined on his fitness for naturalization.
'Who is the boss of the city?' was the first question.
'Da Mayor,' he replied.
'Correct. And who is the boss of the State?'
'Da Governor.'
'Correct. And of the whole country?'
'Da President of-a da United-a-States.'
'Correct. Would it be possible for you to be the President?'
'Er...excusa, please, Judge, but I very busy worka in da shop.'

Your meaning is your meaning.

Her husband charged mental cruelty, infidelity and incompatibility, while her attorney was charging that he had deserted her — or to phrase it in legal terms: 'Left her bed and board.'
The judge looked down at the young man, then turned his appreciative glance over the well-proportioned blonde.
'Young man,' he asked, 'is it true you left this beautiful young lady's bed and board?'
'Yes, Your Honour.'
'That's a darn lie!' exclaimed the voluptuous blonde. No man ever left my bed bored!'

When the words reach you they start taking a shape, a form, a color, that was not there in them originally. They change. The moment they enter you, the moment they enter your climate, they become soaked with it.

Hakuin's song is not a song, not an ordinary statement — one of the most extraordinary statements ever. Such a small song, of few lines, but so penetrating that if all the scriptures of the world are burnt and only Hakuin's song is saved, nothing will be burned. That will do. A very condensed statement of Buddhahood.

To know Hakuin's song of samadhi, of meditation, you will have to enter into meditation. The more you know what meditation is — not intellectually but existentially — the more you feel what meditation is, the better you will enter into Hakuin's song. Then one day it will explode in your being — the meaning of it. The meaning is not given in the dictionaries, the meaning is not that of words.

That is one of the most basic difficulties in understanding people like Hakuin. What they are saying comes from the beyond. What they are putting into language does not belong to language, what they are trying is almost impossible. They are bringing the whole sky into a small box, or the whole ocean into a small cup. Even maybe that is possible, but to bring your meditativeness into words is more impossible. They are doing a miracle.

But you will catch hold of the words and you will go astray. Listen to the silence in the words. Words are not important, but the silence that they contain. Listen to the gaps between the words and read between the lines. But to read between the lines you will have to become thoughtless, you will have to become empty. Only an empty heart can read between the lines, because otherwise there is nothing, there is only emptiness. Only emptiness can have a rapport with emptiness.

Hakuin is an empty man. Whose ego exists no more, who has no self, who is just silence. To have any communion with Hakuin you will have to become that silence. Then only, the meaning will start arising. And it will not arise just like a meaning — it will burst. As if spring has come to you and everywhere there is greenery and flowers blooming and fragrance and birds. It will be a spring. You will have a totally different feeling of your being. You will be transformed through it.